net: call cond_resched() less often in __release_sock()

While stress testing TCP I had unexpected retransmits and sack packets
when a single cpu receives data from multiple high-throughput flows.

super_netperf 4 -H srv -T,10 -l 3000 &

Tcpdump extract:

 00:00:00.000007 IP6 clnt > srv: Flags [.], seq 26062848:26124288, ack 1, win 66, options [nop,nop,TS val 651460834 ecr 3100749131], length 61440
 00:00:00.000006 IP6 clnt > srv: Flags [.], seq 26124288:26185728, ack 1, win 66, options [nop,nop,TS val 651460834 ecr 3100749131], length 61440
 00:00:00.000005 IP6 clnt > srv: Flags [P.], seq 26185728:26243072, ack 1, win 66, options [nop,nop,TS val 651460834 ecr 3100749131], length 57344
 00:00:00.000006 IP6 clnt > srv: Flags [.], seq 26243072:26304512, ack 1, win 66, options [nop,nop,TS val 651460844 ecr 3100749141], length 61440
 00:00:00.000005 IP6 clnt > srv: Flags [.], seq 26304512:26365952, ack 1, win 66, options [nop,nop,TS val 651460844 ecr 3100749141], length 61440
 00:00:00.000007 IP6 clnt > srv: Flags [P.], seq 26365952:26423296, ack 1, win 66, options [nop,nop,TS val 651460844 ecr 3100749141], length 57344
 00:00:00.000006 IP6 clnt > srv: Flags [.], seq 26423296:26484736, ack 1, win 66, options [nop,nop,TS val 651460853 ecr 3100749150], length 61440
 00:00:00.000005 IP6 clnt > srv: Flags [.], seq 26484736:26546176, ack 1, win 66, options [nop,nop,TS val 651460853 ecr 3100749150], length 61440
 00:00:00.000005 IP6 clnt > srv: Flags [P.], seq 26546176:26603520, ack 1, win 66, options [nop,nop,TS val 651460853 ecr 3100749150], length 57344
 00:00:00.003932 IP6 clnt > srv: Flags [P.], seq 26603520:26619904, ack 1, win 66, options [nop,nop,TS val 651464844 ecr 3100753141], length 16384
 00:00:00.006602 IP6 clnt > srv: Flags [.], seq 24862720:24866816, ack 1, win 66, options [nop,nop,TS val 651471419 ecr 3100759716], length 4096
 00:00:00.013000 IP6 clnt > srv: Flags [.], seq 24862720:24866816, ack 1, win 66, options [nop,nop,TS val 651484421 ecr 3100772718], length 4096
 00:00:00.000416 IP6 srv > clnt: Flags [.], ack 26619904, win 1393, options [nop,nop,TS val 3100773185 ecr 651484421,nop,nop,sack 1 {24862720:24866816}], length 0

After analysis, it appears this is because of the cond_resched()
call from  __release_sock().

When current thread is yielding, while still holding the TCP socket lock,
it might regain the cpu after a very long time.

Other peer TLP/RTO is firing (multiple times) and packets are retransmit,
while the initial copy is waiting in the socket backlog or receive queue.

In this patch, I call cond_resched() only once every 16 packets.

Modern TCP stack now spends less time per packet in the backlog,
especially because ACK are no longer sent (commit 133c4c0d3717
"tcp: defer regular ACK while processing socket backlog")

Before:

clnt:/# nstat -n;sleep 10;nstat|egrep "TcpOutSegs|TcpRetransSegs|TCPFastRetrans|TCPTimeouts|Probes|TCPSpuriousRTOs|DSACK"
TcpOutSegs                      19046186           0.0
TcpRetransSegs                  1471               0.0
TcpExtTCPTimeouts               1397               0.0
TcpExtTCPLossProbes             1356               0.0
TcpExtTCPDSACKRecv              1352               0.0
TcpExtTCPSpuriousRTOs           114                0.0
TcpExtTCPDSACKRecvSegs          1352               0.0

After:

clnt:/# nstat -n;sleep 10;nstat|egrep "TcpOutSegs|TcpRetransSegs|TCPFastRetrans|TCPTimeouts|Probes|TCPSpuriousRTOs|DSACK"
TcpOutSegs                      19218936           0.0

Signed-off-by: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Kuniyuki Iwashima <kuniyu@google.com>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20250903174811.1930820-1-edumazet@google.com
Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>

1 files changed, 8 insertions, 4 deletions

diff --git a/net/core/sock.c b/net/core/sock.c
index 02f31f21b4af..1f8ef4d8bcd9 100644
--- a/net/core/sock.c
+++ b/net/core/sock.c
@@ -3165,23 +3165,27 @@ void __release_sock(struct sock *sk)
 	__acquires(&sk->sk_lock.slock)
 {
 	struct sk_buff *skb, *next;
+	int nb = 0;
 
 	while ((skb = sk->sk_backlog.head) != NULL) {
 		sk->sk_backlog.head = sk->sk_backlog.tail = NULL;
 
 		spin_unlock_bh(&sk->sk_lock.slock);
 
-		do {
+		while (1) {
 			next = skb->next;
 			prefetch(next);
 			DEBUG_NET_WARN_ON_ONCE(skb_dst_is_noref(skb));
 			skb_mark_not_on_list(skb);
 			sk_backlog_rcv(sk, skb);
 
-			cond_resched();
-
 			skb = next;
-		} while (skb != NULL);
+			if (!skb)
+				break;
+
+			if (!(++nb & 15))
+				cond_resched();
+		}
 
 		spin_lock_bh(&sk->sk_lock.slock);
 	}