Re: [PATCH net-next 4/4] xsk: add helper to get &xdp_desc's DMA and meta pointer in one go

Simon Horman
2025-02-10T21:06:51Z

On Mon, Feb 10, 2025 at 05:00:36PM +0100, Alexander Lobakin wrote:
> From: Simon Horman <horms@kernel.org>
> Date: Sun, 9 Feb 2025 11:03:44 +0000
>
> > On Thu, Feb 06, 2025 at 07:26:29PM +0100, Alexander Lobakin wrote:
> >> Currently, when your driver supports XSk Tx metadata and you want to
> >> send an XSk frame, you need to do the following:
> >>
> >> * call external xsk_buff_raw_get_dma();
> >> * call inline xsk_buff_get_metadata(), which calls external
> >> xsk_buff_raw_get_data() and then do some inline checks.
> >>
> >> This effectively means that the following piece:
> >>
> >> addr = pool->unaligned ? xp_unaligned_add_offset_to_addr(addr) : addr;
> >>
> >> is done twice per frame, plus you have 2 external calls per frame, plus
> >> this:
> >>
> >> meta = pool->addrs + addr - pool->tx_metadata_len;
> >> if (unlikely(!xsk_buff_valid_tx_metadata(meta)))
> >>
> >> is always inlined, even if there's no meta or it's invalid.
> >>
> >> Add xsk_buff_raw_get_ctx() (xp_raw_get_ctx() to be precise) to do that
> >> in one go. It returns a small structure with 2 fields: DMA address,
> >> filled unconditionally, and metadata pointer, non-NULL only if it's
> >> present and valid. The address correction is performed only once and
> >> you also have only 1 external call per XSk frame, which does all the
> >> calculations and checks outside of your hotpath. You only need to
> >> check `if (ctx.meta)` for the metadata presence.
> >> To not copy any existing code, derive address correction and getting
> >> virtual and DMA address into small helpers. bloat-o-meter reports no
> >> object code changes for the existing functionality.
> >>
> >> Signed-off-by: Alexander Lobakin <aleksander.lobakin@intel.com>
> >
> > Hi Alexander,
> >
> > I think that this patch needs to be accompanied by at least one
> > patch that uses xsk_buff_raw_get_ctx() in a driver.
>
> This mini-series is the final part of my Chapter III, which was all
> about prereqs in order to add libeth_xdp and then XDP for idpf.
> This helper will be used in the next series (Chapter IV) I'll send once
> this lands.

Understood. If it's going to be used in chapter IV then, given
that we've made it to chapter II, that is fine by me.

> > Also, as this seems to be an optimisation, some performance data would
> > be nice too.
>
> -1 Kb of object code which has an unrolled-by-8 loop which used this
> function each iteration. I don't remember the perf numbers since it was
> a year ago and since then I've been using this helper only, but it was
> something around a couple procent (which is several hundred Kpps when it
> comes to XSk).

Thanks. It might be worth including some of that information in the commit
message, but I don't feel strongly about it.

>
> >
> > Which brings me to my last point. I'd always understood that
> > returning a struct was discouraged due to performance implications.
>
> Rather stack usage, not perf implications. Compound returns are used
> heavily throughout the kernel code when sizeof(result) <= 16 bytes.
> Here it's also 16 bytes. Just the same as one __u128. Plus this function
> doesn't recurse, so the stack won't blow up.

Also understood. It seems my assumptions were somewhat wrong.
So I have no objections to this approach.

> > Perhaps that information is out of date, doesn't apply because
> > the returned struct is so small in this case, or just plain wrong.
> > But I'd appreciate it if you could add some colour to this.
>
> Moreover, the function is global, not inline, so passing a pointer here
> instead of returning a struct may even behave worse in this case.
>
> (and we'll save basically only 8 bytes on the stack, which I don't
> believe is worth it).
>
> Thanks,
> Olek
>