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Jesper Dangaard Brouer 9fe31b3f31 veth: apply qdisc backpressure on full ptr_ring to reduce TX drops 
[ Upstream commit dc82a33297 ]

In production, we're seeing TX drops on veth devices when the ptr_ring
fills up. This can occur when NAPI mode is enabled, though it's
relatively rare. However, with threaded NAPI - which we use in
production - the drops become significantly more frequent.

The underlying issue is that with threaded NAPI, the consumer often runs
on a different CPU than the producer. This increases the likelihood of
the ring filling up before the consumer gets scheduled, especially under
load, leading to drops in veth_xmit() (ndo_start_xmit()).

This patch introduces backpressure by returning NETDEV_TX_BUSY when the
ring is full, signaling the qdisc layer to requeue the packet. The txq
(netdev queue) is stopped in this condition and restarted once
veth_poll() drains entries from the ring, ensuring coordination between
NAPI and qdisc.

Backpressure is only enabled when a qdisc is attached. Without a qdisc,
the driver retains its original behavior - dropping packets immediately
when the ring is full. This avoids unexpected behavior changes in setups
without a configured qdisc.

With a qdisc in place (e.g. fq, sfq) this allows Active Queue Management
(AQM) to fairly schedule packets across flows and reduce collateral
damage from elephant flows.

A known limitation of this approach is that the full ring sits in front
of the qdisc layer, effectively forming a FIFO buffer that introduces
base latency. While AQM still improves fairness and mitigates flow
dominance, the latency impact is measurable.

In hardware drivers, this issue is typically addressed using BQL (Byte
Queue Limits), which tracks in-flight bytes needed based on physical link
rate. However, for virtual drivers like veth, there is no fixed bandwidth
constraint - the bottleneck is CPU availability and the scheduler's ability
to run the NAPI thread. It is unclear how effective BQL would be in this
context.

This patch serves as a first step toward addressing TX drops. Future work
may explore adapting a BQL-like mechanism to better suit virtual devices
like veth.

Reported-by: Yan Zhai <yan@cloudflare.com>
Signed-off-by: Jesper Dangaard Brouer <hawk@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Toshiaki Makita <toshiaki.makita1@gmail.com>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/174559294022.827981.1282809941662942189.stgit@firesoul
Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>
Stable-dep-of: a14602fcae ("veth: reduce XDP no_direct return section to fix race")
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>
History 2025-12-07 06:24:54 +09:00
arch s390/mm: Fix __ptep_rdp() inline assembly 2025-12-01 11:43:37 +01:00
block blk-crypto: use BLK_STS_INVAL for alignment errors 2025-12-01 11:43:36 +01:00
certs sign-file,extract-cert: use pkcs11 provider for OPENSSL MAJOR >= 3 2024-09-20 19:52:48 +03:00
crypto crypto: essiv - Check ssize for decryption and in-place encryption 2025-10-19 16:33:42 +02:00
Documentation platform/x86: msi-wmi-platform: Fix typo in WMI GUID 2025-12-01 11:43:30 +01:00
drivers
fs xfs: fix out of bounds memory read error in symlink repair 2025-12-01 11:43:39 +01:00
include net: sched: generalize check for no-queue qdisc on TX queue 2025-12-07 06:24:54 +09:00
init init: handle bootloader identifier in kernel parameters 2025-10-19 16:33:50 +02:00
io_uring io_uring/napi: fix io_napi_entry RCU accesses 2025-11-24 10:36:06 +01:00
ipc ipc: fix to protect IPCS lookups using RCU 2025-06-27 11:11:22 +01:00
kernel timers: Fix NULL function pointer race in timer_shutdown_sync() 2025-12-01 11:43:18 +01:00
lib maple_tree: fix tracepoint string pointers 2025-12-01 11:43:39 +01:00
LICENSES LICENSES: add 0BSD license text 2024-09-01 20:43:24 -07:00
mm mm/mempool: fix poisoning order>0 pages with HIGHMEM 2025-12-01 11:43:23 +01:00
net Bluetooth: SMP: Fix not generating mackey and ltk when repairing 2025-12-07 06:24:54 +09:00
rust rust: kbuild: workaround rustdoc doctests modifier bug 2025-11-24 10:36:07 +01:00
samples ftrace/samples: Fix function size computation 2025-09-19 16:35:44 +02:00
scripts kconfig/nconf: Initialize the default locale at startup 2025-12-01 11:43:36 +01:00
security ima: don't clear IMA_DIGSIG flag when setting or removing non-IMA xattr 2025-11-13 15:34:32 -05:00
sound ALSA: usb-audio: fix uac2 clock source at terminal parser 2025-12-01 11:43:37 +01:00
tools tracing/tools: Fix incorrcet short option in usage text for --threads 2025-12-01 11:43:38 +01:00
usr kbuild: uapi: Strip comments before size type check 2025-11-13 15:34:35 -05:00
virt KVM: guest_memfd: Remove bindings on memslot deletion when gmem is dying 2025-11-24 10:36:06 +01:00
.clang-format clang-format: Update with v6.11-rc1's for_each macro list 2024-08-02 13:20:31 +02:00
.clippy.toml rust: give Clippy the minimum supported Rust version 2025-08-01 09:48:44 +01:00
.cocciconfig scripts: add Linux .cocciconfig for coccinelle 2016-07-22 12:13:39 +02:00
.editorconfig .editorconfig: remove trim_trailing_whitespace option 2024-06-13 16:47:52 +02:00
.get_maintainer.ignore Add Jeff Kirsher to .get_maintainer.ignore 2024-03-08 11:36:54 +00:00
.gitattributes .gitattributes: set diff driver for Rust source code files 2023-05-31 17:48:25 +02:00
.gitignore rust: introduce .clippy.toml 2025-03-13 13:01:42 +01:00
.mailmap mailmap: add entry for Thorsten Blum 2024-11-07 14:14:59 -08:00
.rustfmt.toml rust: add .rustfmt.toml 2022-09-28 09:02:20 +02:00
COPYING COPYING: state that all contributions really are covered by this file 2020-02-10 13:32:20 -08:00
CREDITS MAINTAINERS: Remove self from DSA entry 2024-11-03 12:52:38 -08:00
Kbuild Kbuild updates for v6.1 2022-10-10 12:00:45 -07:00
Kconfig kbuild: ensure full rebuild when the compiler is updated 2020-05-12 13:28:33 +09:00
MAINTAINERS MAINTAINERS: Update Alexey Makhalov's email address 2025-05-22 14:29:46 +02:00
Makefile Linux 6.12.60 2025-12-01 11:43:41 +01:00
README README: Fix spelling 2024-03-18 03:36:32 -06:00

README 

Linux kernel
============

There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.

In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``.  The formatted documentation can also be read online at:

    https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/

There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the reStructuredText markup notation.

Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.