Re: [PATCH v5 2/2] nvme-tcp: allow setting per-queue io_cpu through sysfs

From: Hannes Reinecke

Date: Wed Oct 21 2026 - 03:28:45 EST


On 10/18/26 3:00 AM, Saravanan D wrote:
nvme_tcp_set_queue_io_cpu() picks each queue's io_cpu at connect time
as the least loaded CPU in the queue's blk-mq map group, and all socket
work runs there for the connection's lifetime. This decision falls
short when the host partitions its CPUs after connect time. On a 384
cpu multi tenant host with 128 queue controllers, blk-mq folds three
CPUs into every map group, some groups straddle two tenants' cpusets,
and 9% of nvme_tcp_io_work executions ran outside the submitting VM's
cpuset, seen by the neighbor as steal time.

Expose the io_cpu in each I/O queue's directory

/sys/class/nvme/nvmeX/queues/<qid>/io_cpu

so a control plane that owns CPU placement can set it directly instead
of relying on the driver's heuristic. The attribute accepts a decimal
cpu number, -1 or "unbound". A user assignment, unbound included, is
marked in the queue flags, persists across reconnects and is never
reselected by the driver. The read-only managed attribute reports 1
while io_cpu is driver managed and 0 once the user assigned it. The
accounting of nvme_tcp_cpu_queues applies regardless of who set the
io_cpu.

A queue's directory is added when the queue is allocated and removed
when it is freed, before the queue is torn down, so a sysfs store
never runs on a freed queue. The queues directory is created before
the I/O queues are set up in parallel. All io_cpu writes, from sysfs
and from the driver, serialize with the accounting under
nvme_tcp_cpu_queues_lock, while the I/O paths read io_cpu locklessly.
The queue stop now clears NVME_TCP_Q_IO_CPU_SET under that lock, since
a sysfs store may move io_cpu in between.

nvme_tcp_free_queue() now clears NVME_TCP_Q_IO_CPU_SET and drops its
count, because a queue can still be counted when it is freed. A sysfs
store may have run after the queue stop, or the connect may have
failed, and the setup error path frees such a queue without calling
nvme_tcp_stop_queue(), where the count is normally dropped.

Suggested-by: Sagi Grimberg <sagi@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-nvme/13c160d0-0657-47ce-9a16-58d348267ab0@xxxxxxxxxxx/
Assisted-by: Claude:claude-opus-5-5 [Claude Code]
Signed-off-by: Saravanan D <saravanand@xxxxxxxxx>
---
Documentation/ABI/stable/sysfs-nvme | 29 +++++
drivers/nvme/host/tcp.c | 173 ++++++++++++++++++++++++----
2 files changed, 182 insertions(+), 20 deletions(-)

I think the 'managed' sysfs attribute needs to be per controller, as it
would be extremely awkward to allow some queues to be managed from the
admin and some queues automatically placed.

And I think you need to check for interactions with the existing 'wq_unbound' module option; both claim to do similar things so we
would need to clarify the details here.

And should be we able to specify a cpu _set_ here?

Cheers,

Hannes
--
Dr. Hannes Reinecke Kernel Storage Architect
hare@xxxxxxx +49 911 74053 688
SUSE Software Solutions GmbH, Frankenstr. 146, 90461 Nürnberg
HRB 36809 (AG Nürnberg), GF: I. Totev, A. McDonald, W. Knoblich