Re: [PATCH v5 net-next 06/11] skbuff: remove __kfree_skb_flush()

[Alexander Lobakin]

From: Alexander Duyck <alexander.duyck@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2021 19:28:52 -0800

> On Thu, Feb 11, 2021 at 10:57 AM Alexander Lobakin <alobakin@xxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > This function isn't much needed as NAPI skb queue gets bulk-freed
> > anyway when there's no more room, and even may reduce the efficiency
> > of bulk operations.
> > It will be even less needed after reusing skb cache on allocation path,
> > so remove it and this way lighten network softirqs a bit.
> >
> > Suggested-by: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > Signed-off-by: Alexander Lobakin <alobakin@xxxxx>
> 
> I'm wondering if you have any actual gains to show from this patch?
> 
> The reason why I ask is because the flushing was happening at the end
> of the softirq before the system basically gave control back over to
> something else. As such there is a good chance for the memory to be
> dropped from the cache by the time we come back to it. So it may be
> just as expensive if not more so than accessing memory that was just
> freed elsewhere and placed in the slab cache.

Just retested after readding this function (and changing the logics so
it would drop the second half of the cache, like napi_skb_cache_put()
does) and got 10 Mbps drawback with napi_build_skb() +
napi_gro_receive().

So seems like getting a pointer from an array instead of calling
kmem_cache_alloc() is cheaper even if the given object was pulled
out of CPU caches.

> > ---
> >  include/linux/skbuff.h |  1 -
> >  net/core/dev.c         |  7 +------
> >  net/core/skbuff.c      | 12 ------------
> >  3 files changed, 1 insertion(+), 19 deletions(-)
> >
> > diff --git a/include/linux/skbuff.h b/include/linux/skbuff.h
> > index 0a4e91a2f873..0e0707296098 100644
> > --- a/include/linux/skbuff.h
> > +++ b/include/linux/skbuff.h
> > @@ -2919,7 +2919,6 @@ static inline struct sk_buff *napi_alloc_skb(struct napi_struct *napi,
> >  }
> >  void napi_consume_skb(struct sk_buff *skb, int budget);
> >
> > -void __kfree_skb_flush(void);
> >  void __kfree_skb_defer(struct sk_buff *skb);
> >
> >  /**
> > diff --git a/net/core/dev.c b/net/core/dev.c
> > index 321d41a110e7..4154d4683bb9 100644
> > --- a/net/core/dev.c
> > +++ b/net/core/dev.c
> > @@ -4944,8 +4944,6 @@ static __latent_entropy void net_tx_action(struct softirq_action *h)
> >                         else
> >                                 __kfree_skb_defer(skb);
> >                 }
> > -
> > -               __kfree_skb_flush();
> >         }
> >
> >         if (sd->output_queue) {
> > @@ -7012,7 +7010,6 @@ static int napi_threaded_poll(void *data)
> >                         __napi_poll(napi, &repoll);
> >                         netpoll_poll_unlock(have);
> >
> > -                       __kfree_skb_flush();
> >                         local_bh_enable();
> >
> >                         if (!repoll)
> 
> So it looks like this is the one exception to my comment above. Here
> we should probably be adding a "if (!repoll)" before calling
> __kfree_skb_flush().
> 
> > @@ -7042,7 +7039,7 @@ static __latent_entropy void net_rx_action(struct softirq_action *h)
> >
> >                 if (list_empty(&list)) {
> >                         if (!sd_has_rps_ipi_waiting(sd) && list_empty(&repoll))
> > -                               goto out;
> > +                               return;
> >                         break;
> >                 }
> >
> > @@ -7069,8 +7066,6 @@ static __latent_entropy void net_rx_action(struct softirq_action *h)
> >                 __raise_softirq_irqoff(NET_RX_SOFTIRQ);
> >
> >         net_rps_action_and_irq_enable(sd);
> > -out:
> > -       __kfree_skb_flush();
> >  }
> >
> >  struct netdev_adjacent {
> > diff --git a/net/core/skbuff.c b/net/core/skbuff.c
> > index 1c6f6ef70339..4be2bb969535 100644
> > --- a/net/core/skbuff.c
> > +++ b/net/core/skbuff.c
> > @@ -838,18 +838,6 @@ void __consume_stateless_skb(struct sk_buff *skb)
> >         kfree_skbmem(skb);
> >  }
> >
> > -void __kfree_skb_flush(void)
> > -{
> > -       struct napi_alloc_cache *nc = this_cpu_ptr(&napi_alloc_cache);
> > -
> > -       /* flush skb_cache if containing objects */
> > -       if (nc->skb_count) {
> > -               kmem_cache_free_bulk(skbuff_head_cache, nc->skb_count,
> > -                                    nc->skb_cache);
> > -               nc->skb_count = 0;
> > -       }
> > -}
> > -
> >  static inline void _kfree_skb_defer(struct sk_buff *skb)
> >  {
> >         struct napi_alloc_cache *nc = this_cpu_ptr(&napi_alloc_cache);
> > --
> > 2.30.1

Al