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Date:      Fri, 21 Aug 2015 17:46:07 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Rick Macklem <rmacklem@uoguelph.ca>
To:        pyunyh@gmail.com, Daniel Braniss <danny@cs.huji.ac.il>
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>, Gleb Smirnoff <glebius@FreeBSD.org>,  Christopher Forgeron <csforgeron@gmail.com>
Subject:   Re: ix(intel) vs mlxen(mellanox) 10Gb performance
Message-ID:  <1153838447.28656490.1440193567940.JavaMail.zimbra@uoguelph.ca>
In-Reply-To: <20150820023024.GB996@michelle.fasterthan.com>
References:  <1D52028A-B39F-4F9B-BD38-CB1D73BF5D56@cs.huji.ac.il> <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> <20150820023024.GB996@michelle.fasterthan.com>

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Yonghyeon PYUN wrote:
> 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.
Thanks for this comment. I tend to agree, both for the reason you state and also
because the patch is simple enough that it might qualify as an errata for 10.2.

I am hoping Daniel Braniss will be able to test the patch and let us know if it
improves performance with TSO enabled?

rick

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