Re: [PATCH v2 5/7] examples/l3fwd: add neon support for l3fwd

["Sekhar, Ashwin" <Ashwin.Sekhar@cavium.com>]

Hi Jianbo,

Thanks for version v2. Addition of the prefetch instructions is
definitely helping performance on ThunderX. But still performance is
slightly less than that of scalar.

I tried few small tweaks which helped improve performance on my
Thunderx setup. For details see comments inline.


On Wed, 2017-05-10 at 10:30 +0800, Jianbo Liu wrote:
> Use ARM NEON intrinsics to accelerate l3 fowarding.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Jianbo Liu <jianbo.liu@linaro.org>
> ---
>  examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_em.c            |   4 +-
>  examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_em_hlm.h        |  19 ++-
>  examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_em_hlm_neon.h   |  74 ++++++++++
>  examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_em_sequential.h |  20 ++-
>  examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_lpm.c           |   4 +-
>  examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_lpm_neon.h      | 165 ++++++++++++++++++++++
>  examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_neon.h          | 259
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  7 files changed, 539 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
>  create mode 100644 examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_em_hlm_neon.h
>  create mode 100644 examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_lpm_neon.h
>  create mode 100644 examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_neon.h
> 
> [...]
> diff --git a/examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_em_hlm.h
> b/examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_em_hlm.h
> index 636dea4..4ec600a 100644
> --- a/examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_em_hlm.h
> +++ b/examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_em_hlm.h
> @@ -35,8 +35,13 @@
>  #ifndef __L3FWD_EM_HLM_H__
>  #define __L3FWD_EM_HLM_H__
>  
> +#if defined(__SSE4_1__)
>  #include "l3fwd_sse.h"
>  #include "l3fwd_em_hlm_sse.h"
> +#elif defined(RTE_MACHINE_CPUFLAG_NEON)
> +#include "l3fwd_neon.h"
> +#include "l3fwd_em_hlm_neon.h"
> +#endif
>  
>  static inline __attribute__((always_inline)) void
>  em_get_dst_port_ipv4x8(struct lcore_conf *qconf, struct rte_mbuf
> *m[8],
> @@ -238,7 +243,7 @@ static inline __attribute__((always_inline))
> uint16_t
>  l3fwd_em_send_packets(int nb_rx, struct rte_mbuf **pkts_burst,
>  		uint8_t portid, struct lcore_conf *qconf)
>  {
> -	int32_t j;
> +	int32_t i, j, pos;
>  	uint16_t dst_port[MAX_PKT_BURST];
>  
>  	/*
> @@ -247,6 +252,12 @@ static inline __attribute__((always_inline))
> uint16_t
>  	 */
>  	int32_t n = RTE_ALIGN_FLOOR(nb_rx, 8);
>  
> +	for (j = 0; j < 8 && j < nb_rx; j++) {
> +		rte_prefetch0(pkts_burst[j]);
The above prefetch of rte_mbuf struct is unnecessary. With this we wont
see any performance improvement as the contents of rte_mbuf (buf_addr
and data_off) is used in right next instruction. Removing the above
prefetch and similar prefetches at multiple places was improving
performance on my ThunderX setup.

> +		rte_prefetch0(rte_pktmbuf_mtod(pkts_burst[j],
> +					       struct ether_hdr *) + 
> 1);
Better to prefetch at eth_hdr itself and not at eth_hdr + 1. In
process_packet in l3fwd_neon.h, eth_header is accessed.

> +	}
> +
>  	for (j = 0; j < n; j += 8) {
>  
>  		uint32_t pkt_type =
> @@ -263,6 +274,12 @@ static inline __attribute__((always_inline))
> uint16_t
>  		uint32_t tcp_or_udp = pkt_type &
>  			(RTE_PTYPE_L4_TCP | RTE_PTYPE_L4_UDP);
>  
> +		for (i = 0, pos = j + 8; i < 8 && pos < nb_rx; i++, 
> pos++) {
> +			rte_prefetch0(pkts_burst[pos]);
The above prefetch of rte_mbuf struct is unnecessary.

> +			rte_prefetch0(rte_pktmbuf_mtod(pkts_burst[po
> s],
> +						       struct
> ether_hdr *) + 1);
Better to prefetch at eth_hdr itself and not at eth_hdr + 1

> +		}
> +
>  		if (tcp_or_udp && (l3_type == RTE_PTYPE_L3_IPV4)) {
>  
>  			em_get_dst_port_ipv4x8(qconf,
> &pkts_burst[j], portid,
> 
> [...]

> diff --git a/examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_em_sequential.h
> b/examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_em_sequential.h
> index c0a9725..c3df473 100644
> --- a/examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_em_sequential.h
> +++ b/examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_em_sequential.h
> @@ -43,7 +43,11 @@
>   * compilation time.
>   */
>  
> +#if defined(__SSE4_1__)
>  #include "l3fwd_sse.h"
> +#elif defined(RTE_MACHINE_CPUFLAG_NEON)
> +#include "l3fwd_neon.h"
> +#endif
>  
>  static inline __attribute__((always_inline)) uint16_t
>  em_get_dst_port(const struct lcore_conf *qconf, struct rte_mbuf
> *pkt,
> @@ -101,11 +105,23 @@ static inline __attribute__((always_inline))
> uint16_t
>  l3fwd_em_send_packets(int nb_rx, struct rte_mbuf **pkts_burst,
>  			uint8_t portid, struct lcore_conf *qconf)
>  {
> -	int32_t j;
> +	int32_t i, j;
>  	uint16_t dst_port[MAX_PKT_BURST];
>  
> -	for (j = 0; j < nb_rx; j++)
> +	if (nb_rx > 0) {
> +		rte_prefetch0(pkts_burst[0]);
The above prefetch of rte_mbuf struct is unnecessary.

> +		rte_prefetch0(rte_pktmbuf_mtod(pkts_burst[0],
> +					       struct ether_hdr *) +
> 1);
Better to prefetch at eth_hdr itself and not at eth_hdr + 1

> +	}
> +
> +	for (i = 1, j = 0; j < nb_rx; i++, j++) {
> +		if (i < nb_rx) {
> +			rte_prefetch0(pkts_burst[i]);
The above prefetch of rte_mbuf struct is unnecessary.

> +			rte_prefetch0(rte_pktmbuf_mtod(pkts_burst[i]
> ,
> +						       struct
> ether_hdr *) + 1);
Better to prefetch at eth_hdr itself and not at eth_hdr + 1

> +		}
>  		dst_port[j] = em_get_dst_port(qconf, pkts_burst[j],
> portid);
> +	}
>  
>  	send_packets_multi(qconf, pkts_burst, dst_port, nb_rx);
>  }
> [...]

> diff --git a/examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_lpm_neon.h
> b/examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_lpm_neon.h
> new file mode 100644
> index 0000000..2f047b3
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_lpm_neon.h
> 
> [...]

> +/*
> + * Buffer optimized handling of packets, invoked
> + * from main_loop.
> + */
> +static inline void
> +l3fwd_lpm_send_packets(int nb_rx, struct rte_mbuf **pkts_burst,
> +			uint8_t portid, struct lcore_conf *qconf)
> +{
> +	int32_t i, j, pos;
> +	uint16_t dst_port[MAX_PKT_BURST];
> +	int32x4_t dip[MAX_PKT_BURST / FWDSTEP];
If you see carefully, we dont need an array of dip. We just need a
single element. dip value is calculated in processx4_step1 and consumed
in processx4_step2, and thats it. No need to save it in an array.

> +	uint32_t ipv4_flag[MAX_PKT_BURST / FWDSTEP];
Same as dip. We dont need an array of ipv4_flag.

> +	const int32_t k = RTE_ALIGN_FLOOR(nb_rx, FWDSTEP);
> +
> +	for (j = 0; j < FWDSTEP && j < nb_rx; j++) {
> +		rte_prefetch0(pkts_burst[j]);
The above prefetch of rte_mbuf struct is unnecessary.

> +		rte_prefetch0(rte_pktmbuf_mtod(pkts_burst[j],
> +					       struct ether_hdr *) +
> 1);
Better to prefetch at eth_hdr itself and not at eth_hdr + 1

> +	}
> +
> +	for (j = 0; j != k; j += FWDSTEP) {
> +		for (i = 0, pos = j + FWDSTEP; i < FWDSTEP && pos <
> nb_rx;
> +		     i++, pos++) {
> +			rte_prefetch0(pkts_burst[pos]);
The above prefetch of rte_mbuf struct is unnecessary.

> +			rte_prefetch0(rte_pktmbuf_mtod(pkts_burst[po
> s],
> +						       struct
> ether_hdr *) + 1);
Better to prefetch at eth_hdr itself and not at eth_hdr + 1

> +		}
> +		processx4_step1(&pkts_burst[j], &dip[j / FWDSTEP],
> +				&ipv4_flag[j / FWDSTEP]);
> +
> +		processx4_step2(qconf, dip[j / FWDSTEP],
> +				ipv4_flag[j / FWDSTEP], portid,
> &pkts_burst[j],
> +				&dst_port[j]);
> +	}
> +
> +	/* Classify last up to 3 packets one by one */
> +	switch (nb_rx % FWDSTEP) {
> +	case 3:
> +		dst_port[j] = lpm_get_dst_port(qconf, pkts_burst[j],
> portid);
> +		j++;
> +		/* fallthrough */
> +	case 2:
> +		dst_port[j] = lpm_get_dst_port(qconf, pkts_burst[j],
> portid);
> +		j++;
> +		/* fallthrough */
> +	case 1:
> +		dst_port[j] = lpm_get_dst_port(qconf, pkts_burst[j],
> portid);
> +		j++;
> +	}
> +
> +	send_packets_multi(qconf, pkts_burst, dst_port, nb_rx);
> +}
> +
> +#endif /* __L3FWD_LPM_NEON_H__ */
> diff --git a/examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_neon.h
> b/examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_neon.h
> new file mode 100644
> index 0000000..75c8976
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/examples/l3fwd/l3fwd_neon.h
> [...]

> +
> +/**
> + * Process one packet:
> + * Update source and destination MAC addresses in the ethernet
> header.
> + * Perform RFC1812 checks and updates for IPV4 packets.
> + */
> +static inline void
> +process_packet(struct rte_mbuf *pkt, uint16_t *dst_port)
> +{
> +	struct ether_hdr *eth_hdr;
> +	uint32x4_t te, ve;
> +
> +	eth_hdr = rte_pktmbuf_mtod(pkt, struct ether_hdr *);
eth_hdr accessed here. Hence the earlier comments about prefetching at
eth header.

> +
> +	te = vld1q_u32((uint32_t *)eth_hdr);
> +	ve = vreinterpretq_u32_s32(val_eth[dst_port[0]]);
> +
> +
> +	rfc1812_process((struct ipv4_hdr *)(eth_hdr + 1), dst_port,
> +			pkt->packet_type);
> +
> +	ve = vsetq_lane_u32(vgetq_lane_u32(te, 3), ve, 3);
Use vcopyq_laneq_u32 for easily doing the above.

> +	vst1q_u32((uint32_t *)eth_hdr, ve);
> +}
> +
> [...]
> +#endif /* _L3FWD_NEON_H_ */

Combining all the above comments, I made some changes on top of your
patch. These changes are giving 3-4% improvement over your version.

You may find the changes at
https://gist.github.com/ashwinyes/34cbdd999784402c859c71613587fafc

Please check it out and let me know your comments.

Thanks
Ashwin