[PATCH RFC net-next v2 7/7] net: skbuff: always try to recycle PP pages directly when in softirq

From: Alexander Lobakin
Date: Fri Jul 14 2023 - 13:11:15 EST


Commit 8c48eea3adf3 ("page_pool: allow caching from safely localized
NAPI") allowed direct recycling of skb pages to their PP for some cases,
but unfortunately missed a couple of other majors.
For example, %XDP_DROP in skb mode. The netstack just calls kfree_skb(),
which unconditionally passes `false` as @napi_safe. Thus, all pages go
through ptr_ring and locks, although most of time we're actually inside
the NAPI polling this PP is linked with, so that it would be perfectly
safe to recycle pages directly.
Let's address such. If @napi_safe is true, we're fine, don't change
anything for this path. But if it's false, check whether we are in the
softirq context. It will most likely be so and then if ->list_owner
is our current CPU, we're good to use direct recycling, even though
@napi_safe is false -- concurrent access is excluded. in_softirq()
protection is needed mostly due to we can hit this place in the
process context (not the hardirq though).
For the mentioned xdp-drop-skb-mode case, the improvement I got is
3-4% in Mpps. As for page_pool stats, recycle_ring is now 0 and
alloc_slow counter doesn't change most of time, which means the
MM layer is not even called to allocate any new pages.

Suggested-by: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@xxxxxxxxxx> # in_softirq()
Signed-off-by: Alexander Lobakin <aleksander.lobakin@xxxxxxxxx>
---
net/core/skbuff.c | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/net/core/skbuff.c b/net/core/skbuff.c
index fc1470aab5cf..1c22fd33be6c 100644
--- a/net/core/skbuff.c
+++ b/net/core/skbuff.c
@@ -902,7 +902,7 @@ bool page_pool_return_skb_page(struct page *page, bool napi_safe)
* in the same context as the consumer would run, so there's
* no possible race.
*/
- if (napi_safe) {
+ if (napi_safe || in_softirq()) {
const struct napi_struct *napi = READ_ONCE(pp->p.napi);

allow_direct = napi &&
--
2.41.0