Greetings:
Welcome to v6, see changelog below. This revision includes only
documentation changes: patch 7 has been updated with Bagas' suggestions
and the htmldoc looks better as a result. In addition, this cover letter
has been updated with a full re-run of the test data. We've included a
new test case highlighting a case Sridhar asked about in our v3. See
below.
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. We've added an additional test case, 'fullbusy', achieved by
modifying libevent for comparison. See below for a detailed description,
link to the patch, and test results.
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.
~ Design rationale
The implementation of the IRQ suspension mechanism very nicely dovetails
with the existing mechanism for IRQ deferral when preferred busy poll is
enabled (introduced in commit 7fd3253a7de6 ("net: Introduce preferred
busy-polling"), see that commit message for more details).
While it would be possible to inject the suspend timeout via
the existing epoll ioctl, it is more natural to avoid this path for one
main reason:
An epoll context is linked to NAPI IDs as file descriptors are added;
this means any epoll context might suddenly be associated with a
different net_device if the application were to replace all existing
fds with fds from a different device. In this case, the scope of the
suspend timeout becomes unclear and many edge cases for both the user
application and the kernel are introduced
Only a single iteration through napi busy polling is needed for this
mechanism to work effectively. Since an important objective for this
mechanism is preserving cpu cycles, exactly one iteration of the napi
busy loop is invoked when busy_poll_usecs is set to 0.
~ 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
at least 15 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 are higher than our previous submission, but
the relative differences between variants are equivalent. Because the
patches have been rebased on 6.12, several factors have likely
influenced the overall performance. Most importantly, we had to switch
to a new set of basic kernel options, which has likely altered the
baseline performance. Because the overall comparison of variants still
holds, we have not attempted to recreate the exact set of kernel options
from the previous submission.
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 199954 112 237 415 26 13040 11336
defer10 200K 200002 54 123 142 28 19033 16508
defer20 200K 199985 60 130 153 26 15737 14247
defer50 200K 199968 78 142 181 23 12113 11609
defer200 200K 199997 163 252 304 18 8449 9155
fullbusy 200K 199993 46 117 132 100 43959 23320
napibusy 200K 200006 100 237 275 56 25016 24866
suspend0 200K 200012 105 249 432 29 14369 11844
suspend10 200K 200004 53 123 141 32 19432 16752
suspend20 200K 200014 58 126 151 30 16356 14670
suspend50 200K 200018 73 134 176 26 13245 12416
suspend200 200K 200027 149 250 302 20 9508 9781
testcase load qps avglat 95%lat 99%lat cpu cpq ipq
base 400K 399984 139 268 715 40 9437 9299
defer10 400K 400002 59 133 165 53 14089 12908
defer20 400K 400016 66 140 171 47 12085 11682
defer50 400K 400037 87 161 198 39 9528 9879
defer200 400K 399954 181 273 329 32 7326 8438
fullbusy 400K 399951 50 123 155 100 21990 16097
napibusy 400K 399997 76 221 271 83 18260 16511
suspend0 400K 399991 125 337 768 48 11051 9629
suspend10 400K 399990 57 129 161 54 13629 12841
suspend20 400K 399922 61 135 167 49 12055 11715
suspend50 400K 400024 75 148 186 42 10049 10243
suspend200 400K 399936 154 267 325 34 7770 8677
testcase load qps avglat 95%lat 99%lat cpu cpq ipq
base 600K 600064 148 265 576 61 9276 8757
defer10 600K 599985 71 147 204 76 12048 10863
defer20 600K 600024 75 151 199 66 10572 10328
defer50 600K 600054 94 172 217 55 8584 9144
defer200 600K 600030 200 299 355 45 6874 8189
fullbusy 600K 599956 55 127 176 100 14650 13968
napibusy 600K 599956 64 163 252 96 14022 14153
suspend0 600K 600029 126 306 724 70 10393 8977
suspend10 600K 599997 63 137 194 70 10991 11005
suspend20 600K 600012 67 141 194 65 10108 10359
suspend50 600K 600045 80 157 203 57 8747 9320
suspend200 600K 599940 158 277 344 48 7221 8354
testcase load qps avglat 95%lat 99%lat cpu cpq ipq
base 800K 800025 179 298 555 86 9572 8297
defer10 800K 799275 224 633 1271 96 10679 8904
defer20 800K 800041 114 226 328 90 10122 8917
defer50 800K 799936 118 207 288 77 8820 8607
defer200 800K 799994 228 341 403 65 7424 8130
fullbusy 800K 799964 62 136 192 100 10992 12518
napibusy 800K 799971 65 142 216 99 10911 12529
suspend0 800K 799965 126 250 533 86 9489 8496
suspend10 800K 799995 69 145 201 83 9475 9764
suspend20 800K 799931 74 151 209 79 8976 9336
suspend50 800K 799946 87 168 224 71 7993 8794
suspend200 800K 799993 160 292 357 62 6967 8184
testcase load qps avglat 95%lat 99%lat cpu cpq ipq
base 1000K 915792 3498 5740 6239 97 9388 7930
defer10 1000K 876285 3896 6095 6418 99 9960 8542
defer20 1000K 914909 3107 5771 6283 97 9407 8284
defer50 1000K 928426 2977 5591 5931 97 9214 8012
defer200 1000K 959989 3097 5306 5929 96 8816 7908
fullbusy 1000K 1000102 74 155 213 100 8796 10559
napibusy 1000K 1000006 74 154 216 100 8787 10654
suspend0 1000K 960757 2223 5715 7029 98 8964 7993
suspend10 1000K 999926 80 162 222 92 8246 8922
suspend20 1000K 1000095 85 166 226 89 7966 8719
suspend50 1000K 1000067 96 180 238 84 7476 8419
suspend200 1000K 999968 163 298 363 76 6798 8061
testcase load qps avglat 95%lat 99%lat cpu cpq ipq
base MAX 1054805 4152 5298 5743 100 8332 7890
defer10 MAX 937098 4598 6010 6347 100 9378 8407
defer20 MAX 988905 4389 5637 5990 100 8886 8106
defer50 MAX 1067194 3960 5216 5544 100 8235 7911
defer200 MAX 1054967 4084 5496 5821 100 8323 7871
fullbusy MAX 1248006 3472 3918 3979 100 7050 7919
napibusy MAX 1128384 3742 7958 10753 100 7776 7872
suspend0 MAX 1034456 4242 5668 6042 100 8497 7912
suspend10 MAX 1229229 3513 3926 3986 100 7156 7937
suspend20 MAX 1226845 3514 3939 3985 100 7171 7937
suspend50 MAX 1230757 3513 3935 3983 100 7140 7935
suspend200 MAX 1230424 3503 3934 3984 100 7142 7927
~ 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 ?
Only with difficulty. The epoll ioctl sets options on an epoll
context and the NAPI ID associated with an epoll context can change
based on what file descriptors a user app adds to the epoll context.
This would introduce complexity in the API from the user perspective
and also complexity in the kernel.
- 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@xxxxxxxxxx/
[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/memcached.patch
[6]: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/martinkarsten/irqsuspend/main/patches/libevent.patch
[7]: https://github.com/martinkarsten/irqsuspend
[8]: https://github.com/martinkarsten/irqsuspend/tree/main/results
v6:
- 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@xxxxxxxxxx/
- 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@xxxxxxxxxx/
- 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@xxxxxxxxxx/
- 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@xxxxxxxxxx/
- 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 (5):
net: Add napi_struct parameter irq_suspend_timeout
net: Suspend softirq when prefer_busy_poll is set
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 | 58 +++-
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, 805 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)
create mode 100755 tools/testing/selftests/net/busy_poll_test.sh
create mode 100644 tools/testing/selftests/net/busy_poller.c
base-commit: dbb9a7ef347828870df3e5e6ddf19469a3277fc9
--
2.25.1
