netdev - Re: [RFC 0/7] Add support to process rx packets in thread

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Date:   Tue, 21 Jul 2020 19:25:14 +0200
From:   Andrew Lunn <andrew@...n.ch>
To:     Rakesh Pillai <pillair@...eaurora.org>
Cc:     ath10k@...ts.infradead.org, linux-wireless@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, kvalo@...eaurora.org,
        johannes@...solutions.net, davem@...emloft.net, kuba@...nel.org,
        netdev@...r.kernel.org, dianders@...omium.org, evgreen@...omium.org
Subject: Re: [RFC 0/7] Add support to process rx packets in thread

On Tue, Jul 21, 2020 at 10:44:19PM +0530, Rakesh Pillai wrote:
> NAPI gets scheduled on the CPU core which got the
> interrupt. The linux scheduler cannot move it to a
> different core, even if the CPU on which NAPI is running
> is heavily loaded. This can lead to degraded wifi
> performance when running traffic at peak data rates.
> 
> A thread on the other hand can be moved to different
> CPU cores, if the one on which its running is heavily
> loaded. During high incoming data traffic, this gives
> better performance, since the thread can be moved to a
> less loaded or sometimes even a more powerful CPU core
> to account for the required CPU performance in order
> to process the incoming packets.
> 
> This patch series adds the support to use a high priority
> thread to process the incoming packets, as opposed to
> everything being done in NAPI context.

I don't see why this problem is limited to the ath10k driver. I expect
it applies to all drivers using NAPI. So shouldn't you be solving this
in the NAPI core? Allow a driver to request the NAPI core uses a
thread?

	Andrew