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From: Jesper Dangaard Brouer <brouer@redhat.com>
To: "Björn Töpel" <bjorn.topel@gmail.com>
Cc: bpf <bpf@vger.kernel.org>,
	brouer@redhat.com, LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
	Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>, Christoph Lameter <cl@linux.com>,
	Dennis Zhou <dennis@kernel.org>
Subject: Re: Percpu variables, benchmarking, and performance weirdness
Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2019 10:34:20 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20191220103420.6f9304ab@carbon> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAJ+HfNgNAzvdBw7gBJTCDQsne-HnWm90H50zNvXBSp4izbwFTA@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, 20 Dec 2019 09:25:43 +0100
Björn Töpel <bjorn.topel@gmail.com> wrote:

> I've been doing some benchmarking with AF_XDP, and more specific the
> bpf_xdp_redirect_map() helper and xdp_do_redirect(). One thing that
> puzzles me is that the percpu-variable accesses stands out.
> 
> I did a horrible hack that just accesses a regular global variable,
> instead of the percpu struct bpf_redirect_info, and got a performance
> boost from 22.7 Mpps to 23.8 Mpps with the rxdrop scenario from
> xdpsock.

Yes, this an 2 ns overhead, which is annoying in XDP context.
 (1/22.7-1/23.8)*1000 = 2 ns

> Have anyone else seen this?

Yes, I see it all the time...

> So, my question to the uarch/percpu folks out there: Why are percpu
> accesses (%gs segment register) more expensive than regular global
> variables in this scenario.

I'm also VERY interested in knowing the answer to above question!?
(Adding LKML to reach more people)


> One way around that is changing BPF_PROG_RUN, and BPF_CALL_x to pass a
> context (struct bpf_redirect_info) explicitly, and access that instead
> of doing percpu access. That would be a pretty churny patch, and
> before doing that it would be nice to understand why percpu stands out
> performance-wise.

-- 
Best regards,
  Jesper Dangaard Brouer
  MSc.CS, Principal Kernel Engineer at Red Hat
  LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/brouer


       reply	other threads:[~2019-12-20  9:34 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 6+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
     [not found] <CAJ+HfNgNAzvdBw7gBJTCDQsne-HnWm90H50zNvXBSp4izbwFTA@mail.gmail.com>
2019-12-20  9:34 ` Jesper Dangaard Brouer [this message]
2019-12-20 15:12   ` Percpu variables, benchmarking, and performance weirdness Tejun Heo
2019-12-20 15:36     ` Christopher Lameter
2019-12-20 17:10       ` Dennis Zhou
2019-12-20 16:22     ` Eric Dumazet
2019-12-20 16:34       ` Tejun Heo

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