netdev - Re: [PATCH net-next] net/core: add optional threading for backlog processing

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Date:   Sat, 25 Mar 2023 06:42:43 +0100
From:   Felix Fietkau <nbd@....name>
To:     Jakub Kicinski <kuba@...nel.org>
Cc:     netdev@...r.kernel.org, Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>,
        "David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>,
        Eric Dumazet <edumazet@...gle.com>,
        Paolo Abeni <pabeni@...hat.com>, linux-doc@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next] net/core: add optional threading for backlog
 processing

On 25.03.23 04:19, Jakub Kicinski wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Mar 2023 18:57:03 +0100 Felix Fietkau wrote:
>> >> It can basically be used to make RPS a bit more dynamic and 
>> >> configurable, because you can assign multiple backlog threads to a set 
>> >> of CPUs and selectively steer packets from specific devices / rx queues   
>> > 
>> > Can you give an example?
>> > 
>> > With the 4 CPU example, in case 2 queues are very busy - you're trying
>> > to make sure that the RPS does not end up landing on the same CPU as
>> > the other busy queue?  
>> 
>> In this part I'm thinking about bigger systems where you want to have a
>> group of CPUs dedicated to dealing with network traffic without
>> assigning a fixed function (e.g. NAPI processing or RPS target) to each
>> one, allowing for more dynamic processing.
> 
> I tried the threaded NAPI on larger systems and helped others try,
> and so far it's not been beneficial :( Even the load balancing
> improvements are not significant enough to use it, and there
> is a large risk of scheduler making the wrong decision.
> 
> Hence my questioning - I'm trying to understand what you're doing
> differently.
I didn't actually run any tests on bigger systems myself, so I don't 
know how to tune it for those.

>> >> to them and allow the scheduler to take care of the rest.  
>> > 
>> > You trust the scheduler much more than I do, I think :)  
>> 
>> In my tests it brings down latency (both avg and p99) considerably in
>> some cases. I posted some numbers here:
>> https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/e317d5bc-cc26-8b1b-ca4b-66b5328683c4@nbd.name/
> 
> Could you provide the full configuration for this test?
> In non-threaded mode the RPS is enabled to spread over remaining
> 3 cores?
In this test I'm using threaded NAPI and backlog_threaded without any 
fixed core assignment.

- Felix