Re: Multicast packet loss

[David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>]

From: Eric Dumazet <dada1@cosmosbay.com>
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 09:51:11 +0100

> David, this is a preliminary work, not meant for inclusion as is,
> comments are welcome.
> 
> [PATCH] net: sk_forward_alloc becomes an atomic_t
> 
> Commit 95766fff6b9a78d11fc2d3812dd035381690b55d
> (UDP: Add memory accounting) introduced a regression for high rate UDP flows,
> because of extra lock_sock() in udp_recvmsg()
> 
> In order to reduce need for lock_sock() in UDP receive path, we might need
> to declare sk_forward_alloc as an atomic_t.
> 
> udp_recvmsg() can avoid a lock_sock()/release_sock() pair.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Eric Dumazet <dada1@cosmosbay.com>

This adds new overhead for TCP which has to hold the socket
lock for other reasons in these paths.

I don't get how an atomic_t operation is cheaper than a
lock_sock/release_sock.  Is it the case that in many
executions of these paths only atomic_read()'s are necessary?

I actually think this scheme is racy.  There is a reason we
have to hold the socket lock when doing memory scheduling.
Two threads can get in there and say "hey I have enough space
already" even though only enough space is allocated for one
of their requests.

What did I miss? :)