On Fri, Dec 2, 2016 at 6:36 AM, Edward Cree <ec...@solarflare.com> wrote: > On 01/12/16 23:46, Tom Herbert wrote: >> The only time we >> _really_ to allocate an skbuf is when we need to put the packet onto a >> queue. All the other use cases are really just to pass a structure >> containing a packet from function to function. For that purpose we >> should be able to just pass a much smaller structure in a stack >> argument and only allocate an skbuff when we need to enqueue. In cases >> where we don't ever queue a packet we might never need to allocate any >> skbuff > Now this intrigues me, because one of the objections to bundling (vs GRO) > was the memory usage of all those SKBs. IIRC we already do a 'GRO-like' > coalescing when packets reach a TCP socket anyway (or at least in some > cases, not sure if all the different ways we can enqueue a TCP packet for > RX do it), but if we could carry the packets from NIC to socket without > SKBs, doing so in lists rather than one-at-a-time wouldn't cost any extra > memory (the packet-pages are all already allocated on the NIC RX ring). > Possibly combine the two, so that rather than having potentially four > versions of each function (skb, skbundle, void*, void* bundle) you just > have the two 'ends'. > Yep, seems like a good idea to incorporate bundling into TXDP from the get-go.
Tom > -Ed
