Greetings:
Welcome to v8, see changelog below.
This revision is a quick follow-up to v7 and only drops the unneeded
exports in patch 2. No other changes.
This series introduces a new mechanism, IRQ suspension, which allows
network applications using epoll to mask IRQs during periods of high
traffic while also reducing tail latency (compared to existing
mechanisms, see below) during periods of low traffic. In doing so, this
balances CPU consumption with network processing efficiency.
Martin Karsten (CC'd) and I have been collaborating on this series for
several months and have appreciated the feedback from the community on
our RFC [1]. We've updated the cover letter and kernel documentation in
an attempt to more clearly explain how this mechanism works, how
applications can use it, and how it compares to existing mechanisms in
the kernel.
I briefly mentioned this idea at netdev conf 2024 (for those who were
there) and Martin described this idea in an earlier paper presented at
Sigmetrics 2024 [2].
~ The short explanation (TL;DR)
We propose adding a new napi config parameter: irq_suspend_timeout to
help balance CPU usage and network processing efficiency when using IRQ
deferral and napi busy poll.
If this parameter is set to a non-zero value *and* a user application
has enabled preferred busy poll on a busy poll context (via the
EPIOCSPARAMS ioctl introduced in commit 18e2bf0edf4d ("eventpoll: Add
epoll ioctl for epoll_params")), then application calls to epoll_wait
for that context will cause device IRQs and softirq processing to be
suspended as long as epoll_wait successfully retrieves data from the
NAPI. Each time data is retrieved, the irq_suspend_timeout is deferred.
If/when network traffic subsides and epoll_wait returns no data, IRQ
suspension is immediately reverted back to the existing
napi_defer_hard_irqs and gro_flush_timeout mechanism which was
introduced in commit 6f8b12d661d0 ("net: napi: add hard irqs deferral
feature")).
The irq_suspend_timeout serves as a safety mechanism. If userland takes
a long time processing data, irq_suspend_timeout will fire and restart
normal NAPI processing.
For a more in depth explanation, please continue reading.
~ Comparison with existing mechanisms
Interrupt mitigation can be accomplished in napi software, by setting
napi_defer_hard_irqs and gro_flush_timeout, or via interrupt coalescing
in the NIC. This can be quite efficient, but in both cases, a fixed
timeout (or packet count) needs to be configured. However, a fixed
timeout cannot effectively support both low- and high-load situations:
At low load, an application typically processes a few requests and then
waits to receive more input data. In this scenario, a large timeout will
cause unnecessary latency.
At high load, an application typically processes many requests before
being ready to receive more input data. In this case, a small timeout
will likely fire prematurely and trigger irq/softirq processing, which
interferes with the application's execution. This causes overhead, most
likely due to cache contention.
While NICs attempt to provide adaptive interrupt coalescing schemes,
these cannot properly take into account application-level processing.
An alternative packet delivery mechanism is busy-polling, which results
in perfect alignment of application processing and network polling. It
delivers optimal performance (throughput and latency), but results in
100% cpu utilization and is thus inefficient for below-capacity
workloads.
We propose to add a new packet delivery mode that properly alternates
between busy polling and interrupt-based delivery depending on busy and
idle periods of the application. During a busy period, the system
operates in busy-polling mode, which avoids interference. During an idle
period, the system falls back to interrupt deferral, but with a small
timeout to avoid excessive latencies. This delivery mode can also be
viewed as an extension of basic interrupt deferral, but alternating
between a small and a very large timeout.
This delivery mode is efficient, because it avoids softirq execution
interfering with application processing during busy periods. It can be
used with blocking epoll_wait to conserve cpu cycles during idle
periods. The effect of alternating between busy and idle periods is that
performance (throughput and latency) is very close to full busy polling,
while cpu utilization is lower and very close to interrupt mitigation.
~ Usage details
IRQ suspension is introduced via a per-NAPI configuration parameter that
controls the maximum time that IRQs can be suspended.
Here's how it is intended to work:
- The user application (or system administrator) uses the netdev-genl
netlink interface to set the pre-existing napi_defer_hard_irqs and
gro_flush_timeout NAPI config parameters to enable IRQ deferral.
- The user application (or system administrator) sets the proposed
irq_suspend_timeout parameter via the netdev-genl netlink interface
to a larger value than gro_flush_timeout to enable IRQ suspension.
- The user application issues the existing epoll ioctl to set the
prefer_busy_poll flag on the epoll context.
- The user application then calls epoll_wait to busy poll for network
events, as it normally would.
- If epoll_wait returns events to userland, IRQs are suspended for the
duration of irq_suspend_timeout.
- If epoll_wait finds no events and the thread is about to go to
sleep, IRQ handling using napi_defer_hard_irqs and gro_flush_timeout
is resumed.
As long as epoll_wait is retrieving events, IRQs (and softirq
processing) for the NAPI being polled remain disabled. When network
traffic reduces, eventually a busy poll loop in the kernel will retrieve
no data. When this occurs, regular IRQ deferral using gro_flush_timeout
for the polled NAPI is re-enabled.
Unless IRQ suspension is continued by subsequent calls to epoll_wait, it
automatically times out after the irq_suspend_timeout timer expires.
Regular deferral is also immediately re-enabled when the epoll context
is destroyed.
~ Usage scenario
The target scenario for IRQ suspension as packet delivery mode is a
system that runs a dominant application with substantial network I/O.
The target application can be configured to receive input data up to a
certain batch size (via epoll_wait maxevents parameter) and this batch
size determines the worst-case latency that application requests might
experience. Because packet delivery is suspended during the target
application's processing, the batch size also determines the worst-case
latency of concurrent applications using the same RX queue(s).
gro_flush_timeout should be set as small as possible, but large enough to
make sure that a single request is likely not being interfered with.
irq_suspend_timeout is largely a safety mechanism against misbehaving
applications. It should be set large enough to cover the processing of an
entire application batch, i.e., the factor between gro_flush_timeout and
irq_suspend_timeout should roughly correspond to the maximum batch size
that the target application would process in one go.
~ Important call out in the implementation
- Enabling per epoll-context preferred busy poll will now effectively
lead to a nonblocking iteration through napi_busy_loop, even when
busy_poll_usecs is 0. See patch 4.
~ Benchmark configs & descriptions
The changes were benchmarked with memcached [3] using the benchmarking
tool mutilate [4].
To facilitate benchmarking, a small patch [5] was applied to memcached
1.6.29 to allow setting per-epoll context preferred busy poll and other
settings via environment variables. Another small patch [6] was applied
to libevent to enable full busy-polling.
Multiple scenarios were benchmarked as described below and the scripts
used for producing these results can be found on github [7] (note: all
scenarios use NAPI-based traffic splitting via SO_INCOMING_ID by passing
-N to memcached):
- base:
- no other options enabled
- deferX:
- set defer_hard_irqs to 100
- set gro_flush_timeout to X,000
- napibusy:
- set defer_hard_irqs to 100
- set gro_flush_timeout to 200,000
- enable busy poll via the existing ioctl (busy_poll_usecs = 64,
busy_poll_budget = 64, prefer_busy_poll = true)
- fullbusy:
- set defer_hard_irqs to 100
- set gro_flush_timeout to 5,000,000
- enable busy poll via the existing ioctl (busy_poll_usecs = 1000,
busy_poll_budget = 64, prefer_busy_poll = true)
- change memcached's nonblocking epoll_wait invocation (via
libevent) to using a 1 ms timeout
- suspend0:
- set defer_hard_irqs to 0
- set gro_flush_timeout to 0
- set irq_suspend_timeout to 20,000,000
- enable busy poll via the existing ioctl (busy_poll_usecs = 0,
busy_poll_budget = 64, prefer_busy_poll = true)
- suspendX:
- set defer_hard_irqs to 100
- set gro_flush_timeout to X,000
- set irq_suspend_timeout to 20,000,000
- enable busy poll via the existing ioctl (busy_poll_usecs = 0,
busy_poll_budget = 64, prefer_busy_poll = true)
~ Benchmark results
Tested on:
Single socket AMD EPYC 7662 64-Core Processor
Hyperthreading disabled
4 NUMA Zones (NPS=4)
16 CPUs per NUMA zone (64 cores total)
2 x Dual port 100gbps Mellanox Technologies ConnectX-5 Ex EN NIC
The test machine is configured such that a single interface has 8 RX
queues. The queues' IRQs and memcached are pinned to CPUs that are
NUMA-local to the interface which is under test. The NIC's interrupt
coalescing configuration is left at boot-time defaults.
Results:
Results are shown below. The mechanism added by this series is
represented by the 'suspend' cases. Data presented shows a summary over
nearly 10 runs of each test case [8] using the scripts on github [7].
For latency, the median is shown. For throughput and CPU utilization,
the average is shown.
The results also include cycles-per-query (cpq) and
instruction-per-query (ipq) metrics, following the methodology proposed
in [2], to augment the CPU utilization numbers, which could be skewed
due to frequency scaling. We find that this does not appear to be the
case as CPU utilization and low-level metrics show similar trends.
These results were captured using the scripts on github [7] to
illustrate how this approach compares with other pre-existing
mechanisms. This data is not to be interpreted as scientific data
captured in a fully isolated lab setting, but instead as best effort,
illustrative information comparing and contrasting tradeoffs.
The absolute QPS results shift between submissions, but the
relative differences are equivalent. As patches are rebased,
several factors likely influence overall performance.
Compare:
- Throughput (MAX) and latencies of base vs suspend.
- CPU usage of napibusy and fullbusy during lower load (200K, 400K for
example) vs suspend.
- Latency of the defer variants vs suspend as timeout and load
increases.
- suspend0, which sets defer_hard_irqs and gro_flush_timeout to 0, has
nearly the same performance as the base case (this is FAQ item #1).
The overall takeaway is that the suspend variants provide a superior
combination of high throughput, low latency, and low cpu utilization
compared to all other variants. Each of the suspend variants works very
well, but some fine-tuning between latency and cpu utilization is still
possible by tuning the small timeout (gro_flush_timeout).
Note: we've reorganized the results to make comparison among testcases
with the same load easier.
testcase load qps avglat 95%lat 99%lat cpu cpq ipq
base 200K 199946 112 239 416 26 12973 11343
defer10 200K 199971 54 124 142 29 19412 17460
defer20 200K 199986 60 130 153 26 15644 14095
defer50 200K 200025 79 144 182 23 12122 11632
defer200 200K 199999 164 254 309 19 8923 9635
fullbusy 200K 199998 46 118 133 100 43658 23133
napibusy 200K 199983 100 237 277 56 24840 24716
suspend0 200K 200020 105 249 432 30 14264 11796
suspend10 200K 199950 53 123 141 32 19518 16903
suspend20 200K 200037 58 126 151 30 16426 14736
suspend50 200K 199961 73 136 177 26 13310 12633
suspend200 200K 199998 149 251 306 21 9566 10203
testcase load qps avglat 95%lat 99%lat cpu cpq ipq
base 400K 400014 139 269 707 41 9476 9343
defer10 400K 400016 59 133 166 53 13991 12989
defer20 400K 399952 67 140 172 47 12063 11644
defer50 400K 400007 87 162 198 39 9384 9880
defer200 400K 399979 181 274 330 31 7089 8430
fullbusy 400K 399987 50 123 156 100 21827 16037
napibusy 400K 400014 76 222 272 83 18185 16529
suspend0 400K 400015 127 350 776 47 10699 9603
suspend10 400K 400023 57 129 164 54 13758 13178
suspend20 400K 400043 62 135 169 49 12071 11826
suspend50 400K 400071 76 149 186 42 10011 10301
suspend200 400K 399961 154 269 327 34 7827 8774
testcase load qps avglat 95%lat 99%lat cpu cpq ipq
base 600K 599951 149 266 574 61 9265 8876
defer10 600K 600006 71 147 203 76 11866 10936
defer20 600K 600123 76 152 203 66 10430 10342
defer50 600K 600162 95 172 217 54 8526 9142
defer200 600K 599942 200 301 357 46 6977 8212
fullbusy 600K 599990 55 127 177 100 14551 13983
napibusy 600K 600035 63 160 250 96 13937 14140
suspend0 600K 599903 127 320 732 68 10166 8963
suspend10 600K 599908 63 137 192 69 10902 11100
suspend20 600K 599961 66 141 194 65 9976 10370
suspend50 600K 599973 80 159 204 57 8678 9381
suspend200 600K 600010 157 277 346 48 7133 8381
testcase load qps avglat 95%lat 99%lat cpu cpq ipq
base 800K 800039 181 300 536 87 9585 8304
defer10 800K 800038 181 530 939 96 10564 8970
defer20 800K 800029 112 225 329 90 10056 8935
defer50 800K 799999 120 208 296 82 9234 8562
defer200 800K 800066 227 338 401 63 7117 8129
fullbusy 800K 800040 61 134 190 100 10913 12608
napibusy 800K 799944 64 141 214 99 10828 12588
suspend0 800K 799911 126 248 509 85 9346 8498
suspend10 800K 800006 69 143 200 83 9410 9845
suspend20 800K 800120 74 150 207 78 8786 9454
suspend50 800K 799989 87 168 224 71 7946 8833
suspend200 800K 799987 160 292 357 62 6923 8229
testcase load qps avglat 95%lat 99%lat cpu cpq ipq
base 1000K 906879 4079 5751 6216 98 9496 7904
defer10 1000K 860849 3643 6274 6730 99 10040 8676
defer20 1000K 896063 3298 5840 6349 98 9620 8237
defer50 1000K 919782 2962 5513 5807 97 9284 7951
defer200 1000K 970941 3059 5348 5984 95 8593 7959
fullbusy 1000K 999950 70 150 207 100 8732 10777
napibusy 1000K 999996 78 154 223 100 8722 10656
suspend0 1000K 949706 2666 5770 6660 99 9071 8046
suspend10 1000K 1000024 80 160 220 92 8137 9035
suspend20 1000K 1000059 83 165 226 89 7850 8804
suspend50 1000K 999955 95 180 240 84 7411 8459
suspend200 1000K 999914 163 299 366 77 6833 8078
testcase load qps avglat 95%lat 99%lat cpu cpq ipq
base MAX 1037654 4184 5453 5810 100 8411 7938
defer10 MAX 905607 4840 6151 6380 100 9639 8431
defer20 MAX 986463 4455 5594 5796 100 8848 8110
defer50 MAX 1077030 4000 5073 5299 100 8104 7920
defer200 MAX 1040728 4152 5385 5765 100 8379 7849
fullbusy MAX 1247536 3518 3935 3984 100 6998 7930
napibusy MAX 1136310 3799 7756 9964 100 7670 7877
suspend0 MAX 1057509 4132 5724 6185 100 8253 7918
suspend10 MAX 1215147 3580 3957 4041 100 7185 7944
suspend20 MAX 1216469 3576 3953 3988 100 7175 7950
suspend50 MAX 1215871 3577 3961 4075 100 7181 7949
suspend200 MAX 1216882 3556 3951 3988 100 7175 7955
~ FAQ
- Why is a new parameter needed? Does irq_suspend_timeout override
gro_flush_timeout?
Using the suspend mechanism causes the system to alternate between
polling mode and irq-driven packet delivery. During busy periods,
irq_suspend_timeout overrides gro_flush_timeout and keeps the system
busy polling, but when epoll finds no events, the setting of
gro_flush_timeout and napi_defer_hard_irqs determine the next step.
There are essentially three possible loops for network processing and
packet delivery:
1) hardirq -> softirq -> napi poll; basic interrupt delivery
2) timer -> softirq -> napi poll; deferred irq processing
3) epoll -> busy-poll -> napi poll; busy looping
Loop 2 can take control from Loop 1, if gro_flush_timeout and
napi_defer_hard_irqs are set.
If gro_flush_timeout and napi_defer_hard_irqs are set, Loops 2 and
3 "wrestle" with each other for control. During busy periods,
irq_suspend_timeout is used as timer in Loop 2, which essentially
tilts this in favour of Loop 3.
If gro_flush_timeout and napi_defer_hard_irqs are not set, Loop 3
cannot take control from Loop 1.
Therefore, setting gro_flush_timeout and napi_defer_hard_irqs is the
recommended usage, because otherwise setting irq_suspend_timeout
might not have any discernible effect.
This is shown in the results above: compare suspend0 with the base
case. Note that the lack of napi_defer_hard_irqs and
gro_flush_timeout produce similar results for both, which encourages
the use of napi_defer_hard_irqs and gro_flush_timeout in addition to
irq_suspend_timeout.
- Can the new timeout value be threaded through the new epoll ioctl ?
It is possible, but presents challenges for userspace. User
applications must ensure that the file descriptors added to epoll
contexts have the same NAPI ID to support busy polling.
An epoll context is not permanently tied to any particular NAPI ID.
So, a user application could decide to clear the file descriptors
from the context and add a new set of file descriptors with a
different NAPI ID to the context. Busy polling would work as
expected, but the meaning of the suspend timeout becomes ambiguous
because IRQs are not inherently associated with epoll contexts, but
rather with the NAPI. The user program would need to reissue the
ioctl to set the irq_suspend_timeout, but the napi_defer_hard_irqs
and gro_flush_timeout settings would come from the NAPI's
napi_config (which are set either by sysfs or by netlink). Such an
interface seems awkard to use from a user perspective.
Further, IRQs are related to NAPIs, which is why they are stored in
the napi_config space. Putting the irq_suspend_timeout in
the epoll context while other IRQ deferral mechanisms remain in the
NAPI's napi_config space seems like an odd design choice.
We've opted to keep all of the IRQ deferral parameters together and
place the irq_suspend_timeout in napi_config. This has nice benefits
for userspace: if a user app were to remove all file descriptors
from an epoll context and add new file descriptors with a new NAPI ID,
the correct suspend timeout for that NAPI ID would be used automatically
without the user application needing to do anything (like re-issuing an
ioctl, for example). All IRQ deferral related parameters are in one
place and can all be set the same way: with netlink.
- Can irq suspend be built by combining NIC coalescing and
gro_flush_timeout ?
No. The problem is that the long timeout must engage if and only if
prefer-busy is active.
When using NIC coalescing for the short timeout (without
napi_defer_hard_irqs/gro_flush_timeout), an interrupt after an idle
period will trigger softirq, which will run napi polling. At this
point, prefer-busy is not active, so NIC interrupts would be
re-enabled. Then it is not possible for the longer timeout to
interject to switch control back to polling. In other words, only by
using the software timer for the short timeout, it is possible to
extend the timeout without having to reprogram the NIC timer or
reach down directly and disable interrupts.
Using gro_flush_timeout for the long timeout also has problems, for
the same underlying reason. In the current napi implementation,
gro_flush_timeout is not tied to prefer-busy. We'd either have to
change that and in the process modify the existing deferral
mechanism, or introduce a state variable to determine whether
gro_flush_timeout is used as long timeout for irq suspend or whether
it is used for its default purpose. In an earlier version, we did
try something similar to the latter and made it work, but it ends up
being a lot more convoluted than our current proposal.
- Isn't it already possible to combine busy looping with irq deferral?
Yes, in fact enabling irq deferral via napi_defer_hard_irqs and
gro_flush_timeout is a precondition for prefer_busy_poll to have an
effect. If the application also uses a tight busy loop with
essentially nonblocking epoll_wait (accomplished with a very short
timeout parameter), this is the fullbusy case shown in the results.
An application using blocking epoll_wait is shown as the napibusy
case in the results. It's a hybrid approach that provides limited
latency benefits compared to the base case and plain irq deferral,
but not as good as fullbusy or suspend.
~ Special thanks
Several people were involved in earlier stages of the development of this
mechanism whom we'd like to thank:
- Peter Cai (CC'd), for the initial kernel patch and his contributions
to the paper.
- Mohammadamin Shafie (CC'd), for testing various versions of the kernel
patch and providing helpful feedback.
Thanks,
Martin and Joe
[1]: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20240812125717.413108-1-jdamato@fastly.com/
[2]: https://doi.org/10.1145/3626780
[3]: https://github.com/memcached/memcached/blob/master/doc/napi_ids.txt
[4]: https://github.com/leverich/mutilate
[5]: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/martinkarsten/irqsuspend/main/patches/mem…
[6]: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/martinkarsten/irqsuspend/main/patches/lib…
[7]: https://github.com/martinkarsten/irqsuspend
[8]: https://github.com/martinkarsten/irqsuspend/tree/main/results
v8:
- Update patch 2 to drop the exports, as requested by Jakub.
v7: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20241108023912.98416-1-jdamato@fastly.com/
- Jakub noted that patch 2 adds unnecessary complexity by checking the
suspend timeout in the NAPI loop. This makes the code more
complicated and difficult to reason about. He's right; we've dropped
patch 2 which simplifies this series.
- Updated the cover letter with a full re-run of all test cases.
- Updated FAQ #2.
v6: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20241104215542.215919-1-jdamato@fastly.com/
- Updated the cover letter with a full re-run of all test cases,
including a new case suspend0, as requested by Sridhar previously.
- Updated the kernel documentation in patch 7 as suggested by Bagas
Sanjaya, which improved the htmldoc output.
v5: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20241103052421.518856-1-jdamato@fastly.com/
- Adjusted patch 5 to only suspend IRQs when ep_send_events returns a
positive return value. This issue was pointed out by Hillf Danton.
- Updated the commit message of patch 6 which still mentioned netcat,
despite the code being updated in v4 to replace it with socat and fixed
misspelling of netdevsim.
- Fixed a minor typo in patch 7 and removed an unnecessary paragraph.
- Added Sridhar Samudrala's Reviewed-by to patch 1-5 and 7.
v4: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20241102005214.32443-1-jdamato@fastly.com/
- Added a new FAQ item to cover letter.
- Updated patch 6 to use socat instead of nc in busy_poll_test.sh and
updated busy_poller.c to use netlink directly to configure napi
params.
- Updated the kernel documentation in patch 7 to include more details.
- Dropped Stanislav's Acked-by and Bagas' Reviewed-by from patch 7
since the documentation was updated.
v3: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20241101004846.32532-1-jdamato@fastly.com/
- Added Stanislav Fomichev's Acked-by to every patch except the newly
added selftest.
- Added Bagas Sanjaya's Reviewed-by to the documentation patch.
- Fixed the commit message of patch 2 to remove a reference to the now
non-existent sysfs setting.
- Added a self test which tests both "regular" busy poll and busy poll
with suspend enabled. This was added as patch 6 as requested by
Paolo. netdevsim was chosen instead of veth due to netdevsim's
pre-existing support for netdev-genl. See the commit message of
patch 6 for more details.
v2: https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/20241021015311.95468-1-jdamato@fastly.com/
- Cover letter updated, including a re-run of test data.
- Patch 1 rewritten to use netdev-genl instead of sysfs.
- Patch 3 updated with a comment added to napi_resume_irqs.
- Patch 4 rebased to apply now that commit b9ca079dd6b0 ("eventpoll:
Annotate data-race of busy_poll_usecs") has been picked up from VFS.
- Patch 6 updated the kernel documentation.
rfc -> v1:
- Cover letter updated to include more details.
- Patch 1 updated to remove the documentation added. This was moved to
patch 6 with the rest of the docs (see below).
- Patch 5 updated to fix an error uncovered by the kernel build robot.
See patch 5's changelog for more details.
- Patch 6 added which updates kernel documentation.
Joe Damato (2):
selftests: net: Add busy_poll_test
docs: networking: Describe irq suspension
Martin Karsten (4):
net: Add napi_struct parameter irq_suspend_timeout
net: Add control functions for irq suspension
eventpoll: Trigger napi_busy_loop, if prefer_busy_poll is set
eventpoll: Control irq suspension for prefer_busy_poll
Documentation/netlink/specs/netdev.yaml | 7 +
Documentation/networking/napi.rst | 170 ++++++++-
fs/eventpoll.c | 36 +-
include/linux/netdevice.h | 2 +
include/net/busy_poll.h | 3 +
include/uapi/linux/netdev.h | 1 +
net/core/dev.c | 39 +++
net/core/dev.h | 25 ++
net/core/netdev-genl-gen.c | 5 +-
net/core/netdev-genl.c | 12 +
tools/include/uapi/linux/netdev.h | 1 +
tools/testing/selftests/net/.gitignore | 1 +
tools/testing/selftests/net/Makefile | 3 +-
tools/testing/selftests/net/busy_poll_test.sh | 164 +++++++++
tools/testing/selftests/net/busy_poller.c | 328 ++++++++++++++++++
15 files changed, 790 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
create mode 100755 tools/testing/selftests/net/busy_poll_test.sh
create mode 100644 tools/testing/selftests/net/busy_poller.c
base-commit: dc7c381bb8649e3701ed64f6c3e55316675904d7
--
2.25.1
Commit 6e182dc9f268 ("selftests/mm: Use generic pkey register
manipulation") makes use of PKEY_UNRESTRICTED in
pkey_sighandler_tests. The macro has been proposed for addition to
uapi headers [1], but the patch hasn't landed yet.
Define PKEY_UNRESTRICTED in pkey-helpers.h for the time being to fix
the build.
[1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/20241028090715.509527-2-yury.khrustalev@arm.com/
Fixes: 6e182dc9f268 ("selftests/mm: Use generic pkey register
manipulation")
Reported-by: Aishwarya TCV <aishwarya.tcv(a)arm.com>
Signed-off-by: Kevin Brodsky <kevin.brodsky(a)arm.com>
---
Based on arm64 for-next/pkey-signal (49f59573e9e0).
---
tools/testing/selftests/mm/pkey-helpers.h | 4 ++++
1 file changed, 4 insertions(+)
diff --git a/tools/testing/selftests/mm/pkey-helpers.h b/tools/testing/selftests/mm/pkey-helpers.h
index 9ab6a3ee153b..319f5b6b7132 100644
--- a/tools/testing/selftests/mm/pkey-helpers.h
+++ b/tools/testing/selftests/mm/pkey-helpers.h
@@ -112,6 +112,10 @@ void record_pkey_malloc(void *ptr, long size, int prot);
#define PKEY_MASK (PKEY_DISABLE_ACCESS | PKEY_DISABLE_WRITE)
#endif
+#ifndef PKEY_UNRESTRICTED
+#define PKEY_UNRESTRICTED 0x0
+#endif
+
#ifndef set_pkey_bits
static inline u64 set_pkey_bits(u64 reg, int pkey, u64 flags)
{
--
2.43.0
Hello colleagues,
Following up on Tim Bird's presentation "Adding benchmarks results
support to KTAP/kselftest", I would like to share some thoughts on
kernel benchmarking and kernel performance evaluation. Tim suggested
sharing these comments with the wider kselftest community for
discussion.
The topic of performance evaluation is obviously extremely complex, so
I’ve organised my comments into several paragraphs, each of which
focuses on a specific aspect. This should make it easier to follow and
understand the key points, such as metrics, reference values, results
data lake, interpretation of contradictory results, system profiles,
analysis and methodology.
# Metrics
A few remarks on benchmark metrics which were called “values” in the
original presentation:
- Metrics must be accompanied by standardised units. This
standardisation ensures consistency across different tests and
environments, simplifying accurate comparisons and analysis.
- Each metric should be clearly labelled with its nature or kind
(throughput, speed, latency, etc). This classification is essential
for proper interpretation of the results and prevents
misunderstandings that could lead to incorrect conclusions.
- Presentation contains "May also include allowable variance", but
variance must be included into the analysis as we deal with
statistical calculations and multiple randomised values.
- I would like to note that other statistical parameters are also
worth including into comparison, like confidence levels, sample size
and so on.
# Reference Values
The concept of "reference values" introduced in the slides could be
significantly enhanced by implementing a collaborative, transparent
system for data collection and validation. This system could operate
as follows:
- Data Collection: Any user could submit benchmark results to a
centralised and public repository. This would allow for a diverse
range of hardware configurations and use cases to be represented.
- Vendor Validation: Hardware vendors would have the opportunity to
review submitted results pertaining to their products. They could then
mark certain results as "Vendor Approved," indicating that the results
align with their own testing and expectations.
- Community Review: The broader community of users and experts could
also review and vote on submitted results. Results that receive
substantial positive feedback could be marked as "Community Approved,"
providing an additional layer of validation.
- Automated Validation: Reference values must be checked, validated
and supported by multiple sources. This can be done only in an
automatic way as those processes are time consuming and require
extreme attention to details.
- Transparency: All submitted results would need to be accompanied by
detailed information about the testing environment, hardware
specifications, and methodology used. This would ensure
reproducibility and allow others to understand the context of each
result.
- Trust Building: The combination of vendor and community approval
would help establish trust in the reference values. It would mitigate
concerns about marketing bias and provide a more reliable basis for
performance comparisons.
- Accessibility: The system would be publicly accessible, allowing
anyone to reference and utilise this data in their own testing and
analysis.
Implementation of such a system would require careful consideration of
governance and funding. A community-driven, non-profit organisation
sponsored by multiple stakeholders could be an appropriate model. This
structure would help maintain neutrality and avoid potential conflicts
of interest.
While the specifics of building and managing such a system would need
further exploration, this approach could significantly improve the
reliability and usefulness of reference values in benchmark testing.
It would foster a more collaborative and transparent environment for
performance evaluation in the Linux ecosystem as well as attract
interested vendors to submit and review results.
I’m not very informed about the current state of the community in this
field, but I’m sure you know better how exactly this can be done.
# Results Data Lake
Along with reference values it’s important to collect results on a
regular basis as the kernel evolves so results must follow this
evolution as well. To do this cloud-based data lake is needed (a
self-hosted system will be too expensive from my point of view).
This data lake should be able to collect and process incoming data as
well as to serve reference values for users. Data processing flow
should be quite standard: Collection -> Parsing + Enhancement ->
Storage -> Analysis -> Serving.
Tim proposed to use file names for reference files, I would like to
note that such approach could fail pretty fast if system will collect
more and more data and there will rise a need to have more granular
and detailed features to identify reference results and this can lead
to very long filenames, which will be hard to use. I propose to use
UUID4-based identification, which provides very low chances for
collision. Those IDs will be keys in the database with all information
required for clear identification of relevant results and
corresponding details. Moreover this approach can be easily extended
on the database side if more data is needed.
Yes, UUID4 is not human-readable, but do we need such an option if we
have tools, which can provide a better interface?
For example, this could be something like:
---
request: results-cli search -b "Test Suite D" -v "v1.2.3" -o "Ubuntu
22.04" -t "baseline" -m "response_time>100"
response:
[
{
"id": "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440005",
"benchmark": "Test Suite A",
"version": "v1.2.3",
"target_os": "Ubuntu 22.04",
"metrics": {
"cpu_usage": 70.5,
"memory_usage": 2048,
"response_time": 120
},
"tags": ["baseline", "v1.0"],
"created_at": "2024-10-25T10:00:00Z"
},
...
]
---
or
request: results-cli search "<Domain-Specific-Language-Query>"
response: [ {}, {}, {}...]
---
or
request: results-cli get 550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440005
response:
{
"id": "550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440005",
"benchmark": "Test Suite A",
"version": "v1.2.3",
"target_os": "Ubuntu 22.04",
"metrics": {
"cpu_usage": 70.5,
"memory_usage": 2048,
"response_time": 120
},
"tags": ["baseline", "v1.0"],
"created_at": "2024-10-25T10:00:00Z"
}
---
or
request: curl -X POST http://api.example.com/references/search \ -d '{
"query": "benchmark = \"Test Suite A\" AND (version >= \"v1.2\" OR tag
IN [\"baseline\", \"regression\"]) AND cpu_usage > 60" }'
...
---
Another point of use DB-based approach is the following: in case when
a user works with particular hardware and/or would like to use a
reference he/she does not need a full database with all collected
reference values, but only a small slice of it. This slice can be
downloaded from public repo or accessed via API.
# Large results dataset
If we collect a large benchmarks dataset in one place accompanied with
detailed information about target systems from which this dataset was
collected, then it will allow us to calculate precise baselines across
different compositions of parameters, making performance deviations
easier to detect. Long-term trend analysis can identify small changes
and correlate them with updates, revealing performance drift.
Another use of such a database - predictive modelling, which can
provide forecasts of expected results and setting dynamic performance
thresholds, enabling early issue detection. Anomaly detection becomes
more effective with context, distinguishing unusual deviations from
normal behaviour.
# Interpretation of contradictory results
It’s not clear how to deal with contradictory results to make a
decision on regression presence. For example, we have a set of 10
tests, which test more or less the same, for example disk performance.
It’s unclear what to do when one subset of tests show degradation and
another subset shows neutral status or improvements. Is there a
regression?
I suppose that the availability of historical data can help to deal
with such situations as historical data can show behaviour of
particular tests and allow to assign weights in decision-making
algorithms, but it’s just my guess.
# System Profiles
Tim's idea to reduce results to - “pass / fail” and my experience with
various people trying to interpret benchmarking results led me to
think of “profiles” - a set of parameters and metrics collected from a
reference system while execution of a particular configuration of a
particular benchmark.
Profiles can be used for A/B comparison with pass/fail outcomes or
match/not match, and this approach does not hide/miss the details and
allows to capture multiple characteristics of the experiment, like
presence of outliers/errors or skewed distribution form. Interested
persons (like kernel developers or performance engineers, for example)
can dig deeper to find a reason for such mismatch and those who are
interested just in high-level results - pass/fail should be enough.
Here is how I imaging a structure of a profile:
---
profile_a:
system packages:
- pkg_1
- pkg_2
# Additional packages...
settings:
- cmdline
# Additional settings...
indicators:
cpu: null
ram: null
loadavg: null
# Additional indicators...
benchmark:
settings:
param_1: null
param_2: null
param_x: null
metrics:
metric_1: null
metric_2: null
metric_x: null
---
- System Packages, System Settings: Usually we do not pay much
attention to this, but I think it’s worth highlighting that base OS is
an important factor, as there are distribution-specific modifications
present in the filesystem. Most commonly developers and researchers
use Ubuntu (as the most popular distro) or Debian (as a cleaner and
lightweight version of Ubuntu), but distributions apply their own
patches to the kernel and system libraries, which may impact
performance. Another kind of base OS - cloud OS images which can be
modified by cloud providers to add internal packages & services which
could potentially affect performance as well. While comparing we must
take into account this aspect to compare apples-to-apples.
- System Indicators: These are periodic statistics like CPU
utilisation, RAM consumption, and other params collected before
benchmarking, while benchmarking and after benchmarking.
- Benchmark Settings: Benchmarking systems have multiple parameters,
so it’s important to capture them and use them in analysis.
- Benchmark Metrics: That’s obviously - benchmark results. It’s not a
rare case when a benchmark test provides more than a single number.
# Analysis
Proposed rules-based analysis will work only for highly determined
environments and systems, where rules can describe all the aspects.
Rule-based systems are easier to understand and implement than other
types, but for a small set of rules. However, we deal with the live
system and it constantly evolves, so rules will deprecate extremely
fast. It's the same story as with rule-based recommended systems in
early years of machine learning.
If you want to follow a rules-based approach, it's probably worth
taking a look at https://www.clipsrules.net as this will allow to
decouple results from analysis and avoid reinventing the analysis
engine.
Declaration of those rules will be error-prone due to the nature of
their origin - they must be declared and maintained by humans. IMHO a
human-less approach and use modern ML methods instead would be more
beneficial in the long run.
# Methodology
Used methodology - another aspect which is not directly related to
Tim's slides, but it's an important topic for results processing and
interpretation, probably an idea of automated results interpretation
can force use of one or another methodology.
# Next steps
I would be glad to participate in further discussions and share
experience to improve kernel performance testing automation, analysis
and interpretation of results. If there is interest, I'm open to
collaborating on implementing some of these ideas.
--
Best regards,
Konstantin Belov
Greetings:
Welcome to v7, see changelog below.
This revision drops patch 2 from the previous version, which was
unnecessary as Jakub pointed out. The tests were fully re-run after
dropping the patch to confirm the performance numbers hold; they do -
see below. FAQ #2 has been updated to be more verbose, as well.
This series introduces a new mechanism, IRQ suspension, which allows
network applications using epoll to mask IRQs during periods of high
traffic while also reducing tail latency (compared to existing
mechanisms, see below) during periods of low traffic. In doing so, this
balances CPU consumption with network processing efficiency.
Martin Karsten (CC'd) and I have been collaborating on this series for
several months and have appreciated the feedback from the community on
our RFC [1]. We've updated the cover letter and kernel documentation in
an attempt to more clearly explain how this mechanism works, how
applications can use it, and how it compares to existing mechanisms in
the kernel.
I briefly mentioned this idea at netdev conf 2024 (for those who were
there) and Martin described this idea in an earlier paper presented at
Sigmetrics 2024 [2].
~ The short explanation (TL;DR)
We propose adding a new napi config parameter: irq_suspend_timeout to
help balance CPU usage and network processing efficiency when using IRQ
deferral and napi busy poll.
If this parameter is set to a non-zero value *and* a user application
has enabled preferred busy poll on a busy poll context (via the
EPIOCSPARAMS ioctl introduced in commit 18e2bf0edf4d ("eventpoll: Add
epoll ioctl for epoll_params")), then application calls to epoll_wait
for that context will cause device IRQs and softirq processing to be
suspended as long as epoll_wait successfully retrieves data from the
NAPI. Each time data is retrieved, the irq_suspend_timeout is deferred.
If/when network traffic subsides and epoll_wait returns no data, IRQ
suspension is immediately reverted back to the existing
napi_defer_hard_irqs and gro_flush_timeout mechanism which was
introduced in commit 6f8b12d661d0 ("net: napi: add hard irqs deferral
feature")).
The irq_suspend_timeout serves as a safety mechanism. If userland takes
a long time processing data, irq_suspend_timeout will fire and restart
normal NAPI processing.
For a more in depth explanation, please continue reading.
~ Comparison with existing mechanisms
Interrupt mitigation can be accomplished in napi software, by setting
napi_defer_hard_irqs and gro_flush_timeout, or via interrupt coalescing
in the NIC. This can be quite efficient, but in both cases, a fixed
timeout (or packet count) needs to be configured. However, a fixed
timeout cannot effectively support both low- and high-load situations:
At low load, an application typically processes a few requests and then
waits to receive more input data. In this scenario, a large timeout will
cause unnecessary latency.
At high load, an application typically processes many requests before
being ready to receive more input data. In this case, a small timeout
will likely fire prematurely and trigger irq/softirq processing, which
interferes with the application's execution. This causes overhead, most
likely due to cache contention.
While NICs attempt to provide adaptive interrupt coalescing schemes,
these cannot properly take into account application-level processing.
An alternative packet delivery mechanism is busy-polling, which results
in perfect alignment of application processing and network polling. It
delivers optimal performance (throughput and latency), but results in
100% cpu utilization and is thus inefficient for below-capacity
workloads.
We propose to add a new packet delivery mode that properly alternates
between busy polling and interrupt-based delivery depending on busy and
idle periods of the application. During a busy period, the system
operates in busy-polling mode, which avoids interference. During an idle
period, the system falls back to interrupt deferral, but with a small
timeout to avoid excessive latencies. This delivery mode can also be
viewed as an extension of basic interrupt deferral, but alternating
between a small and a very large timeout.
This delivery mode is efficient, because it avoids softirq execution
interfering with application processing during busy periods. It can be
used with blocking epoll_wait to conserve cpu cycles during idle
periods. The effect of alternating between busy and idle periods is that
performance (throughput and latency) is very close to full busy polling,
while cpu utilization is lower and very close to interrupt mitigation.
~ Usage details
IRQ suspension is introduced via a per-NAPI configuration parameter that
controls the maximum time that IRQs can be suspended.
Here's how it is intended to work:
- The user application (or system administrator) uses the netdev-genl
netlink interface to set the pre-existing napi_defer_hard_irqs and
gro_flush_timeout NAPI config parameters to enable IRQ deferral.
- The user application (or system administrator) sets the proposed
irq_suspend_timeout parameter via the netdev-genl netlink interface
to a larger value than gro_flush_timeout to enable IRQ suspension.
- The user application issues the existing epoll ioctl to set the
prefer_busy_poll flag on the epoll context.
- The user application then calls epoll_wait to busy poll for network
events, as it normally would.
- If epoll_wait returns events to userland, IRQs are suspended for the
duration of irq_suspend_timeout.
- If epoll_wait finds no events and the thread is about to go to
sleep, IRQ handling using napi_defer_hard_irqs and gro_flush_timeout
is resumed.
As long as epoll_wait is retrieving events, IRQs (and softirq
processing) for the NAPI being polled remain disabled. When network
traffic reduces, eventually a busy poll loop in the kernel will retrieve
no data. When this occurs, regular IRQ deferral using gro_flush_timeout
for the polled NAPI is re-enabled.
Unless IRQ suspension is continued by subsequent calls to epoll_wait, it
automatically times out after the irq_suspend_timeout timer expires.
Regular deferral is also immediately re-enabled when the epoll context
is destroyed.
~ Usage scenario
The target scenario for IRQ suspension as packet delivery mode is a
system that runs a dominant application with substantial network I/O.
The target application can be configured to receive input data up to a
certain batch size (via epoll_wait maxevents parameter) and this batch
size determines the worst-case latency that application requests might
experience. Because packet delivery is suspended during the target
application's processing, the batch size also determines the worst-case
latency of concurrent applications using the same RX queue(s).
gro_flush_timeout should be set as small as possible, but large enough to
make sure that a single request is likely not being interfered with.
irq_suspend_timeout is largely a safety mechanism against misbehaving
applications. It should be set large enough to cover the processing of an
entire application batch, i.e., the factor between gro_flush_timeout and
irq_suspend_timeout should roughly correspond to the maximum batch size
that the target application would process in one go.
~ Important call out in the implementation
- Enabling per epoll-context preferred busy poll will now effectively
lead to a nonblocking iteration through napi_busy_loop, even when
busy_poll_usecs is 0. See patch 4.
~ Benchmark configs & descriptions
The changes were benchmarked with memcached [3] using the benchmarking
tool mutilate [4].
To facilitate benchmarking, a small patch [5] was applied to memcached
1.6.29 to allow setting per-epoll context preferred busy poll and other
settings via environment variables. Another small patch [6] was applied
to libevent to enable full busy-polling.
Multiple scenarios were benchmarked as described below and the scripts
used for producing these results can be found on github [7] (note: all
scenarios use NAPI-based traffic splitting via SO_INCOMING_ID by passing
-N to memcached):
- base:
- no other options enabled
- deferX:
- set defer_hard_irqs to 100
- set gro_flush_timeout to X,000
- napibusy:
- set defer_hard_irqs to 100
- set gro_flush_timeout to 200,000
- enable busy poll via the existing ioctl (busy_poll_usecs = 64,
busy_poll_budget = 64, prefer_busy_poll = true)
- fullbusy:
- set defer_hard_irqs to 100
- set gro_flush_timeout to 5,000,000
- enable busy poll via the existing ioctl (busy_poll_usecs = 1000,
busy_poll_budget = 64, prefer_busy_poll = true)
- change memcached's nonblocking epoll_wait invocation (via
libevent) to using a 1 ms timeout
- suspend0:
- set defer_hard_irqs to 0
- set gro_flush_timeout to 0
- set irq_suspend_timeout to 20,000,000
- enable busy poll via the existing ioctl (busy_poll_usecs = 0,
busy_poll_budget = 64, prefer_busy_poll = true)
- suspendX:
- set defer_hard_irqs to 100
- set gro_flush_timeout to X,000
- set irq_suspend_timeout to 20,000,000
- enable busy poll via the existing ioctl (busy_poll_usecs = 0,
busy_poll_budget = 64, prefer_busy_poll = true)
~ Benchmark results
Tested on:
Single socket AMD EPYC 7662 64-Core Processor
Hyperthreading disabled
4 NUMA Zones (NPS=4)
16 CPUs per NUMA zone (64 cores total)
2 x Dual port 100gbps Mellanox Technologies ConnectX-5 Ex EN NIC
The test machine is configured such that a single interface has 8 RX
queues. The queues' IRQs and memcached are pinned to CPUs that are
NUMA-local to the interface which is under test. The NIC's interrupt
coalescing configuration is left at boot-time defaults.
Results:
Results are shown below. The mechanism added by this series is
represented by the 'suspend' cases. Data presented shows a summary over
nearly 10 runs of each test case [8] using the scripts on github [7].
For latency, the median is shown. For throughput and CPU utilization,
the average is shown.
The results also include cycles-per-query (cpq) and
instruction-per-query (ipq) metrics, following the methodology proposed
in [2], to augment the CPU utilization numbers, which could be skewed
due to frequency scaling. We find that this does not appear to be the
case as CPU utilization and low-level metrics show similar trends.
These results were captured using the scripts on github [7] to
illustrate how this approach compares with other pre-existing
mechanisms. This data is not to be interpreted as scientific data
captured in a fully isolated lab setting, but instead as best effort,
illustrative information comparing and contrasting tradeoffs.
The absolute QPS results shift between submissions, but the
relative differences are equivalent. As patches are rebased,
several factors likely influence overall performance.
Compare:
- Throughput (MAX) and latencies of base vs suspend.
- CPU usage of napibusy and fullbusy during lower load (200K, 400K for
example) vs suspend.
- Latency of the defer variants vs suspend as timeout and load
increases.
- suspend0, which sets defer_hard_irqs and gro_flush_timeout to 0, has
nearly the same performance as the base case (this is FAQ item #1).
The overall takeaway is that the suspend variants provide a superior
combination of high throughput, low latency, and low cpu utilization
compared to all other variants. Each of the suspend variants works very
well, but some fine-tuning between latency and cpu utilization is still
possible by tuning the small timeout (gro_flush_timeout).
Note: we've reorganized the results to make comparison among testcases
with the same load easier.
testcase load qps avglat 95%lat 99%lat cpu cpq ipq
base 200K 199946 112 239 416 26 12973 11343
defer10 200K 199971 54 124 142 29 19412 17460
defer20 200K 199986 60 130 153 26 15644 14095
defer50 200K 200025 79 144 182 23 12122 11632
defer200 200K 199999 164 254 309 19 8923 9635
fullbusy 200K 199998 46 118 133 100 43658 23133
napibusy 200K 199983 100 237 277 56 24840 24716
suspend0 200K 200020 105 249 432 30 14264 11796
suspend10 200K 199950 53 123 141 32 19518 16903
suspend20 200K 200037 58 126 151 30 16426 14736
suspend50 200K 199961 73 136 177 26 13310 12633
suspend200 200K 199998 149 251 306 21 9566 10203
testcase load qps avglat 95%lat 99%lat cpu cpq ipq
base 400K 400014 139 269 707 41 9476 9343
defer10 400K 400016 59 133 166 53 13991 12989
defer20 400K 399952 67 140 172 47 12063 11644
defer50 400K 400007 87 162 198 39 9384 9880
defer200 400K 399979 181 274 330 31 7089 8430
fullbusy 400K 399987 50 123 156 100 21827 16037
napibusy 400K 400014 76 222 272 83 18185 16529
suspend0 400K 400015 127 350 776 47 10699 9603
suspend10 400K 400023 57 129 164 54 13758 13178
suspend20 400K 400043 62 135 169 49 12071 11826
suspend50 400K 400071 76 149 186 42 10011 10301
suspend200 400K 399961 154 269 327 34 7827 8774
testcase load qps avglat 95%lat 99%lat cpu cpq ipq
base 600K 599951 149 266 574 61 9265 8876
defer10 600K 600006 71 147 203 76 11866 10936
defer20 600K 600123 76 152 203 66 10430 10342
defer50 600K 600162 95 172 217 54 8526 9142
defer200 600K 599942 200 301 357 46 6977 8212
fullbusy 600K 599990 55 127 177 100 14551 13983
napibusy 600K 600035 63 160 250 96 13937 14140
suspend0 600K 599903 127 320 732 68 10166 8963
suspend10 600K 599908 63 137 192 69 10902 11100
suspend20 600K 599961 66 141 194 65 9976 10370
suspend50 600K 599973 80 159 204 57 8678 9381
suspend200 600K 600010 157 277 346 48 7133 8381
testcase load qps avglat 95%lat 99%lat cpu cpq ipq
base 800K 800039 181 300 536 87 9585 8304
defer10 800K 800038 181 530 939 96 10564 8970
defer20 800K 800029 112 225 329 90 10056 8935
defer50 800K 799999 120 208 296 82 9234 8562
defer200 800K 800066 227 338 401 63 7117 8129
fullbusy 800K 800040 61 134 190 100 10913 12608
napibusy 800K 799944 64 141 214 99 10828 12588
suspend0 800K 799911 126 248 509 85 9346 8498
suspend10 800K 800006 69 143 200 83 9410 9845
suspend20 800K 800120 74 150 207 78 8786 9454
suspend50 800K 799989 87 168 224 71 7946 8833
suspend200 800K 799987 160 292 357 62 6923 8229
testcase load qps avglat 95%lat 99%lat cpu cpq ipq
base 1000K 906879 4079 5751 6216 98 9496 7904
defer10 1000K 860849 3643 6274 6730 99 10040 8676
defer20 1000K 896063 3298 5840 6349 98 9620 8237
defer50 1000K 919782 2962 5513 5807 97 9284 7951
defer200 1000K 970941 3059 5348 5984 95 8593 7959
fullbusy 1000K 999950 70 150 207 100 8732 10777
napibusy 1000K 999996 78 154 223 100 8722 10656
suspend0 1000K 949706 2666 5770 6660 99 9071 8046
suspend10 1000K 1000024 80 160 220 92 8137 9035
suspend20 1000K 1000059 83 165 226 89 7850 8804
suspend50 1000K 999955 95 180 240 84 7411 8459
suspend200 1000K 999914 163 299 366 77 6833 8078
testcase load qps avglat 95%lat 99%lat cpu cpq ipq
base MAX 1037654 4184 5453 5810 100 8411 7938
defer10 MAX 905607 4840 6151 6380 100 9639 8431
defer20 MAX 986463 4455 5594 5796 100 8848 8110
defer50 MAX 1077030 4000 5073 5299 100 8104 7920
defer200 MAX 1040728 4152 5385 5765 100 8379 7849
fullbusy MAX 1247536 3518 3935 3984 100 6998 7930
napibusy MAX 1136310 3799 7756 9964 100 7670 7877
suspend0 MAX 1057509 4132 5724 6185 100 8253 7918
suspend10 MAX 1215147 3580 3957 4041 100 7185 7944
suspend20 MAX 1216469 3576 3953 3988 100 7175 7950
suspend50 MAX 1215871 3577 3961 4075 100 7181 7949
suspend200 MAX 1216882 3556 3951 3988 100 7175 7955
~ FAQ
- Why is a new parameter needed? Does irq_suspend_timeout override
gro_flush_timeout?
Using the suspend mechanism causes the system to alternate between
polling mode and irq-driven packet delivery. During busy periods,
irq_suspend_timeout overrides gro_flush_timeout and keeps the system
busy polling, but when epoll finds no events, the setting of
gro_flush_timeout and napi_defer_hard_irqs determine the next step.
There are essentially three possible loops for network processing and
packet delivery:
1) hardirq -> softirq -> napi poll; basic interrupt delivery
2) timer -> softirq -> napi poll; deferred irq processing
3) epoll -> busy-poll -> napi poll; busy looping
Loop 2 can take control from Loop 1, if gro_flush_timeout and
napi_defer_hard_irqs are set.
If gro_flush_timeout and napi_defer_hard_irqs are set, Loops 2 and
3 "wrestle" with each other for control. During busy periods,
irq_suspend_timeout is used as timer in Loop 2, which essentially
tilts this in favour of Loop 3.
If gro_flush_timeout and napi_defer_hard_irqs are not set, Loop 3
cannot take control from Loop 1.
Therefore, setting gro_flush_timeout and napi_defer_hard_irqs is the
recommended usage, because otherwise setting irq_suspend_timeout
might not have any discernible effect.
This is shown in the results above: compare suspend0 with the base
case. Note that the lack of napi_defer_hard_irqs and
gro_flush_timeout produce similar results for both, which encourages
the use of napi_defer_hard_irqs and gro_flush_timeout in addition to
irq_suspend_timeout.
- Can the new timeout value be threaded through the new epoll ioctl ?
It is possible, but presents challenges for userspace. User
applications must ensure that the file descriptors added to epoll
contexts have the same NAPI ID to support busy polling.
An epoll context is not permanently tied to any particular NAPI ID.
So, a user application could decide to clear the file descriptors
from the context and add a new set of file descriptors with a
different NAPI ID to the context. Busy polling would work as
expected, but the meaning of the suspend timeout becomes ambiguous
because IRQs are not inherently associated with epoll contexts, but
rather with the NAPI. The user program would need to reissue the
ioctl to set the irq_suspend_timeout, but the napi_defer_hard_irqs
and gro_flush_timeout settings would come from the NAPI's
napi_config (which are set either by sysfs or by netlink). Such an
interface seems awkard to use from a user perspective.
Further, IRQs are related to NAPIs, which is why they are stored in
the napi_config space. Putting the irq_suspend_timeout in
the epoll context while other IRQ deferral mechanisms remain in the
NAPI's napi_config space seems like an odd design choice.
We've opted to keep all of the IRQ deferral parameters together and
place the irq_suspend_timeout in napi_config. This has nice benefits
for userspace: if a user app were to remove all file descriptors
from an epoll context and add new file descriptors with a new NAPI ID,
the correct suspend timeout for that NAPI ID would be used automatically
without the user application needing to do anything (like re-issuing an
ioctl, for example). All IRQ deferral related parameters are in one
place and can all be set the same way: with netlink.
- Can irq suspend be built by combining NIC coalescing and
gro_flush_timeout ?
No. The problem is that the long timeout must engage if and only if
prefer-busy is active.
When using NIC coalescing for the short timeout (without
napi_defer_hard_irqs/gro_flush_timeout), an interrupt after an idle
period will trigger softirq, which will run napi polling. At this
point, prefer-busy is not active, so NIC interrupts would be
re-enabled. Then it is not possible for the longer timeout to
interject to switch control back to polling. In other words, only by
using the software timer for the short timeout, it is possible to
extend the timeout without having to reprogram the NIC timer or
reach down directly and disable interrupts.
Using gro_flush_timeout for the long timeout also has problems, for
the same underlying reason. In the current napi implementation,
gro_flush_timeout is not tied to prefer-busy. We'd either have to
change that and in the process modify the existing deferral
mechanism, or introduce a state variable to determine whether
gro_flush_timeout is used as long timeout for irq suspend or whether
it is used for its default purpose. In an earlier version, we did
try something similar to the latter and made it work, but it ends up
being a lot more convoluted than our current proposal.
- Isn't it already possible to combine busy looping with irq deferral?
Yes, in fact enabling irq deferral via napi_defer_hard_irqs and
gro_flush_timeout is a precondition for prefer_busy_poll to have an
effect. If the application also uses a tight busy loop with
essentially nonblocking epoll_wait (accomplished with a very short
timeout parameter), this is the fullbusy case shown in the results.
An application using blocking epoll_wait is shown as the napibusy
case in the results. It's a hybrid approach that provides limited
latency benefits compared to the base case and plain irq deferral,
but not as good as fullbusy or suspend.
~ Special thanks
Several people were involved in earlier stages of the development of this
mechanism whom we'd like to thank:
- Peter Cai (CC'd), for the initial kernel patch and his contributions
to the paper.
- Mohammadamin Shafie (CC'd), for testing various versions of the kernel
patch and providing helpful feedback.
Thanks,
Martin and Joe
[1]: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20240812125717.413108-1-jdamato@fastly.com/
[2]: https://doi.org/10.1145/3626780
[3]: https://github.com/memcached/memcached/blob/master/doc/napi_ids.txt
[4]: https://github.com/leverich/mutilate
[5]: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/martinkarsten/irqsuspend/main/patches/mem…
[6]: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/martinkarsten/irqsuspend/main/patches/lib…
[7]: https://github.com/martinkarsten/irqsuspend
[8]: https://github.com/martinkarsten/irqsuspend/tree/main/results
v7:
- Jakub noted that patch 2 adds unnecessary complexity by checking the
suspend timeout in the NAPI loop. This makes the code more
complicated and difficult to reason about. He's right; we've dropped
patch 2 which simplifies this series.
- Updated the cover letter with a full re-run of all test cases.
- Updated FAQ #2.
v6: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20241104215542.215919-1-jdamato@fastly.com/
- Updated the cover letter with a full re-run of all test cases,
including a new case suspend0, as requested by Sridhar previously.
- Updated the kernel documentation in patch 7 as suggested by Bagas
Sanjaya, which improved the htmldoc output.
v5: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20241103052421.518856-1-jdamato@fastly.com/
- Adjusted patch 5 to only suspend IRQs when ep_send_events returns a
positive return value. This issue was pointed out by Hillf Danton.
- Updated the commit message of patch 6 which still mentioned netcat,
despite the code being updated in v4 to replace it with socat and fixed
misspelling of netdevsim.
- Fixed a minor typo in patch 7 and removed an unnecessary paragraph.
- Added Sridhar Samudrala's Reviewed-by to patch 1-5 and 7.
v4: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20241102005214.32443-1-jdamato@fastly.com/
- Added a new FAQ item to cover letter.
- Updated patch 6 to use socat instead of nc in busy_poll_test.sh and
updated busy_poller.c to use netlink directly to configure napi
params.
- Updated the kernel documentation in patch 7 to include more details.
- Dropped Stanislav's Acked-by and Bagas' Reviewed-by from patch 7
since the documentation was updated.
v3: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20241101004846.32532-1-jdamato@fastly.com/
- Added Stanislav Fomichev's Acked-by to every patch except the newly
added selftest.
- Added Bagas Sanjaya's Reviewed-by to the documentation patch.
- Fixed the commit message of patch 2 to remove a reference to the now
non-existent sysfs setting.
- Added a self test which tests both "regular" busy poll and busy poll
with suspend enabled. This was added as patch 6 as requested by
Paolo. netdevsim was chosen instead of veth due to netdevsim's
pre-existing support for netdev-genl. See the commit message of
patch 6 for more details.
v2: https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/20241021015311.95468-1-jdamato@fastly.com/
- Cover letter updated, including a re-run of test data.
- Patch 1 rewritten to use netdev-genl instead of sysfs.
- Patch 3 updated with a comment added to napi_resume_irqs.
- Patch 4 rebased to apply now that commit b9ca079dd6b0 ("eventpoll:
Annotate data-race of busy_poll_usecs") has been picked up from VFS.
- Patch 6 updated the kernel documentation.
rfc -> v1:
- Cover letter updated to include more details.
- Patch 1 updated to remove the documentation added. This was moved to
patch 6 with the rest of the docs (see below).
- Patch 5 updated to fix an error uncovered by the kernel build robot.
See patch 5's changelog for more details.
- Patch 6 added which updates kernel documentation.
Joe Damato (2):
selftests: net: Add busy_poll_test
docs: networking: Describe irq suspension
Martin Karsten (4):
net: Add napi_struct parameter irq_suspend_timeout
net: Add control functions for irq suspension
eventpoll: Trigger napi_busy_loop, if prefer_busy_poll is set
eventpoll: Control irq suspension for prefer_busy_poll
Documentation/netlink/specs/netdev.yaml | 7 +
Documentation/networking/napi.rst | 170 ++++++++-
fs/eventpoll.c | 36 +-
include/linux/netdevice.h | 2 +
include/net/busy_poll.h | 3 +
include/uapi/linux/netdev.h | 1 +
net/core/dev.c | 41 +++
net/core/dev.h | 25 ++
net/core/netdev-genl-gen.c | 5 +-
net/core/netdev-genl.c | 12 +
tools/include/uapi/linux/netdev.h | 1 +
tools/testing/selftests/net/.gitignore | 1 +
tools/testing/selftests/net/Makefile | 3 +-
tools/testing/selftests/net/busy_poll_test.sh | 164 +++++++++
tools/testing/selftests/net/busy_poller.c | 328 ++++++++++++++++++
15 files changed, 792 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
create mode 100755 tools/testing/selftests/net/busy_poll_test.sh
create mode 100644 tools/testing/selftests/net/busy_poller.c
base-commit: dc7c381bb8649e3701ed64f6c3e55316675904d7
--
2.25.1
A few unrelated devmem TCP fixes bundled in a series for some
convenience (if that's ok).
Patch 1-2: fix naming and provide page_pool_alloc_netmem for fragged
netmem.
Patch 3-4: fix issues with dma-buf dma addresses being potentially
passed to dma_sync_for_* helpers.
Patch 5-6: fix syzbot SO_DEVMEM_DONTNEED issue and add test for this
case.
Mina Almasry (6):
net: page_pool: rename page_pool_alloc_netmem to *_netmems
net: page_pool: create page_pool_alloc_netmem
page_pool: disable sync for cpu for dmabuf memory provider
netmem: add netmem_prefetch
net: fix SO_DEVMEM_DONTNEED looping too long
ncdevmem: add test for too many token_count
Samiullah Khawaja (1):
page_pool: Set `dma_sync` to false for devmem memory provider
include/net/netmem.h | 7 ++++
include/net/page_pool/helpers.h | 50 ++++++++++++++++++--------
include/net/page_pool/types.h | 2 +-
net/core/devmem.c | 9 +++--
net/core/page_pool.c | 11 +++---
net/core/sock.c | 46 ++++++++++++++----------
tools/testing/selftests/net/ncdevmem.c | 11 ++++++
7 files changed, 93 insertions(+), 43 deletions(-)
--
2.47.0.163.g1226f6d8fa-goog
Following the previous vIOMMU series, this adds another vDEVICE structure,
representing the association from an iommufd_device to an iommufd_viommu.
This gives the whole architecture a new "v" layer:
_______________________________________________________________________
| iommufd (with vIOMMU/vDEVICE) |
| _____________ _____________ |
| | | | | |
| |----------------| vIOMMU |<---| vDEVICE |<------| |
| | | | |_____________| | |
| | ______ | | _____________ ___|____ |
| | | | | | | | | | |
| | | IOAS |<---|(HWPT_PAGING)|<---| HWPT_NESTED |<--| DEVICE | |
| | |______| |_____________| |_____________| |________| |
|______|________|______________|__________________|_______________|_____|
| | | | |
______v_____ | ______v_____ ______v_____ ___v__
| struct | | PFN | (paging) | | (nested) | |struct|
|iommu_device| |------>|iommu_domain|<----|iommu_domain|<----|device|
|____________| storage|____________| |____________| |______|
This vDEVICE object is used to collect and store all vIOMMU-related device
information/attributes in a VM. As an initial series for vDEVICE, add only
the virt_id to the vDEVICE, which is a vIOMMU specific device ID in a VM:
e.g. vSID of ARM SMMUv3, vDeviceID of AMD IOMMU, and vRID of Intel VT-d to
a Context Table. This virt_id helps IOMMU drivers to link the vID to a pID
of the device against the physical IOMMU instance. This is essential for a
vIOMMU-based invalidation, where the request contains a device's vID for a
device cache flush, e.g. ATC invalidation.
Therefore, with this vDEVICE object, support a vIOMMU-based invalidation,
by reusing IOMMUFD_CMD_HWPT_INVALIDATE for a vIOMMU object to flush cache
with a given driver data.
As for the implementation of the series, add driver support in ARM SMMUv3
for a real world use case.
This series is on Github:
https://github.com/nicolinc/iommufd/commits/iommufd_viommu_p2-v6
(QEMU branch for testing will be provided in Jason's nesting series)
Changelog
v6
* Fixed kdoc in the uAPI header
* Fixed indentations in iommufd.rst
* Replaced vdev->idev with vdev->dev
* Added "Reviewed-by" from Kevin and Jason
* Updated kdoc of struct iommu_vdevice_alloc
* Fixed lockdep function call in iommufd_viommu_find_dev
* Added missing iommu_dev validation between viommu and idev
* Skipped SMMUv3 driver changes (to post in a separate series)
* Replaced !cache_invalidate_user in WARN_ON of the allocation path
with cache_invalidate_user validation in iommufd_hwpt_invalidate
v5
https://lore.kernel.org/all/cover.1729897278.git.nicolinc@nvidia.com/
* Dropped driver-allocated vDEVICE support
* Changed vdev_to_dev helper to iommufd_viommu_find_dev
v4
https://lore.kernel.org/all/cover.1729555967.git.nicolinc@nvidia.com/
* Added missing brackets in switch-case
* Fixed the unreleased idev refcount issue
* Reworked the iommufd_vdevice_alloc allocator
* Dropped support for IOMMU_VIOMMU_TYPE_DEFAULT
* Added missing TEST_LENGTH and fail_nth coverages
* Added a verification to the driver-allocated vDEVICE object
* Added an iommufd_vdevice_abort for a missing mutex protection
* Added a u64 structure arm_vsmmu_invalidation_cmd for user command
conversion
v3
https://lore.kernel.org/all/cover.1728491532.git.nicolinc@nvidia.com/
* Added Jason's Reviewed-by
* Split this invalidation part out of the part-1 series
* Repurposed VDEV_ID ioctl to a wider vDEVICE structure and ioctl
* Reduced viommu_api functions by allowing drivers to access viommu
and vdevice structure directly
* Dropped vdevs_rwsem by using xa_lock instead
* Dropped arm_smmu_cache_invalidate_user
v2
https://lore.kernel.org/all/cover.1724776335.git.nicolinc@nvidia.com/
* Limited vdev_id to one per idev
* Added a rw_sem to protect the vdev_id list
* Reworked driver-level APIs with proper lockings
* Added a new viommu_api file for IOMMUFD_DRIVER config
* Dropped useless iommu_dev point from the viommu structure
* Added missing index numnbers to new types in the uAPI header
* Dropped IOMMU_VIOMMU_INVALIDATE uAPI; Instead, reuse the HWPT one
* Reworked mock_viommu_cache_invalidate() using the new iommu helper
* Reordered details of set/unset_vdev_id handlers for proper lockings
v1
https://lore.kernel.org/all/cover.1723061377.git.nicolinc@nvidia.com/
Thanks!
Nicolin
Jason Gunthorpe (1):
iommu: Add iommu_copy_struct_from_full_user_array helper
Nicolin Chen (9):
iommufd/viommu: Add IOMMUFD_OBJ_VDEVICE and IOMMU_VDEVICE_ALLOC ioctl
iommufd/selftest: Add IOMMU_VDEVICE_ALLOC test coverage
iommu/viommu: Add cache_invalidate to iommufd_viommu_ops
iommufd: Allow hwpt_id to carry viommu_id for IOMMU_HWPT_INVALIDATE
iommufd/viommu: Add iommufd_viommu_find_dev helper
iommufd/selftest: Add mock_viommu_cache_invalidate
iommufd/selftest: Add IOMMU_TEST_OP_DEV_CHECK_CACHE test command
iommufd/selftest: Add vIOMMU coverage for IOMMU_HWPT_INVALIDATE ioctl
Documentation: userspace-api: iommufd: Update vDEVICE
drivers/iommu/iommufd/iommufd_private.h | 18 ++
drivers/iommu/iommufd/iommufd_test.h | 30 +++
include/linux/iommu.h | 48 ++++-
include/linux/iommufd.h | 22 ++
include/uapi/linux/iommufd.h | 31 ++-
tools/testing/selftests/iommu/iommufd_utils.h | 83 +++++++
drivers/iommu/iommufd/driver.c | 13 ++
drivers/iommu/iommufd/hw_pagetable.c | 40 +++-
drivers/iommu/iommufd/main.c | 6 +
drivers/iommu/iommufd/selftest.c | 98 ++++++++-
drivers/iommu/iommufd/viommu.c | 76 +++++++
tools/testing/selftests/iommu/iommufd.c | 204 +++++++++++++++++-
.../selftests/iommu/iommufd_fail_nth.c | 4 +
Documentation/userspace-api/iommufd.rst | 41 +++-
14 files changed, 688 insertions(+), 26 deletions(-)
--
2.43.0