ppp: ppp_mp_explode() redesign

I found the PPP subsystem to not work properly when connecting channels
with different speeds to the same bundle.

Problem Description:

As the "ppp_mp_explode" function fragments the sk_buff buffer evenly
among the PPP channels that are connected to a certain PPP unit to
make up a bundle, if we are transmitting using an upper layer protocol
that requires an Ack before sending the next packet (like TCP/IP for
example), we will have a bandwidth bottleneck on the slowest channel
of the bundle.

Let's clarify by an example. Let's consider a scenario where we have
two PPP links making up a bundle: a slow link (10KB/sec) and a fast
link (1000KB/sec) working at the best (full bandwidth). On the top we
have a TCP/IP stack sending a 1000 Bytes sk_buff buffer down to the
PPP subsystem. The "ppp_mp_explode" function will divide the buffer in
two fragments of 500B each (we are neglecting all the headers, crc,
flags etc?.). Before the TCP/IP stack sends out the next buffer, it
will have to wait for the ACK response from the remote peer, so it
will have to wait for both fragments to have been sent over the two
PPP links, received by the remote peer and reconstructed. The
resulting behaviour is that, rather than having a bundle working
@1010KB/sec (the sum of the channels bandwidths), we'll have a bundle
working @20KB/sec (the double of the slowest channels bandwidth).


Problem Solution:

The problem has been solved by redesigning the "ppp_mp_explode"
function in such a way to make it split the sk_buff buffer according
to the speeds of the underlying PPP channels (the speeds of the serial
interfaces respectively attached to the PPP channels). Referring to
the above example, the redesigned "ppp_mp_explode" function will now
divide the 1000 Bytes buffer into two fragments whose sizes are set
according to the speeds of the channels where they are going to be
sent on (e.g .  10 Byets on 10KB/sec channel and 990 Bytes on
1000KB/sec channel).  The reworked function grants the same
performances of the original one in optimal working conditions (i.e. a
bundle made up of PPP links all working at the same speed), while
greatly improving performances on the bundles made up of channels
working at different speeds.

Signed-off-by: Gabriele Paoloni <gabriele.paoloni@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>

1 files changed, 1 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/include/linux/ppp_channel.h b/include/linux/ppp_channel.h
index 9d64bdf1477..0d3fa63e90e 100644
--- a/include/linux/ppp_channel.h
+++ b/include/linux/ppp_channel.h
@@ -40,8 +40,8 @@ struct ppp_channel {
 	int		mtu;		/* max transmit packet size */
 	int		hdrlen;		/* amount of headroom channel needs */
 	void		*ppp;		/* opaque to channel */
-	/* the following are not used at present */
 	int		speed;		/* transfer rate (bytes/second) */
+	/* the following is not used at present */
 	int		latency;	/* overhead time in milliseconds */
 };