netdev - Re: [PATCH 07/17] net: convert sock.sk_refcnt from atomic_t to refcount

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Date:   Wed, 22 Mar 2017 13:11:00 +0100
From:   Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>
To:     Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>
Cc:     Eric Dumazet <eric.dumazet@...il.com>,
        Herbert Xu <herbert@...dor.apana.org.au>,
        David Miller <davem@...emloft.net>,
        "Reshetova, Elena" <elena.reshetova@...el.com>,
        Network Development <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
        bridge@...ts.linux-foundation.org,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Alexey Kuznetsov <kuznet@....inr.ac.ru>,
        James Morris <jmorris@...ei.org>,
        Patrick McHardy <kaber@...sh.net>,
        Stephen Hemminger <stephen@...workplumber.org>,
        Hans Liljestrand <ishkamiel@...il.com>,
        David Windsor <dwindsor@...il.com>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 07/17] net: convert sock.sk_refcnt from atomic_t to
 refcount_t

On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 04:51:13PM -0700, Kees Cook wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 21, 2017 at 2:23 PM, Eric Dumazet <eric.dumazet@...il.com> wrote:

> > Unfortunately there is no good test simulating real-world workloads,
> > which are mostly using TCP flows.
> 
> Sure, but there has to be _something_ that can be used to test to
> measure the effects. Without a meaningful test, it's weird to reject a
> change for performance reasons.

This. How can you optimize if there's no way to actually measure
something?

> > Most synthetic tools you can find are not using epoll(), and very often
> > hit bottlenecks in other layers.
> >
> >
> > It looks like our suggestion to get kernel builds with atomic_inc()
> > being exactly an atomic_inc() is not even discussed or implemented.
> 
> So, FWIW, I originally tried to make this a CONFIG in the first couple
> passes at getting a refcount defense. I would be fine with this, but I
> was not able to convince Peter. :) However, things have evolved a lot
> since then, so perhaps there are things do be done here.

Well, the argument was that unless there's a benchmark that shows it
cares, its all premature optimization.

Similarly, you wanted this enabled at all times because hardening.