Idea of this patch is to add optional limitation of number of
unsent bytes in TCP sockets, to reduce usage of kernel memory.
TCP receiver might announce a big window, and TCP sender autotuning
might allow a large amount of bytes in write queue, but this has little
performance impact if a large part of this buffering is wasted :
Write queue needs to be large only to deal with large BDP, not
necessarily to cope with scheduling delays (incoming ACKS make room
for the application to queue more bytes)
For most workloads, using a value of 128 KB or less is OK to give
applications enough time to react to POLLOUT events in time
(or being awaken in a blocking sendmsg())
This patch adds two ways to set the limit :
1) Per socket option TCP_NOTSENT_LOWAT
2) A sysctl (/proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_notsent_lowat) for sockets
not using TCP_NOTSENT_LOWAT socket option (or setting a zero value)
Default value being UINT_MAX (0xFFFFFFFF), meaning this has no effect.
This changes poll()/select()/epoll() to report POLLOUT
only if number of unsent bytes is below tp->nosent_lowat
Note this might increase number of sendmsg()/sendfile() calls
when using non blocking sockets,
and increase number of context switches for blocking sockets.
Note this is not related to SO_SNDLOWAT (as SO_SNDLOWAT is
defined as :
Specify the minimum number of bytes in the buffer until
the socket layer will pass the data to the protocol)
Tested:
netperf sessions, and watching /proc/net/protocols "memory" column for TCP
With 200 concurrent netperf -t TCP_STREAM sessions, amount of kernel memory
used by TCP buffers shrinks by ~55 % (20567 pages instead of 45458)
lpq83:~# echo -1 >/proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_notsent_lowat
lpq83:~# (super_netperf 200 -t TCP_STREAM -H remote -l 90 &); sleep 60 ; grep TCP /proc/net/protocols
TCPv6 1880 2 45458 no 208 yes ipv6 y y y y y y y y y y y y y n y y y y y
TCP 1696 508 45458 no 208 yes kernel y y y y y y y y y y y y y n y y y y y
lpq83:~# echo 131072 >/proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_notsent_lowat
lpq83:~# (super_netperf 200 -t TCP_STREAM -H remote -l 90 &); sleep 60 ; grep TCP /proc/net/protocols
TCPv6 1880 2 20567 no 208 yes ipv6 y y y y y y y y y y y y y n y y y y y
TCP 1696 508 20567 no 208 yes kernel y y y y y y y y y y y y y n y y y y y
Using 128KB has no bad effect on the throughput or cpu usage
of a single flow, although there is an increase of context switches.
A bonus is that we hold socket lock for a shorter amount
of time and should improve latencies of ACK processing.
lpq83:~# echo -1 >/proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_notsent_lowat
lpq83:~# perf stat -e context-switches ./netperf -H 7.7.7.84 -t omni -l 20 -c -i10,3
OMNI Send TEST from 0.0.0.0 (0.0.0.0) port 0 AF_INET to 7.7.7.84 () port 0 AF_INET : +/-2.500% @ 99% conf.
Local Remote Local Elapsed Throughput Throughput Local Local Remote Remote Local Remote Service
Send Socket Recv Socket Send Time Units CPU CPU CPU CPU Service Service Demand
Size Size Size (sec) Util Util Util Util Demand Demand Units
Final Final % Method % Method
1651584 6291456 16384 20.00 17447.90 10^6bits/s 3.13 S -1.00 U 0.353 -1.000 usec/KB
Performance counter stats for './netperf -H 7.7.7.84 -t omni -l 20 -c -i10,3':
412,514 context-switches
200.034645535 seconds time elapsed
lpq83:~# echo 131072 >/proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_notsent_lowat
lpq83:~# perf stat -e context-switches ./netperf -H 7.7.7.84 -t omni -l 20 -c -i10,3
OMNI Send TEST from 0.0.0.0 (0.0.0.0) port 0 AF_INET to 7.7.7.84 () port 0 AF_INET : +/-2.500% @ 99% conf.
Local Remote Local Elapsed Throughput Throughput Local Local Remote Remote Local Remote Service
Send Socket Recv Socket Send Time Units CPU CPU CPU CPU Service Service Demand
Size Size Size (sec) Util Util Util Util Demand Demand Units
Final Final % Method % Method
1593240 6291456 16384 20.00 17321.16 10^6bits/s 3.35 S -1.00 U 0.381 -1.000 usec/KB
Performance counter stats for './netperf -H 7.7.7.84 -t omni -l 20 -c -i10,3':
2,675,818 context-switches
200.029651391 seconds time elapsed
Signed-off-by: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>
Cc: Neal Cardwell <ncardwell@google.com>
Cc: Yuchung Cheng <ycheng@google.com>
Acked-By: Yuchung Cheng <ycheng@google.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>