[PATCH V2 0/3] basic busy polling support for vhost_net

[Jason Wang]

Hi all:

This series tries to add basic busy polling for vhost net. The idea is
simple: at the end of tx/rx processing, busy polling for new tx added
descriptor and rx receive socket for a while. The maximum number of
time (in us) could be spent on busy polling was specified ioctl.

Test A were done through:

- 50 us as busy loop timeout
- Netperf 2.6
- Two machines with back to back connected ixgbe
- Guest with 1 vcpu and 1 queue

Results:
- For stream workload, ioexits were reduced dramatically in medium
size (1024-2048) of tx (at most -43%) and almost all rx (at most
-84%) as a result of polling. This compensate for the possible
wasted cpu cycles more or less. That porbably why we can still see
some increasing in the normalized throughput in some cases.
- Throughput of tx were increased (at most 50%) expect for the huge
write (16384). And we can send more packets in the case (+tpkts were
increased).
- Very minor rx regression in some cases.
- Improvemnt on TCP_RR (at most 17%).

Guest TX:
size/session/+thu%/+normalize%/+tpkts%/+rpkts%/+ioexits%/
64/ 1/ +18%/ -10%/ +7%/ +11%/ 0%
64/ 2/ +14%/ -13%/ +7%/ +10%/ 0%
64/ 4/ +8%/ -17%/ +7%/ +9%/ 0%
64/ 8/ +11%/ -15%/ +7%/ +10%/ 0%
256/ 1/ +35%/ +9%/ +21%/ +12%/ -11%
256/ 2/ +26%/ +2%/ +20%/ +9%/ -10%
256/ 4/ +23%/ 0%/ +21%/ +10%/ -9%
256/ 8/ +23%/ 0%/ +21%/ +9%/ -9%
512/ 1/ +31%/ +9%/ +23%/ +18%/ -12%
512/ 2/ +30%/ +8%/ +24%/ +15%/ -10%
512/ 4/ +26%/ +5%/ +24%/ +14%/ -11%
512/ 8/ +32%/ +9%/ +23%/ +15%/ -11%
1024/ 1/ +39%/ +16%/ +29%/ +22%/ -26%
1024/ 2/ +35%/ +14%/ +30%/ +21%/ -22%
1024/ 4/ +34%/ +13%/ +32%/ +21%/ -25%
1024/ 8/ +36%/ +14%/ +32%/ +19%/ -26%
2048/ 1/ +50%/ +27%/ +34%/ +26%/ -42%
2048/ 2/ +43%/ +21%/ +36%/ +25%/ -43%
2048/ 4/ +41%/ +20%/ +37%/ +27%/ -43%
2048/ 8/ +40%/ +18%/ +35%/ +25%/ -42%
16384/ 1/ 0%/ -12%/ -1%/ +8%/ +15%
16384/ 2/ 0%/ -10%/ +1%/ +4%/ +5%
16384/ 4/ 0%/ -11%/ -3%/ 0%/ +3%
16384/ 8/ 0%/ -10%/ -4%/ 0%/ +1%

Guest RX:
size/session/+thu%/+normalize%/+tpkts%/+rpkts%/+ioexits%/
64/ 1/ -2%/ -21%/ +1%/ +2%/ -75%
64/ 2/ +1%/ -9%/ +12%/ 0%/ -55%
64/ 4/ 0%/ -6%/ +5%/ -1%/ -44%
64/ 8/ -5%/ -5%/ +7%/ -23%/ -50%
256/ 1/ -8%/ -18%/ +16%/ +15%/ -63%
256/ 2/ 0%/ -8%/ +9%/ -2%/ -26%
256/ 4/ 0%/ -7%/ -8%/ +20%/ -41%
256/ 8/ -8%/ -11%/ -9%/ -24%/ -78%
512/ 1/ -6%/ -19%/ +20%/ +18%/ -29%
512/ 2/ 0%/ -10%/ -14%/ -8%/ -31%
512/ 4/ -1%/ -5%/ -11%/ -9%/ -38%
512/ 8/ -7%/ -9%/ -17%/ -22%/ -81%
1024/ 1/ 0%/ -16%/ +12%/ +9%/ -11%
1024/ 2/ 0%/ -11%/ 0%/ +3%/ -30%
1024/ 4/ 0%/ -4%/ +2%/ +6%/ -15%
1024/ 8/ -3%/ -4%/ -8%/ -8%/ -70%
2048/ 1/ -8%/ -23%/ +36%/ +22%/ -11%
2048/ 2/ 0%/ -12%/ +1%/ +3%/ -29%
2048/ 4/ 0%/ -3%/ -17%/ -15%/ -84%
2048/ 8/ 0%/ -3%/ +1%/ -3%/ +10%
16384/ 1/ 0%/ -11%/ +4%/ +7%/ -22%
16384/ 2/ 0%/ -7%/ +4%/ +4%/ -33%
16384/ 4/ 0%/ -2%/ -2%/ -4%/ -23%
16384/ 8/ -1%/ -2%/ +1%/ -22%/ -40%

TCP_RR:
size/session/+thu%/+normalize%/+tpkts%/+rpkts%/+ioexits%/
1/ 1/ +11%/ -26%/ +11%/ +11%/ +10%
1/ 25/ +11%/ -15%/ +11%/ +11%/ 0%
1/ 50/ +9%/ -16%/ +10%/ +10%/ 0%
1/ 100/ +9%/ -15%/ +9%/ +9%/ 0%
64/ 1/ +11%/ -31%/ +11%/ +11%/ +11%
64/ 25/ +12%/ -14%/ +12%/ +12%/ 0%
64/ 50/ +11%/ -14%/ +12%/ +12%/ 0%
64/ 100/ +11%/ -15%/ +11%/ +11%/ 0%
256/ 1/ +11%/ -27%/ +11%/ +11%/ +10%
256/ 25/ +17%/ -11%/ +16%/ +16%/ -1%
256/ 50/ +16%/ -11%/ +17%/ +17%/ +1%
256/ 100/ +17%/ -11%/ +18%/ +18%/ +1%

Test B were done through:

- 50us as busy loop timeout
- Netperf 2.6
- Two machines with back to back connected ixgbe
- Two guests each wich 1 vcpu and 1 queue
- pin two vhost threads to the same cpu on host to simulate the cpu
contending

Results:
- In this radical case, we can still get at most 14% improvement on
TCP_RR.
- For guest tx stream, minor improvemnt with at most 5% regression in
one byte case. For guest rx stream, at most 5% regression were seen.

Guest TX:
size /-+% /
1 /-5.55%/
64 /+1.11%/
256 /+2.33%/
512 /-0.03%/
1024 /+1.14%/
4096 /+0.00%/
16384/+0.00%/

Guest RX:
size /-+% /
1 /-5.11%/
64 /-0.55%/
256 /-2.35%/
512 /-3.39%/
1024 /+6.8% /
4096 /-0.01%/
16384/+0.00%/

TCP_RR:
size /-+% /
1 /+9.79% /
64 /+4.51% /
256 /+6.47% /
512 /-3.37% /
1024 /+6.15% /
4096 /+14.88%/
16384/-2.23% /

Changes from V1:
- Remove the buggy vq_error() in vhost_vq_more_avail().
- Leave vhost_enable_notify() untouched.

Changes from RFC V3:
- small tweak on the code to avoid multiple duplicate conditions in
critical path when busy loop is not enabled.
- Add the test result of multiple VMs

Changes from RFC V2:
- poll also at the end of rx handling
- factor out the polling logic and optimize the code a little bit
- add two ioctls to get and set the busy poll timeout
- test on ixgbe (which can give more stable and reproducable numbers)
instead of mlx4.

Changes from RFC V1:
- Add a comment for vhost_has_work() to explain why it could be
lockless
- Add param description for busyloop_timeout
- Split out the busy polling logic into a new helper
- Check and exit the loop when there's a pending signal
- Disable preemption during busy looping to make sure lock_clock() was
correctly used. 

Jason Wang (3):
  vhost: introduce vhost_has_work()
  vhost: introduce vhost_vq_more_avail()
  vhost_net: basic polling support

 drivers/vhost/net.c        | 72 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----
 drivers/vhost/vhost.c      | 35 ++++++++++++++++++++++
 drivers/vhost/vhost.h      |  3 ++
 include/uapi/linux/vhost.h | 11 +++++++
 4 files changed, 116 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

-- 
2.5.0

--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/