Re: [PATCH v3 net 0/4] qbv cycle time extension/truncation

From: Abdul Rahim, Faizal
Date: Thu Dec 28 2023 - 21:15:54 EST


Hi Vladimir,

Sorry for the late reply, was on leave.

On 21/12/2023 9:35 pm, Vladimir Oltean wrote:
(sorry, I started writing this email yesterday, I noticed the
conversation continued with Paolo)

On Wed, Dec 20, 2023 at 11:25:09AM +0800, Abdul Rahim, Faizal wrote:
Hi Vladimir,

No worries, I truly appreciate the time you took to review and reply.

What prompted this in general is related to my project requirement to enable
software QBV cycle time extension, so there's a validation team that created
test cases to properly validate cycle time extension. Then I noticed the
code doesn't handle truncation properly also, since it's the same code area,
I just fixed it together.

We tend to do patch triage between 'net' and 'net-next' based on the
balance between the urgency/impact of the fix and its complexity.

While it's undoubtable that there are issues with taprio's handling of
dynamic schedules, you've mentioned yourself that you only hit those
issues as part of some new development work - they weren't noticed by
end users. And fixing them is not quite trivial, there are also FIXMEs
in taprio which suggest so. I'm worried that the fixes may also impact
the code from stable trees in unforeseen ways.

So I would recommend moving the development of these fixes to 'net-next',
if possible.

Got it, will move it to net-next.

Each time before sending the patch for upstream review, I normally will run
our test cases that only validates cycle time extension. For truncation, I
modify the test cases on my own and put logs to check if the
cycle_time_correction negative value is within the correct range. I probably
should have mentioned sooner that I have tested this myself, sorry about
that.

Example of the test I run for cycle time extension:
1) 2 boards connected back-to-back with i226 NIC. Board A as sender, Board B
as receiver
2) Time is sync between 2 boards with phc2sys and ptp4l
3) Run GCL1 on Board A with cycle time extension enabled:
tc qdisc replace dev $INTERFACE parent root handle 100 taprio \
num_tc 4 \
map 3 2 1 0 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 \
queues 1@0 1@1 1@2 1@3 \
base-time 0 \
cycle-time-extension 1000000 \
sched-entry S 09 500000 \
sched-entry S 0a 500000 \
clockid CLOCK_TAI

Why do you need PTP sync? Cannot this test run between 2 veth ports?
PTP sync is probably not needed, but the test case already has it (I just reuse the test case), I assume it's to simulate a complete use case of a real user.
Let me explore testing using veth ports, haven't tried this before.


4) capture tcp dump on Board B
5) Send packets from Board A to Board B with 200us interval via UDP Tai

What is udp_tai? This program?
https://gist.github.com/jeez/bd3afeff081ba64a695008dd8215866f


Yea the base app looks similar to the one that I use, but the one I use is modified. It's to transmit UDP packets.

6) When packets reached Board B, trigger GCL2 to Board A:
CYCLETIME=1000000
APPLYTIME=1000000000 # 1s
CURRENT=$(date +%s%N)
BASE=$(( (CURRENT + APPLYTIME + (2*CYCLETIME)) - ((CURRENT + APPLYTIME)
% CYCLETIME) + ((CYCLETIME*3)/5) ))
tc qdisc replace dev $INTERFACE parent root handle 100 taprio \
num_tc 4 \
map 3 2 1 0 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 \
queues 1@0 1@1 1@2 1@3 \
base-time $BASE \
cycle-time-extension 1000000 \
sched-entry S oc 500000 \
sched-entry S 08 500000 \
clockid CLOCK_TAI
7) Analyze tcp dump data on Board B using wireshark, will observe packets
receive pattern changed.

Note that I've hidden "Best Effort (default) 7001 → 7001" data from the
wireshark log so that it's easier to see the pattern.

TIMESTAMP PRIORITY PRIORITY NOTES

1702896645.925014509 Critical Applications 7004 → 7004 GCL1
1702896645.925014893 Critical Applications 7004 → 7004 GCL1
1702896645.925514454 Excellent Effort 7003 → 7003 GCL1
1702896645.925514835 Excellent Effort 7003 → 7003 GCL1
1702896645.926014371 Critical Applications 7004 → 7004 GCL1
1702896645.926014755 Critical Applications 7004 → 7004 GCL1
1702896645.926514620 Excellent Effort 7003 → 7003 GCL1
1702896645.926515004 Excellent Effort 7003 → 7003 GCL1
1702896645.927014408 Critical Applications 7004 → 7004 GCL1
1702896645.927014792 Critical Applications 7004 → 7004 GCL1
1702896645.927514789 Excellent Effort 7003 → 7003 GCL1
1702896645.927515173 Excellent Effort 7003 → 7003 GCL1
1702896645.928168304 Excellent Effort 7003 → 7003 Extended
1702896645.928368780 Excellent Effort 7003 → 7003 Extended
1702896645.928569406 Excellent Effort 7003 → 7003 Extended
1702896645.929614835 Background 7002 → 7002 GCL2
1702896645.929615219 Background 7002 → 7002 GCL2
1702896645.930614643 Background 7002 → 7002 GCL2
1702896645.930615027 Background 7002 → 7002 GCL2
1702896645.931614604 Background 7002 → 7002 GCL2
1702896645.931614991 Background 7002 → 7002 GCL2

The extended packets only will happen if cycle_time and interval fields
are updated using cycle_time_correction. Without that patch, the extended
packets are not received.


As for the negative truncation case, I just make the interval quite long,
and experimented with GCL2 base-time value so that it hits the "next entry"
in advance_sched(). Then I checked my logs in get_cycle_time_correction() to
see the truncation case and its values.

Based on your feedback of the test required, I think that my existing
truncation test is not enough, but the extension test case part should be
good right ?

Do let me know then, I'm more than willing to do more test for the
truncation case as per your suggestion, well basically, anything to help
speed up the patches series review process :)


Appreciate your suggestion and help a lot, thank you.

Do you think you could automate a test suite which only measures software
TX timestamps and works on veth?

I prepared this very small patch set just to give you a head start
(the skeleton). You'll still have to add the logic for individual tests.
https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20231221132521.2314811-1-vladimir.oltean@xxxxxxx/
I'm terribly sorry, but this is the most I can do due to my current lack
of spare time, unfortunately.

If you've never run kselftests before, you'll need some kernel options
to enable VRF support. From my notes I have this list below, but there
may be more missing options.

CONFIG_IP_MULTIPLE_TABLES=y
CONFIG_NET_L3_MASTER_DEV=y
CONFIG_NET_VRF=y

Let me know if you face any trouble or if I can help in some way.
Thanks for doing this.

Thank you so much for helping with this self test skeleton ! I'll explore and continue from where you've left. Appreciate it.