ANNOUNCE: debloat-testing kernel git tree
John W. Linville
linville at tuxdriver.com
Fri Feb 25 17:22:10 EST 2011
Announcement
The bufferbloat project [1] is pleased to announce the availability
of the debloat-testing Linux kernel git tree:
git://git.infradead.org/debloat-testing.git
The purpose of this tree is to provide a reasonably stable base for
the development and testing of new algorithms, miscellaneous fixes,
and maybe a few hacks intended to advance the cause of eliminating
or at least mitigating bufferbloat in the Linux world.
Introduction
Bufferbloat is a term coined by Jim Gettys to describe the increasing
prevalence of large and (particularly) unmanaged network buffers along
the network links that comprise the Internet [2]. If you are not aware
of the problems with network latency under load that the Internet is
already encountering, we encourage you to visit Jim Gettys' blog [3].
There Jim has begun to fit together enough puzzle pieces to at least
frame the issue.
Jim has also made available slides and an audio recording (edited
for time) from a presentation on this topic:
http://mirrors.bufferbloat.net/Talks/BellLabs01192011/
Kernel Bits
The debloat-testing tree is intended to track full and -rc releases
from linux-2.6, with interesting patches cherry-picked from net-next
and various experimental bits added on top. The current stable of
such patches includes the following:
Eric Dumazet (based on original work by Juliusz Chroboczek):
net_sched: SFB flow scheduler
stephen hemminger:
sched: CHOKe flow scheduler
John Fastabend:
net: implement mechanism for HW based QOS
net_sched: implement a root container qdisc sch_mqprio
John W. Linville:
mac80211: implement eBDP algorithm to fight bufferbloat
Nathaniel J. Smith:
iwlwifi: Simplify tx queue management
iwlwifi: Convert the tx queue high_mark to an atomic_t
iwlwifi: Invert the sense of the queue high_mark
iwlwifi: auto-tune tx queue size to minimize latency
iwlwifi: make current tx queue sizes visible in debugfs
Dave Taht:
Bufferbloat reduction for the e1000 driver that started it all
Reduce bufferbloated default for e1000e, increase dynamic range
Smash bufferbloat in the ath9k driver
Userland Bits
Patches for the userspace tc utility incorporating support for both the
CHOKe AQM and the Stochastic Fair Blue scheduler (SFB) are available:
https://github.com/dtaht/iproute2bufferbloat
Contributions
Please send any experimental or research-oriented patches related to
bufferbloat to the bloat-devel at lists.bufferbloat.net list. Reminders
of more mainstream patches that may be relevant and/or interesting
for cherry-picking into debloat-testing are welcome there as well.
Obviously, patches that are ready for normal merge consideration
should continue to be sent to netdev, linux-wireless, linux-kernel,
or whatever other existing list is appropriate for them.
Thanks
Finally, we want to offer a huge thanks to the 130+ new members of
the bloat mailing list [4] for leaping into the fray, and to David
Woodhouse for hosting the debloat-testing tree at infradead.
Please help us beat the bloat. Good luck, and happy debloating!
Notes
[1] http://bufferbloat.net
[2] http://gettys.wordpress.com/what-is-bufferbloat-anyway/
[3] http://en.wordpress.com/tag/bufferbloat/
[4] https://lists.bufferbloat.net
--
John W. Linville Someday the world will need a hero, and you
linville at tuxdriver.com might be all we have. Be ready.
More information about the Bloat-devel
mailing list