oxidecomputer / oxidecomputer/opte
Want implementation of Large Receive Offload
Nobody has claimed this yet.
- Dominant language
- Rust
- Stars
- 77
- Forks
- 11
- Avg merge
- 9d 20h
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 8
Description
LRO refers to a host OS or NIC's ability to coalesce multiple packets together, with the aim of reducing the amount of packets processed per second (and delivering larger contiguous data segments to TCP stacks). This can apply to stream transports like TCP, or fragmented UDP reassembly (which is not really applicable on the current dataplane).
Part of the performance boost seen from https://github.com/oxidecomputer/opte/pull/614 comes down to the fact that we are abusing the wider underlay MTU to achieve a form of send-side LRO. Fewer packets transit OPTE (eliding identical parse/decision cycles), and fewer packets are handed upstack to guests/zones.
We have some different options here:
- Attempt optimistic LRO before processing by OPTE. This reduces the cost on packets crossing OPTE (only one parse/process/modify), but when flowstats come around we might need to take some care to prevent the
packet_innumbers from surprising customers. - Attempt optimistic LRO after processing by OPTE. This has minimal impact on stats
In both cases, illumos zones behave well when served larger packets (i.e., NTP and Nexus zones today) and the setup work for #614 means that viona can always accept and split an oversize/receive-offloaded TCP packet, even if the guest cannot.
This will be blocked on having full packet chain Rx from mac (IPD45).
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start by reading IPD45's full packet-chain Rx work and PR #614, since this issue is explicitly blocked on packet-chain Rx from mac. Compare optimistic LRO before and after OPTE processing, including the effect on flowstats and packet_in counts. Done means LRO works with the existing viona oversize-packet handling and remains compatible with illumos zones.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- rust
- Domain
- networking, performance
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 30/100