Re: [PATCH net-next v5 0/8] TUN/TAP & vhost_net: netdev queue flow control to avoid ptr_ring tail drop

[Michael S. Tsirkin]

On Wed, Sep 24, 2025 at 04:08:33PM +0800, Jason Wang wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 24, 2025 at 3:42 PM Michael S. Tsirkin <mst@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > On Wed, Sep 24, 2025 at 03:33:08PM +0800, Jason Wang wrote:
> > > On Wed, Sep 24, 2025 at 3:18 PM Michael S. Tsirkin <mst@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Tue, Sep 23, 2025 at 12:15:45AM +0200, Simon Schippers wrote:
> > > > > This patch series deals with TUN, TAP and vhost_net which drop incoming
> > > > > SKBs whenever their internal ptr_ring buffer is full. Instead, with this
> > > > > patch series, the associated netdev queue is stopped before this happens.
> > > > > This allows the connected qdisc to function correctly as reported by [1]
> > > > > and improves application-layer performance, see our paper [2]. Meanwhile
> > > > > the theoretical performance differs only slightly:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > About this whole approach.
> > > > What if userspace is not consuming packets?
> > > > Won't the watchdog warnings appear?
> > > > Is it safe to allow userspace to block a tx queue
> > > > indefinitely?
> > >
> > > I think it's safe as it's a userspace device, there's no way to
> > > guarantee the userspace can process the packet in time (so no watchdog
> > > for TUN).
> > >
> > > Thanks
> >
> > Hmm. Anyway, I guess if we ever want to enable timeout for tun,
> > we can worry about it then.
> 
> The problem is that the skb is freed until userspace calls recvmsg(),
> so it would be tricky to implement a watchdog. (Or if we can do, we
> can do BQL as well).

I thought the watchdog generally watches queues not individual skbs?

> > Does not need to block this patchset.
> 
> Yes.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > MST
> > > >
> >