This patch fixes an issue where two different flows on the same RXq
produce the same hash resulting in continuous flow overwrites.
Flow #1: A packet for Flow #1 comes in, kernel calls the steering
function. The driver gives back a filter id. The kernel saves
this filter id in the selected slot. Later, the driver's
service task checks if any filters have expired and then
installs the rule for Flow #1.
Flow #2: A packet for Flow #2 comes in. It goes through the same steps.
But this time, the chosen slot is being used by Flow #1. The
driver gives a new filter id and the kernel saves it in the
same slot. When the driver's service task runs, it runs through
all the flows, checks if Flow #1 should be expired, the kernel
returns True as the slot has a different filter id, and then
the driver installs the rule for Flow #2.
Flow #1: Another packet for Flow #1 comes in. The same thing repeats.
The slot is overwritten with a new filter id for Flow #1.
This causes a repeated cycle of flow programming for missed packets,
wasting CPU cycles while not improving performance. This problem happens
at higher rates when the RPS table is small, but tests show it still
happens even with 12,000 connections and an RPS size of 16K per queue
(global table size = 144x16K = 64K).
This patch prevents overwriting an rps_dev_flow entry if it is active.
The intention is that it is better to do aRFS for the first flow instead
of hurting all flows on the same hash. Without this, two (or more) flows
on one RX queue with the same hash can keep overwriting each other. This
causes the driver to reprogram the flow repeatedly.
Changes:
1. Add a new 'hash' field to struct rps_dev_flow.
2. Add rps_flow_is_active(): a helper function to check if a flow is
active or not, extracted from rps_may_expire_flow(). It is further
simplified as per reviewer feedback.
3. In set_rps_cpu():
- Avoid overwriting by programming a new filter if:
- The slot is not in use, or
- The slot is in use but the flow is not active, or
- The slot has an active flow with the same hash, but target CPU
differs.
- Save the hash in the rps_dev_flow entry.
4. rps_may_expire_flow(): Use earlier extracted rps_flow_is_active().
Testing & results:
- Driver: ice (E810 NIC), Kernel: net-next
- #CPUs = #RXq = 144 (1:1)
- Number of flows: 12K
- Eight RPS settings from 256 to 32768. Though RPS=256 is not ideal,
it is still sufficient to cover 12K flows (256*144 rx-queues = 64K
global table slots)
- Global Table Size = 144 * RPS (effectively equal to 256 * RPS)
- Each RPS test duration = 8 mins (org code) + 8 mins (new code).
- Metrics captured on client
Legend for following tables:
Steer-C: #times ndo_rx_flow_steer() was Called by set_rps_cpu()
Steer-L: #times ice_arfs_flow_steer() Looped over aRFS entries
Add: #times driver actually programmed aRFS (ice_arfs_build_entry())
Del: #times driver deleted the flow (ice_arfs_del_flow_rules())
Units: K = 1,000 times, M = 1 million times
|-------|---------|------| Org Code |---------|---------|
| RPS | Latency | CPU | Add | Del | Steer-C | Steer-L |
|-------|---------|------|--------|--------|---------|---------|
| 256 | 227.0 | 93.2 | 1.6M | 1.6M | 121.7M | 267.6M |
| 512 | 225.9 | 94.1 | 11.5M | 11.2M | 65.7M | 199.6M |
| 1024 | 223.5 | 95.6 | 16.5M | 16.5M | 27.1M | 187.3M |
| 2048 | 222.2 | 96.3 | 10.5M | 10.5M | 12.5M | 115.2M |
| 4096 | 223.9 | 94.1 | 5.5M | 5.5M | 7.2M | 65.9M |
| 8192 | 224.7 | 92.5 | 2.7M | 2.7M | 3.0M | 29.9M |
| 16384 | 223.5 | 92.5 | 1.3M | 1.3M | 1.4M | 13.9M |
| 32768 | 219.6 | 93.2 | 838.1K | 838.1K | 965.1K | 8.9M |
|-------|---------|------| New Code |---------|---------|
| 256 | 201.5 | 99.1 | 13.4K | 5.0K | 13.7K | 75.2K |
| 512 | 202.5 | 98.2 | 11.2K | 5.9K | 11.2K | 55.5K |
| 1024 | 207.3 | 93.9 | 11.5K | 9.7K | 11.5K | 59.6K |
| 2048 | 207.5 | 96.7 | 11.8K | 11.1K | 15.5K | 79.3K |
| 4096 | 206.9 | 96.6 | 11.8K | 11.7K | 11.8K | 63.2K |
| 8192 | 205.8 | 96.7 | 11.9K | 11.8K | 11.9K | 63.9K |
| 16384 | 200.9 | 98.2 | 11.9K | 11.9K | 11.9K | 64.2K |
| 32768 | 202.5 | 98.0 | 11.9K | 11.9K | 11.9K | 64.2K |
|-------|---------|------|--------|--------|---------|---------|
Some observations:
1. Overall Latency improved: (1790.19-1634.94)/1790.19*100 = 8.67%
2. Overall CPU increased: (777.32-751.49)/751.45*100 = 3.44%
3. Flow Management (add/delete) remained almost constant at ~11K
compared to values in millions.
Signed-off-by: Krishna Kumar <krikku@gmail.com>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20250825031005.3674864-2-krikku@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>
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