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Date:      Thu, 20 Aug 2015 11:30:24 +0900
From:      Yonghyeon PYUN <pyunyh@gmail.com>
To:        Rick Macklem <rmacklem@uoguelph.ca>
Cc:        Hans Petter Selasky <hps@selasky.org>, FreeBSD stable <freebsd-stable@freebsd.org>, FreeBSD Net <freebsd-net@freebsd.org>, Slawa Olhovchenkov <slw@zxy.spb.ru>, Christopher Forgeron <csforgeron@gmail.com>, Daniel Braniss <danny@cs.huji.ac.il>, Gleb Smirnoff <glebius@FreeBSD.org>
Subject:   Re: ix(intel) vs mlxen(mellanox) 10Gb performance
Message-ID:  <20150820023024.GB996@michelle.fasterthan.com>
In-Reply-To: <2013503980.25726607.1439989235806.JavaMail.zimbra@uoguelph.ca>
References:  <1D52028A-B39F-4F9B-BD38-CB1D73BF5D56@cs.huji.ac.il> <9D8B0503-E8FA-43CA-88F0-01F184F84D9B@cs.huji.ac.il> <1721122651.24481798.1439902381663.JavaMail.zimbra@uoguelph.ca> <55D333D6.5040102@selasky.org> <1325951625.25292515.1439934848268.JavaMail.zimbra@uoguelph.ca> <55D429A4.3010407@selasky.org> <20150819074212.GB964@michelle.fasterthan.com> <55D43615.1030401@selasky.org> <2013503980.25726607.1439989235806.JavaMail.zimbra@uoguelph.ca>

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On Wed, Aug 19, 2015 at 09:00:35AM -0400, Rick Macklem wrote:
> Hans Petter Selasky wrote:
> > On 08/19/15 09:42, Yonghyeon PYUN wrote:
> > > On Wed, Aug 19, 2015 at 09:00:52AM +0200, Hans Petter Selasky wrote:
> > >> On 08/18/15 23:54, Rick Macklem wrote:
> > >>> Ouch! Yes, I now see that the code that counts the # of mbufs is before
> > >>> the
> > >>> code that adds the tcp/ip header mbuf.
> > >>>
> > >>> In my opinion, this should be fixed by setting if_hw_tsomaxsegcount to
> > >>> whatever
> > >>> the driver provides - 1. It is not the driver's responsibility to know if
> > >>> a tcp/ip
> > >>> header mbuf will be added and is a lot less confusing that expecting the
> > >>> driver
> > >>> author to know to subtract one. (I had mistakenly thought that
> > >>> tcp_output() had
> > >>> added the tc/ip header mbuf before the loop that counts mbufs in the
> > >>> list.
> > >>> Btw,
> > >>> this tcp/ip header mbuf also has leading space for the MAC layer header.)
> > >>>
> > >>
> > >> Hi Rick,
> > >>
> > >> Your question is good. With the Mellanox hardware we have separate
> > >> so-called inline data space for the TCP/IP headers, so if the TCP stack
> > >> subtracts something, then we would need to add something to the limit,
> > >> because then the scatter gather list is only used for the data part.
> > >>
> > >
> > > I think all drivers in tree don't subtract 1 for
> > > if_hw_tsomaxsegcount.  Probably touching Mellanox driver would be
> > > simpler than fixing all other drivers in tree.
> > >
> > >> Maybe it can be controlled by some kind of flag, if all the three TSO
> > >> limits should include the TCP/IP/ethernet headers too. I'm pretty sure
> > >> we want both versions.
> > >>
> > >
> > > Hmm, I'm afraid it's already complex.  Drivers have to tell almost
> > > the same information to both bus_dma(9) and network stack.
> > 
> > Don't forget that not all drivers in the tree set the TSO limits before
> > if_attach(), so possibly the subtraction of one TSO fragment needs to go
> > into ip_output() ....
> > 
> Ok, I realized that some drivers may not know the answers before ether_ifattach(),
> due to the way they are configured/written (I saw the use of if_hw_tsomax_update()
> in the patch).

I was not able to find an interface that configures TSO parameters
after if_t conversion.  I'm under the impression
if_hw_tsomax_update() is not designed to use this way.  Probably we
need a better one?(CCed to Gleb).

> 
> If it is subtracted as a part of the assignment to if_hw_tsomaxsegcount in tcp_output()
> at line#791 in tcp_output() like the following, I don't think it should matter if the
> values are set before ether_ifattach()?
> 			/*
> 			 * Subtract 1 for the tcp/ip header mbuf that
> 			 * will be prepended to the mbuf chain in this
> 			 * function in the code below this block.
> 			 */
> 			if_hw_tsomaxsegcount = tp->t_tsomaxsegcount - 1;
> 
> I don't have a good solution for the case where a driver doesn't plan on using the
> tcp/ip header provided by tcp_output() except to say the driver can add one to the
> setting to compensate for that (and if they fail to do so, it still works, although
> somewhat suboptimally). When I now read the comment in sys/net/if_var.h it is clear
> what it means, but for some reason I didn't read it that way before? (I think it was
> the part that said the driver didn't have to subtract for the headers that confused me?)
> In any case, we need to try and come up with a clear definition of what they need to
> be set to.
> 
> I can now think of two ways to deal with this:
> 1 - Leave tcp_output() as is, but provide a macro for the device driver authors to use
>     that sets if_hw_tsomaxsegcount with a flag for "driver uses tcp/ip header mbuf",
>     documenting that this flag should normally be true.
> OR
> 2 - Change tcp_output() as above, noting that this is a workaround for confusion w.r.t.
>     whether or not if_hw_tsomaxsegcount should include the tcp/ip header mbuf and
>     update the comment in if_var.h to reflect this. Then drivers that don't use the
>     tcp/ip header mbuf can increase their value for if_hw_tsomaxsegcount by 1.
>     (The comment should also mention that a value of 35 or greater is much preferred to
>      32 if the hardware will support that.)
> 

Both works for me.  My preference is 2 just because it's very
common for most drivers that use tcp/ip header mbuf.



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