Re: [RFC PATCH 0/7] Support for virtio-net hash reporting

From: Jason Wang
Date: Tue Jan 12 2021 - 23:08:25 EST



On 2021/1/13 上午7:47, Willem de Bruijn wrote:
On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 3:29 PM Yuri Benditovich
<yuri.benditovich@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 9:49 PM Yuri Benditovich
<yuri.benditovich@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 9:41 PM Yuri Benditovich
<yuri.benditovich@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Existing TUN module is able to use provided "steering eBPF" to
calculate per-packet hash and derive the destination queue to
place the packet to. The eBPF uses mapped configuration data
containing a key for hash calculation and indirection table
with array of queues' indices.

This series of patches adds support for virtio-net hash reporting
feature as defined in virtio specification. It extends the TUN module
and the "steering eBPF" as follows:

Extended steering eBPF calculates the hash value and hash type, keeps
hash value in the skb->hash and returns index of destination virtqueue
and the type of the hash. TUN module keeps returned hash type in
(currently unused) field of the skb.
skb->__unused renamed to 'hash_report_type'.

When TUN module is called later to allocate and fill the virtio-net
header and push it to destination virtqueue it populates the hash
and the hash type into virtio-net header.

VHOST driver is made aware of respective virtio-net feature that
extends the virtio-net header to report the hash value and hash report
type.
Comment from Willem de Bruijn:

Skbuff fields are in short supply. I don't think we need to add one
just for this narrow path entirely internal to the tun device.

We understand that and try to minimize the impact by using an already
existing unused field of skb.
Not anymore. It was repurposed as a flags field very recently.

This use case is also very narrow in scope. And a very short path from
data producer to consumer. So I don't think it needs to claim scarce
bits in the skb.

tun_ebpf_select_queue stores the field, tun_put_user reads it and
converts it to the virtio_net_hdr in the descriptor.

tun_ebpf_select_queue is called from .ndo_select_queue. Storing the
field in skb->cb is fragile, as in theory some code could overwrite
that between field between ndo_select_queue and
ndo_start_xmit/tun_net_xmit, from which point it is fully under tun
control again. But in practice, I don't believe anything does.

Alternatively an existing skb field that is used only on disjoint
datapaths, such as ingress-only, could be viable.


A question here. We had metadata support in XDP for cooperation between eBPF programs. Do we have something similar in the skb?

E.g in the RSS, if we want to pass some metadata information between eBPF program and the logic that generates the vnet header (either hard logic in the kernel or another eBPF program). Is there any way that can avoid the possible conflicts of qdiscs?



Instead, you could just run the flow_dissector in tun_put_user if the
feature is negotiated. Indeed, the flow dissector seems more apt to me
than BPF here. Note that the flow dissector internally can be
overridden by a BPF program if the admin so chooses.

When this set of patches is related to hash delivery in the virtio-net
packet in general,
it was prepared in context of RSS feature implementation as defined in
virtio spec [1]
In case of RSS it is not enough to run the flow_dissector in tun_put_user:
in tun_ebpf_select_queue the TUN calls eBPF to calculate the hash,
hash type and queue index
according to the (mapped) parameters (key, hash types, indirection
table) received from the guest.
TUNSETSTEERINGEBPF was added to support more diverse queue selection
than the default in case of multiqueue tun. Not sure what the exact
use cases are.

But RSS is exactly the purpose of the flow dissector. It is used for
that purpose in the software variant RPS. The flow dissector
implements a superset of the RSS spec, and certainly computes a
four-tuple for TCP/IPv6. In the case of RPS, it is skipped if the NIC
has already computed a 4-tuple hash.

What it does not give is a type indication, such as
VIRTIO_NET_HASH_TYPE_TCPv6. I don't understand how this would be used.
In datapaths where the NIC has already computed the four-tuple hash
and stored it in skb->hash --the common case for servers--, That type
field is the only reason to have to compute again.


The problem is there's no guarantee that the packet comes from the NIC, it could be a simple VM2VM or host2VM packet.

And even if the packet is coming from the NIC that calculates the hash there's no guarantee that it's the has that guest want (guest may use different RSS keys).

Thanks



Our intention is to keep the hash and hash type in the skb to populate them
into a virtio-net header later in tun_put_user.
Note that in this case the type of calculated hash is selected not
only from flow dissections
but also from limitations provided by the guest.

This is already implemented in qemu (for case of vhost=off), see [2]
(virtio_net_process_rss)
For case of vhost=on there are WIP for qemu to load eBPF and attach it to TUN.
Note that exact way of selecting rx virtqueue depends on the guest,
it could be automatic steering (typical for Linux VM), RSS (typical
for Windows VM) or
any other steering mechanism implemented in loadable TUN steering BPF with
or without hash calculation.

[1] https://github.com/oasis-tcs/virtio-spec/blob/master/content.tex#L3740
[2] https://github.com/qemu/qemu/blob/master/hw/net/virtio-net.c#L1591

This also hits on a deeper point with the choice of hash values, that
I also noticed in my RFC patchset to implement the inverse [1][2]. It
is much more detailed than skb->hash + skb->l4_hash currently offers,
and that can be gotten for free from most hardware.
Unfortunately in the case of RSS we can't get this hash from the hardware as
this requires configuration of the NIC's hardware with key and hash types for
Toeplitz hash calculation.
I don't understand. Toeplitz hash calculation is enabled by default
for multiqueue devices, and many devices will pass the toeplitz hash
along for free to avoid software flow dissection.

In most practical
cases, that information suffices. I added less specific fields
VIRTIO_NET_HASH_REPORT_L4, VIRTIO_NET_HASH_REPORT_OTHER that work
without explicit flow dissection. I understand that the existing
fields are part of the standard. Just curious, what is their purpose
beyond 4-tuple based flow hashing?
The hash is used in combination with the indirection table to select
destination rx virtqueue.
The hash and hash type are to be reported in virtio-net header, if requested.
For Windows VM - in case the device does not report the hash (even if
it calculated it to
schedule the packet to a proper queue), the driver must do that for each packet
(this is a certification requirement).
I understand the basics of RSS. My question is what the hash-type is
intended to be used for by the guest. It is part of the virtio spec,
so this point is somewhat moot: it has to be passed along with the
hash value now.

But it is not entirely moot. If most users are satisfied with knowing
whether a hash is L4 or not, we could add two new types
VIRTIO_NET_HASH_TYPE_L4 and VIRTIO_NET_HASH_TYPE_OTHER. And then pass
the existing skb->hash as is, likely computed by the NIC.

[1] https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/netdevbpf/patch/20201228162233.2032571-2-willemdebruijn.kernel@xxxxxxxxx/

[1] https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/netdevbpf/list/?series=406859&state=*
[2] https://github.com/wdebruij/linux/commit/0f77febf22cd6ffc242a575807fa8382a26e511e
Yuri Benditovich (7):
skbuff: define field for hash report type
vhost: support for hash report virtio-net feature
tun: allow use of BPF_PROG_TYPE_SCHED_CLS program type
tun: free bpf_program by bpf_prog_put instead of bpf_prog_destroy
tun: add ioctl code TUNSETHASHPOPULATION
tun: populate hash in virtio-net header when needed
tun: report new tun feature IFF_HASH

drivers/net/tun.c | 43 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------
drivers/vhost/net.c | 37 ++++++++++++++++++++++++-------
include/linux/skbuff.h | 7 +++++-
include/uapi/linux/if_tun.h | 2 ++
4 files changed, 74 insertions(+), 15 deletions(-)

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2.17.1