[Make-wifi-fast] less latency, more filling... for wifi

Tue Oct 17 00:53:36 EDT 2017

I'm confused.  Are you referring to TCP's RTT or some other round trip?  If
something else, what?   How is one way latency measured without clock
synchronization and a common clock domain?

Thanks,
Bob

On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 2:26 PM, Simon Barber <simon at superduper.net> wrote:

> What I mean is for the tool to directly measure minimum round trip, and
> then report one way delay above this separately in each direction. This can
> be done without external time synchronization.
>
> Simon
>
> On Oct 9, 2017, at 2:44 PM, Simon Barber <simon at superduper.net> wrote:
>
> Very nice - I’m using iperf3.2 and always have to figure packets per
> second by combining packet size and bandwidth. This will be much easier.
> Also direct reporting of one way latency variance above minimum round trip
> would be very useful.
>
> Simon
>
> On Oct 9, 2017, at 2:04 PM, Bob McMahon <bob.mcmahon at broadcom.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Not sure if this is helpful but we've added end/end latency measurements
> for UDP traffic in iperf 2.0.10 <https://sourceforge.net/projects/iperf2/>.
>   It does require the clocks to be synched.  I use a spectracom tsync pcie
> card with either an oven controlled oscillator or a GPS disciplined one,
> then use precision time protocol to distribute the clock over ip
> multicast.  For Linux, the traffic threads are set to realtime scheduling
> to minimize latency adds per thread scheduling..
>
> I'm also in the process of implementing a very simple isochronous option
> where the iperf client (tx) accepts a frames per second commmand line value
> (e.g. 60) as well as a log normal distribution
> <https://sourceforge.net/p/iperf2/code/ci/master/tree/src/pdfs.c> for the
> input to somewhat simulate variable bit rates.  On the iperf receiver
> considering implementing an underflow/overflow counter per the expected
> frames per second.
>
> Latency does seem to be a significant metric.  Also is power consumption.
>
> Comments welcome.
>
> Bob
>
> On Mon, Oct 9, 2017 at 1:41 PM, <dpreed at reed.com> wrote:
>
>> It's worth setting a stretch latency goal that is in principle achievable.
>>
>>
>> I get the sense that the wireless group obsesses over maximum channel
>> utilization rather than excellent latency.  This is where it's important to
>> put latency as a primary goal, and utilization as the secondary goal,
>> rather than vice versa.
>>
>>
>> It's easy to get at this by observing that the minimum latency on the
>> shared channel is achieved by round-robin scheduling of packets that are of
>> sufficient size that per packet overhead doesn't dominate.
>>
>>
>> So only aggregate when there are few contenders for the channel, or the
>> packets are quite small compared to the per-packet overhead. When there are
>> more contenders, still aggregate small packets, but only those that are
>> actually waiting. But large packets shouldn't be aggregated.
>>
>>
>> Multicast should be avoided by higher level protocols for the most part,
>> and the latency of multicast should be a non-issue. In wireless, it's kind
>> of a dumb idea anyway, given that stations have widely varying propagation
>> characteristics. Do just enough to support DHCP and so forth.
>>
>>
>> It's so much fun for tha hardware designers to throw in stuff that only
>> helps in marketing benchmarks (like getting a few percent on throughput in
>> lab conditions that never happen in the field) that it is tempting for OS
>> driver writers to use those features (like deep queues and offload
>> processing bells and whistles). But the real issue to be solved is that
>> turn-taking "bloat" that comes from too much attempt to aggregate, to
>> handle the "sole transmitter to dedicated receiver case" etc.
>>
>>
>> I use 10 GigE in my house. I don't use it because I want to do 10 Gig
>> File Transfers all day and measure them. I use it because (properly
>> managed) it gives me *low latency*. That low latency is what matters, not
>> throughput. My average load, if spread out across 24 hours, could be
>> handled by 802.11b for the entire house.
>>
>>
>> We are soon going to have 802.11ax in the home. That's approximately 10
>> Gb/sec, but wireless. No TV streaming can fill it. It's not for continuous
>> isochronous traffic at all.
>>
>>
>> What it is for is *low latency*. So if the adapters and the drivers won't
>> give me that low latency, what good is 10 Gb/sec at all. This is true for
>> 802.11ac, as well.
>>
>>
>> We aren't building Dragsters fueled with nitro, to run down 1/4 mile of
>> track but unable to steer.
>>
>>
>> Instead, we want to be able to connect musical instruments in an
>> electronic symphony, where timing is everything.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Monday, October 9, 2017 4:13pm, "Dave Taht" <dave.taht at gmail.com>
>> said:
>>
>> > There were five ideas I'd wanted to pursue at some point. I''m not
>> > presently on linux-wireless, nor do I have time to pay attention right
>> > now - but I'm enjoying that thread passively.
>> >
>> > To get those ideas "out there" again:
>> >
>> > * adding a fixed length fq'd queue for multicast.
>> >
>> > * Reducing retransmits at low rates
>> >
>> > See the recent paper:
>> >
>> > "Resolving Bufferbloat in TCP Communication over IEEE 802.11 n WLAN by
>> > Reducing MAC Retransmission Limit at Low Data Rate" (I'd paste a link
>> > but for some reason that doesn't work well)
>> >
>> > Even with their simple bi-modal model it worked pretty well.
>> >
>> > It also reduces contention with "bad" stations more automagically.
>> >
>> > * Less buffering at the driver.
>> >
>> > Presently (ath9k) there are two-three aggregates stacked up at the
>> driver.
>> >
>> > With a good estimate for how long it will take to service one, forming
>> > another within that deadline seems feasible, so you only need to have
>> > one in the hardware itself.
>> >
>> > Simple example: you have data in the hardware projected to take a
>> > minimum of 4ms to transmit. Don't form a new aggregate and submit it
>> > to the hardware for 3.5ms.
>> >
>> > I know full well that a "good" estimate is hard, and things like
>> > mu-mimo complicate things. Still, I'd like to get below 20ms of
>> > latency within the driver, and this is one way to get there.
>> >
>> > * Reducing the size of a txop under contention
>> >
>> > if you have 5 stations getting blasted away at 5ms each, and one that
>> > only wants 1ms worth of traffic, "soon", temporarily reducing the size
>> > of the txop for everybody so you can service more stations faster,
>> > seems useful.
>> >
>> > * Merging acs when sane to do so
>> >
>> > sane aggregation in general works better than prioritizing does, as
>> > shown in ending the anomaly.
>> >
>> > --
>> >
>> > Dave Täht
>> > CEO, TekLibre, LLC
>> > http://www.teklibre.com
>> > Tel: 1-669-226-2619 <(669)%20226-2619>
>> > _______________________________________________
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>> > Make-wifi-fast at lists.bufferbloat.net
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>>
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