oxidecomputer / oxidecomputer/opte

Want implementation of Large Receive Offload

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perf
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_in numbers 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

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First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. 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

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