Re: [tcpm] Linux doesn’t implement RFC3465

Yuchung Cheng <ycheng@google.com> Thu, 29 July 2021 20:48 UTC

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From: Yuchung Cheng <ycheng@google.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2021 13:47:42 -0700
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To: Vidhi Goel <vidhi_goel=40apple.com@dmarc.ietf.org>
Cc: Neal Cardwell <ncardwell@google.com>, Mark Allman <mallman@icir.org>, Extensions <tcpm@ietf.org>
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Subject: Re: [tcpm] Linux doesn’t implement RFC3465
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On Thu, Jul 29, 2021 at 1:19 PM Vidhi Goel <vidhi_goel=
40apple.com@dmarc.ietf.org> wrote:

> Well, perhaps.  L=2 was designed to exactly counteract delayed ACKs.
>> So, it isn't exactly a new magic number.  We could wave our hands
>> and say "5 seems OK" or "10 seems OK" or whatever.  And, I am sure
>> we could come up with something that folks felt was fine.  However,
>> my feeling is that if we want to worry about bursts then let's worry
>> about bursts in some generic way.  And, if you have some way to deal
>> with bursts then L isn't needed.  And, if you don't have a way to
>> deal with bursts then a conservative L seems fine.  But, perhaps
>> putting the effort into a generic mechanism instead of cooking yet
>> another magic number we need to periodically refresh is probably a
>> better way to spend effort.
>>
>
> Yes, I very much agree that "putting the effort into a generic mechanism
> instead of cooking yet another magic number we need to periodically refresh
> is probably a better way to spend effort.”
>
>
> I agree that defining such a number doesn’t fully solve the problem but it
> gives some recommendation for implementations that don’t do pacing. So,
> defining a somewhat less restrictive value for L (5 or 10) would be a last
> resort for implementations that don’t pace.
>
How about putting a number 10, and also put all the rationales to follow to
decide a higher or lower value. It's never one-size for all.

Also I believe it's time to move ABC into the standards track, in the era
of (bigger and bigger) stretch ACKs.


> Thanks,
> Vidhi
>
>
>
> On Jul 29, 2021, at 8:19 AM, Neal Cardwell <ncardwell@google.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 29, 2021 at 10:06 AM Mark Allman <mallman@icir.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> >>     (b) If there is no burst mitigation then we have to figure out
>> >>         if L is still useful for this purpose and whether we want to
>> >>         retain it.  Seems like perhaps L=2 is sensible here.  L was
>> >>         never meant to be some general burst mitigator.  However,
>> >>         ABC clearly *can* aggravate bursting and so perhaps it makes
>> >>         sense to have it also try to limit the impact of the
>> >>         aggravation (in the absence of some general mechanism).
>> >
>> > Even if recommending a static L value, IMHO L=2 is a bit
>> > conservative.
>>
>> Well, perhaps.  L=2 was designed to exactly counteract delayed ACKs.
>> So, it isn't exactly a new magic number.  We could wave our hands
>> and say "5 seems OK" or "10 seems OK" or whatever.  And, I am sure
>> we could come up with something that folks felt was fine.  However,
>> my feeling is that if we want to worry about bursts then let's worry
>> about bursts in some generic way.  And, if you have some way to deal
>> with bursts then L isn't needed.  And, if you don't have a way to
>> deal with bursts then a conservative L seems fine.  But, perhaps
>> putting the effort into a generic mechanism instead of cooking yet
>> another magic number we need to periodically refresh is probably a
>> better way to spend effort.
>>
>
> Yes, I very much agree that "putting the effort into a generic mechanism
> instead of cooking yet another magic number we need to periodically refresh
> is probably a better way to spend effort."
>
>>
>> >>   - During slow starts that follow RTOs there is a general
>> >>     problem that just because the window slides by X bytes
>> >>     doesn't say anything about the *network*, as that sliding can
>> >>     happen because much of the data was likely queued for the
>> >>     application on the receiver.  So, e.g., you can RTO and send
>> >>     one packet and get an ACK back that slides the window 10
>> >>     packets.  That doesn't mean 10 packets left.  It means one
>> >>     packet left the network and nine packets are eligible to be
>> >>     sent to the application.  So, it is not OK to set the cwnd to
>> >>     1+10 = 11 packets in response to this ACK.  Here L should
>> >>     exist and be 1.
>> >
>> > AFAICT this argument only applies to non-SACK connections. For
>> > connections with SACK (the vast majority of connections over the
>> > public Internet and in datacenters), it is quite feasible to
>> > determine how many packets really left the network (and Linux TCP
>> > does this; see below).
>>
>> If you have an accurate way to figure out how many of the ACKed
>> bytes left the network and how many were just buffered at the
>> receiver then I see no problem with increasing based on byte count
>> as you do in the initial slow start.
>>
>> (I don't remember what the paper you cite says, but my guess is it's
>> often the case that L=1 is a reasonable substitute for something
>> complicated here.  But, perhaps I am running the simulation in my
>> head wrong ... it has been a while, admittedly!)
>>
>> > Yes, offload mechanisms are so pervasive in practice,
>>
>> I am trying to build a mental model here.  How pervasive would you
>> guess these are?  And, where in the network?  I have assumed that
>> they are for sure pervasive in data centers and server farms, but
>> not for the vast majority of Internet-connected devices.
>>
>
> From my impression looking at public Internet traces, aggregation
> mechanisms that cause TCP ACKs for more than 2 segments are very common. I
> suspect that's because the majority of public Internet traffic these days
> has a bottleneck that is either wifi, cellular, or DOCSIS, and all of these
> have a shared medium with a large latency overhead for L2 MAC control of
> gets to speak next. So a lot of batching happens, both in big batches of
> data that arrive at the client in the same L2 medium time slot, and big
> batches of ACKs that accumulate while the client waits (often several
> milliseconds, sometimes even tens of milliseconds) for its chance to send a
> big stretch ACK or batch of ACKs.
>
> This brings up a related point: even if there is some ABC-style per-ACK L
> limit on cwnd increases, the time structure of most public Internet ACK
> streams is massively bursty because of these aggregation mechanisms
> inherent in L2 behavior on most public Internet bottlenecks (wifi,
> cellular, DOCSIS). So even if there is a limit L that limits the per-ACK
> behavior to be smooth, if there is no pacing of data segments then the data
> transmit time structure will still be bursty because the ACK arrivals these
> days are very bursty.
>
> best regards,
> neal
>
>
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