Announcement The bufferbloat project [1] is pleased to announce the availability of the debloat-testing Linux kernel git tree: git://git.infradead.org/debloat-testing.git The purpose of this tree is to provide a reasonably stable base for the development and testing of new algorithms, miscellaneous fixes, and maybe a few hacks intended to advance the cause of eliminating or at least mitigating bufferbloat in the Linux world. Introduction Bufferbloat is a term coined by Jim Gettys to describe the increasing prevalence of large and (particularly) unmanaged network buffers along the network links that comprise the Internet [2]. If you are not aware of the problems with network latency under load that the Internet is already encountering, we encourage you to visit Jim Gettys' blog [3]. There Jim has begun to fit together enough puzzle pieces to at least frame the issue. Jim has also made available slides and an audio recording (edited for time) from a presentation on this topic: http://mirrors.bufferbloat.net/Talks/BellLabs01192011/ Kernel Bits The debloat-testing tree is intended to track full and -rc releases from linux-2.6, with interesting patches cherry-picked from net-next and various experimental bits added on top. The current stable of such patches includes the following: Eric Dumazet (based on original work by Juliusz Chroboczek): net_sched: SFB flow scheduler stephen hemminger: sched: CHOKe flow scheduler John Fastabend: net: implement mechanism for HW based QOS net_sched: implement a root container qdisc sch_mqprio John W. Linville: mac80211: implement eBDP algorithm to fight bufferbloat Nathaniel J. Smith: iwlwifi: Simplify tx queue management iwlwifi: Convert the tx queue high_mark to an atomic_t iwlwifi: Invert the sense of the queue high_mark iwlwifi: auto-tune tx queue size to minimize latency iwlwifi: make current tx queue sizes visible in debugfs Dave Taht: Bufferbloat reduction for the e1000 driver that started it all Reduce bufferbloated default for e1000e, increase dynamic range Smash bufferbloat in the ath9k driver Userland Bits Patches for the userspace tc utility incorporating support for both the CHOKe AQM and the Stochastic Fair Blue scheduler (SFB) are available: https://github.com/dtaht/iproute2bufferbloat Contributions Please send any experimental or research-oriented patches related to bufferbloat to the bloat-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx list. Reminders of more mainstream patches that may be relevant and/or interesting for cherry-picking into debloat-testing are welcome there as well. Obviously, patches that are ready for normal merge consideration should continue to be sent to netdev, linux-wireless, linux-kernel, or whatever other existing list is appropriate for them. Thanks Finally, we want to offer a huge thanks to the 130+ new members of the bloat mailing list [4] for leaping into the fray, and to David Woodhouse for hosting the debloat-testing tree at infradead. Please help us beat the bloat. Good luck, and happy debloating! Notes [1] http://bufferbloat.net [2] http://gettys.wordpress.com/what-is-bufferbloat-anyway/ [3] http://en.wordpress.com/tag/bufferbloat/ [4] https://lists.bufferbloat.net -- John W. Linville Someday the world will need a hero, and you linville@xxxxxxxxxxxxx might be all we have. Be ready. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-wireless" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
