[Cerowrt-devel] [Bloat] heisenbug: dslreports 16 flow test vs cablemodems

Mon May 18 05:06:21 EDT 2015

There are conditions when even a single application will suffer from bloat.

For instance, several ABR video players use multiple TCP/HTTP sessions to fetch data. Some of the data boils down to large video chunks, and some of the data boils down to small pieces of control information. Think of a video player in part of the screen and data about the event (racing statistics, let’s say). On a bloaty network, the bulk data builds the network buffer and delays the control traffic. This can impact the user experience…..

Bvs

From: Simon Barber [mailto:simon at superduper.net]
Sent: Monday, May 18, 2015 7:06 AM
To: dpreed at reed.com
Cc: Jim Gettys; Bill Ver Steeg (versteb); cake at lists.bufferbloat.net; Klatsky, Carl; cerowrt-devel at lists.bufferbloat.net; bloat
Subject: Re: [Cerowrt-devel] [Bloat] heisenbug: dslreports 16 flow test vs cablemodems

Even single user, bufferbloat matters. Windows update will kill your Skype call. Without large size aggregates the necessary physical layer per packet overheads caused by the RF medium kill your efficiency and performance. Fairness between users is another issue as well.

Simon
On 5/17/2015 8:30 PM, dpreed at reed.com<mailto:dpreed at reed.com> wrote:

What's your definition of 802.11 performing well?  Just curious.  Maximizing throughput at all costs or maintaing minimal latency for multiple users sharing an access point?

Of course, if all you are doing is trying to do point-to-point outdoor links using 802.11 gear, the issue is different - similar to "dallying" to piggyback acks in TCP, which is great when you have two dimensional flows, but lousy if each packet has a latency requirement that is small.

To me this is hardly so obvious. Maximizing packet sizes is actually counterproductive for many end-to-end requirements.  But of course for "hot rod benchmarkers" applications don't matter at all - just the link performance numbers.

One important use of networking is multiplexing multiple users.  Otherwise, bufferbloat would never matter.

Which is why I think actual numbers rather than "hand waving claims" matter.

On Friday, May 15, 2015 10:36am, "Simon Barber" <simon at superduper.net><mailto:simon at superduper.net> said:

One question about TCP small queues (which I don't think is a good solution to the problem). For 802.11 to be able to perform well it needs to form maximum size aggregates. This means that it needs to maintain a minimum queue size of at least 64 packets, and sometimes more. Will TCP small queues prevent this?

Simon

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On May 15, 2015 6:44:21 AM Jim Gettys <jg at freedesktop.org><mailto:jg at freedesktop.org> wrote:

On Fri, May 15, 2015 at 9:09 AM, Bill Ver Steeg (versteb) <versteb at cisco.com<mailto:versteb at cisco.com>> wrote:
Lars-

You make some good points. It boils down to the fact that there are several things that you can measure, and they mean different things.

Bvs

-----Original Message-----
From: Eggert, Lars [mailto:lars at netapp.com<mailto:lars at netapp.com>]
Sent: Friday, May 15, 2015 8:44 AM
To: Bill Ver Steeg (versteb)
Cc: Aaron Wood; cake at lists.bufferbloat.net<mailto:cake at lists.bufferbloat.net>; Klatsky, Carl; cerowrt-devel at lists.bufferbloat.net<mailto:cerowrt-devel at lists.bufferbloat.net>; bloat
Subject: Re: [Bloat] [Cerowrt-devel] heisenbug: dslreports 16 flow test vs cablemodems

I disagree. You can use them to establish a lower bound on the delay an application over TCP will see, but not get an accurate estimate of that (because socket buffers are not included in the measurement.) And you rely on the network to not prioritize ICMP/UDP but otherwise leave it in the same queues.
On recent versions of  Linux and Mac, you can get most of the socket buffers to "go away".  I forget the socket option offhand.

And TCP small queues in Linux means that Linux no longer gratuitously generates packets just to dump them into the queue discipline system where they will rot.
How accurate this now can be is still an interesting question: but has clearly improved the situation a lot over 3-4 years ago.

> If you can instrument TCP in the kernel to make instantaneous RTT available to the application, that might work. I am not sure how you would roll that out in a timely manner, though.
Well, the sooner one starts, the sooner it gets deployed.
Jim
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