Re: Dropping NETIF_F_SG since no checksum feature.

Michael S. Tsirkin
2006-10-11T00:14:10Z

Quoting r. Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@osdl.org>:
> > > > I'm trying to build a network device driver supporting a very large MTU
> > > > (around 64K) on top of an infiniband connection, and I've hit a couple
> > > > of issues I'd appreciate some feedback on:
> > > >
> > > > 1. On the send side,
> > > > I've set NETIF_F_SG, but hardware does not support checksum
> > > > offloading, and I see "dropping NETIF_F_SG since no checksum feature"
> > > > warning, and I seem to be getting large packets all in one chunk.
> > > > The reason I've set NETIF_F_SG, is because I'm concerned that under
> > > > real life stress Linux won't be able to allocate 64K of continuous
> > > > memory.
> > > >
> > > > Is this concern of mine valid? I saw in-tree drivers allocating at
> > > > least 8K. What's the best way to enable S/G on send side? Is
> > > > checksum offloading really required for S/G?
> > >
> > > Yes, in the current implementation, Linux needs checksum offload. But
> > > there is no reason, your driver can't compute the checksum in software.
> > >
> > I'm worried whether an extra pass over data won't eat up all of
> > the performance gains I get from the large MTU ...
>
> Yup, the cost is in touching the data, not in the copy.

Maybe I can patch linux to allow SG without checksum?
Dave, maybe you could drop a hint or two on whether this is worthwhile
and what are the issues that need addressing to make this work?

I imagine it's not just the matter of changing net/core/dev.c :).

--
MST