[PATCH net-next] tcp: ack immediately when a cwr packet arrives

[Lawrence Brakmo <brakmo@fb.com>]

We observed high 99 and 99.9% latencies when doing RPCs with DCTCP. The
problem is triggered when the last packet of a request arrives CE
marked. The reply will carry the ECE mark causing TCP to shrink its cwnd
to 1 (because there are no packets in flight). When the 1st packet of
the next request arrives, the ACK was sometimes delayed even though it
is CWR marked, adding up to 40ms to the RPC latency.

This patch insures that CWR marked data packets arriving will be acked
immediately.

Packetdrill script to reproduce the problem:

0.000 socket(..., SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP) = 3
0.000 setsockopt(3, SOL_SOCKET, SO_REUSEADDR, [1], 4) = 0
0.000 setsockopt(3, SOL_TCP, TCP_CONGESTION, "dctcp", 5) = 0
0.000 bind(3, ..., ...) = 0
0.000 listen(3, 1) = 0

0.100 < [ect0] SEW 0:0(0) win 32792 <mss 1000,sackOK,nop,nop,nop,wscale 7>
0.100 > SE. 0:0(0) ack 1 <mss 1460,nop,nop,sackOK,nop,wscale 8>
0.110 < [ect0] . 1:1(0) ack 1 win 257
0.200 accept(3, ..., ...) = 4

0.200 < [ect0] . 1:1001(1000) ack 1 win 257
0.200 > [ect01] . 1:1(0) ack 1001

0.200 write(4, ..., 1) = 1
0.200 > [ect01] P. 1:2(1) ack 1001

0.200 < [ect0] . 1001:2001(1000) ack 2 win 257
0.200 write(4, ..., 1) = 1
0.200 > [ect01] P. 2:3(1) ack 2001

0.200 < [ect0] . 2001:3001(1000) ack 3 win 257
0.200 < [ect0] . 3001:4001(1000) ack 3 win 257
0.200 > [ect01] . 3:3(0) ack 4001

0.210 < [ce] P. 4001:4501(500) ack 3 win 257

+0.001 read(4, ..., 4500) = 4500
+0 write(4, ..., 1) = 1
+0 > [ect01] PE. 3:4(1) ack 4501

+0.010 < [ect0] W. 4501:5501(1000) ack 4 win 257
// Previously the ACK sequence below would be 4501, causing a long RTO
+0.040~+0.045 > [ect01] . 4:4(0) ack 5501   // delayed ack

+0.311 < [ect0] . 5501:6501(1000) ack 4 win 257  // More data
+0 > [ect01] . 4:4(0) ack 6501     // now acks everything

+0.500 < F. 9501:9501(0) ack 4 win 257

Modified based on comments by Neal Cardwell <ncardwell@google.com>

Signed-off-by: Lawrence Brakmo <brakmo@fb.com>
---
 net/ipv4/tcp_input.c | 9 ++++++++-
 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/net/ipv4/tcp_input.c b/net/ipv4/tcp_input.c
index 91dbb9afb950..2370fd79c5c5 100644
--- a/net/ipv4/tcp_input.c
+++ b/net/ipv4/tcp_input.c
@@ -246,8 +246,15 @@ static void tcp_ecn_queue_cwr(struct tcp_sock *tp)
 
 static void tcp_ecn_accept_cwr(struct tcp_sock *tp, const struct sk_buff *skb)
 {
-	if (tcp_hdr(skb)->cwr)
+	if (tcp_hdr(skb)->cwr) {
 		tp->ecn_flags &= ~TCP_ECN_DEMAND_CWR;
+
+		/* If the sender is telling us it has entered CWR, then its
+		 * cwnd may be very low (even just 1 packet), so we should ACK
+		 * immediately.
+		 */
+		tcp_enter_quickack_mode((struct sock *)tp, 2);
+	}
 }
 
 static void tcp_ecn_withdraw_cwr(struct tcp_sock *tp)
-- 
2.17.1