netdev - Re: Significant capacity drop on loopback interface

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Date:   Thu, 10 May 2018 07:58:40 -0700
From:   Stephen Hemminger <stephen@...workplumber.org>
To:     Naruto Nguyen <narutonguyen2018@...il.com>
Cc:     netdev@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Significant capacity drop on loopback interface

On Thu, 10 May 2018 15:35:59 +0700
Naruto Nguyen <narutonguyen2018@...il.com> wrote:

> Hello everyone,
> 
> Recently, I used netperf to test the TCP performance on loopback
> interface on my 2 nodes, one is installed kernel 4.4.103 and the other
> is 3.12.61
> 
> netperf -l 100 -t TCP_RR
> netperf -l 100 -t TCP_RR -- -D
> 
> In both cases, I see that the throughput on 4.4.103 is about just 1/2
> in comparing with 3.12.61 node
> 
> # netperf -l 100 -t TCP_RR
> MIGRATED TCP REQUEST/RESPONSE TEST from 0.0.0.0 (0.0.0.0) port 0
> AF_INET to localhost () port 0 AF_INET : first burst 0
> Local /Remote
> Socket Size   Request  Resp.   Elapsed  Trans.
> Send   Recv   Size     Size    Time     Rate
> bytes  Bytes  bytes    bytes   secs.    per sec
> 
> 16384  87380  1        1       100.00   37714.68
> 16384  87380
> 
> 
> netperf -l 100 -t TCP_RR
> MIGRATED TCP REQUEST/RESPONSE TEST from 0.0.0.0 (0.0.0.0) port 0
> AF_INET to localhost () port 0 AF_INET : first burst 0
> Local /Remote
> Socket Size   Request  Resp.   Elapsed  Trans.
> Send   Recv   Size     Size    Time     Rate
> bytes  Bytes  bytes    bytes   secs.    per sec
> 
> 16384  87380  1        1       100.00   64038.41
> 16384  87380
> 
> 
> When running tcpdump to capture all packets in loopback interface, I
> see that during 200s capture, the number of packets on loopback of
> 4.4.103 is double the number of packets in 3.12.61? Could you please
> let me know if it can cause the low throughput as above? Do we have
> any tuning for TCP on loopback to improve the performace (actually the
> low throughput also happens with UDP) or if we have any known
> performance issue in 4.4 kernel on loopback?
> 
> Thanks a lot,
> Brs,
> Naruto

This might just be the increased overhead of KPTI to fix Spectre/Meltdown.
Loopback is very sensitive to syscall overhead.