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tcp: Remove some spurious dropped packet profile hits from the passive connection accept path

PATCH In review Rick Jones 4 participants 6 messages Nov 20, 2014

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Rick Jones

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PATCH 1/1 tcp: Remove some spurious dropped packet profile hits from the passive connection accept path

From: Rick Jones <[email protected]>

When a system is the passive accepter of many connections, for example when the target of a netperf TCP_CC or TCP_CRR test, or as say a web server, the discard of the skb containing the TCP SYN being processed for the LISTEN endpoint should be a consume_skb() rather than a kfree_skb() to avoid cluttering a dropped packet profile.

---

perf top -a -g -e skb:kfree_sk output from a system which is the target of a netperf TCP_CC test

before:

- 100.00% 100.00% [kernel] [k] kfree_skb
- kfree_skb
+ 68.68% sk_stream_kill_queues
+ 31.32% tcp_rcv_state_process

after:

- 100.00% 100.00% [kernel] [k] kfree_skb
- kfree_skb

        99.89% sk_stream_kill_queues

Presumably, the consume_skb() versus kfree_skb() could be made conditional on there actually being data in the TCP SYN segment, but the odds of there actually being data seemed low enough to not warrant it.

net/ipv4/tcp_input.c +5 -1
index d91436b..999b0a4 100644
@@ -5624,8 +5624,12 @@ int tcp_rcv_state_process(struct sock *sk, struct sk_buff *skb,
 			 * against this problem. So, we drop the data
 			 * in the interest of security over speed unless
 			 * it's still in use.
+			 *
+			 * 99 times out of 10, there won't actually be any
+			 * data and so we aren't really dropping anything.
+			 * So, we consume_skb() rather than kfree_skb().
 			 */
-			kfree_skb(skb);
+			consume_skb(skb);
 			return 0;
 		}
 		goto discard;
#1 lore raw
Quoted 1 line

+ * 99 times out of 10, there won't actually be any

Minor typo here.. s/10/100.

Vijay

#2 lore raw
In reply to Rick Jones
Quoted 11 lines · Rick Jones

From: Rick Jones <[email protected]>

When a system is the passive accepter of many connections, for example when the target of a netperf TCP_CC or TCP_CRR test, or as say a web server, the discard of the skb containing the TCP SYN being processed for the LISTEN endpoint should be a consume_skb() rather than a kfree_skb() to avoid cluttering a dropped packet profile.

---

So what happens if we really drop the packet ?

TCP stack at this point owns the packet, it is possible to mark a bit in it to either call consume_skb() or kfree_skb()

I attempted this once but gave up because it was a quite intrusive patch...

#3 lore raw
Quoted 9 lines · Eric Dumazet
Quoted 8 lines · Rick Jones

From: Rick Jones <[email protected]>

When a system is the passive accepter of many connections, for example when the target of a netperf TCP_CC or TCP_CRR test, or as say a web server, the discard of the skb containing the TCP SYN being processed for the LISTEN endpoint should be a consume_skb() rather than a kfree_skb() to avoid cluttering a dropped packet profile.

Quoted 5 lines
Quoted 3 lines

---

So what happens if we really drop the packet ?

Do you mean when there is actually data in the SYN?

rick

Quoted 6 lines

TCP stack at this point owns the packet, it is possible to mark a bit in it to either call consume_skb() or kfree_skb()

I attempted this once but gave up because it was a quite intrusive patch...

#4 lore raw
Quoted 1 line · Rick Jones

Do you mean when there is actually data in the SYN?

No, I mean the packet can be _dropped_ here, really.

SYN flood for example.

#5 lore raw
Quoted 7 lines · Eric Dumazet
Quoted 1 line · Rick Jones

Do you mean when there is actually data in the SYN?

No, I mean the packet can be _dropped_ here, really.

SYN flood for example.

Ah. I did not pick-up on that. Seeing the kfree_skb() in the original code I thought it was the end of the line for the segment.

rick