iptables/libiptc perf issue: Sorting chain during pull-out

Performance optimize scalability issue:
Sorting chain during pull-out give worst-case runtime O(Chains^2).

When pulling out the blob, every chain name is inserted alphabetically into a linked list (by function iptc_insert_chain()). The problem with this approach is that the chain names delivered in the blob is already sorted (as we push it back to the kernel sorted).

This cause chain parsing to always process every element in the chain list and finish with a tail add. Causing worst-case runtime O(C^2/2) for alphabetically sorting of chains.

The patch solves this by only calling iptc_insert_chain() when creating new chains.

---
 libiptc/libiptc.c |    6 +++---
 1 files changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

index 472b81e..e7ffb01 100644
@@ -420,8 +420,8 @@ static void __iptcc_p_add_chain(TC_HANDLE_T h, struct chain_head *c,
 	c->head_offset = offset;
 	c->index = *num;
 
-	iptc_insert_chain(h, c);
-	
+	list_add_tail(&c->list, &h->chains); /* Its already sorted */
+
 	h->chain_iterator_cur = c;
 }
 

@@ -1791,7 +1791,7 @@ TC_CREATE_CHAIN(const IPT_CHAINLABEL chain, TC_HANDLE_T *handle)
 	}
 
 	DEBUGP("Creating chain `%s'\n", chain);
-	list_add_tail(&c->list, &(*handle)->chains);
+	iptc_insert_chain(*handle, c); /* Insert sorted */
 
 	set_changed(*handle);
 

Applied, thanks a lot.