Subject: [PATCH 1/10 Rev4] [Doc] HOWTO Documentation for batching

From: Krishna Kumar <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 13:58:58 +0530

Add Documentation describing batching skb xmit capability.

Signed-off-by: Krishna Kumar <[email-masked]>
---
 batching_skb_xmit.txt |   78 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 files changed, 78 insertions(+)

diff -ruNp org/Documentation/networking/batching_skb_xmit.txt new/Documentation/networking/batching_skb_xmit.txt
--- org/Documentation/networking/batching_skb_xmit.txt	1970-01-01 05:30:00.000000000 +0530
+++ new/Documentation/networking/batching_skb_xmit.txt	2007-08-22 10:21:19.000000000 +0530
@@ -0,0 +1,78 @@
+		 HOWTO for batching skb xmit support
+		 -----------------------------------
+
+Section 1: What is batching skb xmit
+Section 2: How batching xmit works vs the regular xmit
+Section 3: How drivers can support batching
+Section 4: How users can work with batching
+
+
+Introduction: Kernel support for batching skb
+----------------------------------------------
+
+A new capability to support xmit of multiple skbs is provided in the netdevice
+layer. Drivers which enable this capability should be able to process multiple
+skbs in a single call to their xmit handler.
+
+
+Section 1: What is batching skb xmit
+-------------------------------------
+
+	This capability is optionally enabled by a driver by setting the
+	NETIF_F_BATCH_SKBS bit in dev->features. The pre-requisite for a
+	driver to use this capability is that it should have a reasonably
+	sized hardware queue that can process multiple skbs.
+
+
+Section 2: How batching xmit works vs the regular xmit
+-------------------------------------------------------
+
+	The network stack gets called from upper layer protocols with a single
+	skb to transmit. This skb is first enqueue'd and an attempt is made to
+	transmit it immediately (via qdisc_run). However, events like tx lock
+	contention, tx queue stopped, etc, can result in the skb not getting
+	sent out and it remains in the queue. When the next xmit is called or
+	when the queue is re-enabled, qdisc_run could potentially find
+	multiple packets in the queue, and iteratively send them all out
+	one-by-one.
+
+	Batching skb xmit is a mechanism to exploit this situation where all
+	skbs can be passed in one shot to the device. This reduces driver
+	processing, locking at the driver (or in stack for ~LLTX drivers)
+	gets amortized over multiple skbs, and in case of specific drivers
+	where every xmit results in a completion processing (like IPoIB) -
+	optimizations can be made in the driver to request a completion for
+	only the last skb that was sent which results in saving interrupts
+	for every (but the last) skb that was sent in the same batch.
+
+	Batching can result in significant performance gains for systems that
+	have multiple data stream paths over the same network interface card.
+
+
+Section 3: How drivers can support batching
+---------------------------------------------
+
+	Batching requires the driver to set the NETIF_F_BATCH_SKBS bit in
+	dev->features.
+
+	The driver's xmit handler should be modified to process multiple skbs
+	instead of one skb. The driver's xmit handler is called either with a
+	skb to transmit or NULL skb, where the latter case should be handled
+	as a call to xmit multiple skbs. This is done by sending out all skbs
+	in the dev->skb_blist list (where it was added by the core stack).
+
+
+Section 4: How users can work with batching
+---------------------------------------------
+
+	Batching can be disabled for a particular device, e.g. on desktop
+	systems if only one stream of network activity for that device is
+	taking place, since performance could be slightly affected due to
+	extra processing that batching adds (unless packets are getting
+	sent fast resulting in stopped queue's). Batching can be enabled if
+	more than one stream of network activity per device is being done,
+	e.g. on servers; or even desktop usage with multiple browser, chat,
+	file transfer sessions, etc.
+
+	Per device batching can be enabled/disabled by passing 'on' or 'off'
+	respectively to ethtool.