b79d7c14f4
Since the introduction of the OF bindings, DSA has always had a policy that
in case multiple CPU ports are present in the device tree, the numerically
smallest one is always chosen.
The MT7530 switch family, except the switch on the MT7988 SoC, has 2 CPU
ports, 5 and 6, where port 6 is preferable on the MT7531BE switch because
it has higher bandwidth.
The MT7530 driver developers had 3 options:
- to modify DSA when the MT7531 switch support was introduced, such as to
prefer the better port
- to declare both CPU ports in device trees as CPU ports, and live with the
sub-optimal performance resulting from not preferring the better port
- to declare just port 6 in the device tree as a CPU port
Of course they chose the path of least resistance (3rd option), kicking the
can down the road. The hardware description in the device tree is supposed
to be stable - developers are not supposed to adopt the strategy of
piecemeal hardware description, where the device tree is updated in
lockstep with the features that the kernel currently supports.
Now, as a result of the fact that they did that, any attempts to modify the
device tree and describe both CPU ports as CPU ports would make DSA change
its default selection from port 6 to 5, effectively resulting in a
performance degradation visible to users with the MT7531BE switch as can be
seen below.
Without preferring port 6:
[ ID][Role] Interval Transfer Bitrate Retr
[ 5][TX-C] 0.00-20.00 sec 374 MBytes 157 Mbits/sec 734 sender
[ 5][TX-C] 0.00-20.00 sec 373 MBytes 156 Mbits/sec receiver
[ 7][RX-C] 0.00-20.00 sec 1.81 GBytes 778 Mbits/sec 0 sender
[ 7][RX-C] 0.00-20.00 sec 1.81 GBytes 777 Mbits/sec receiver
With preferring port 6:
[ ID][Role] Interval Transfer Bitrate Retr
[ 5][TX-C] 0.00-20.00 sec 1.99 GBytes 856 Mbits/sec 273 sender
[ 5][TX-C] 0.00-20.00 sec 1.99 GBytes 855 Mbits/sec receiver
[ 7][RX-C] 0.00-20.00 sec 1.72 GBytes 737 Mbits/sec 15 sender
[ 7][RX-C] 0.00-20.00 sec 1.71 GBytes 736 Mbits/sec receiver
Using one port for WAN and the other ports for LAN is a very popular use
case which is what this test emulates.
As such, this change proposes that we retroactively modify stable kernels
(which don't support the modification of the CPU port assignments, so as to
let user space fix the problem and restore the throughput) to keep the
mt7530 driver preferring port 6 even with device trees where the hardware
is more fully described.
Fixes:
|
||
|---|---|---|
| arch | ||
| block | ||
| certs | ||
| crypto | ||
| Documentation | ||
| drivers | ||
| fs | ||
| include | ||
| init | ||
| io_uring | ||
| ipc | ||
| kernel | ||
| lib | ||
| LICENSES | ||
| mm | ||
| net | ||
| rust | ||
| samples | ||
| scripts | ||
| security | ||
| sound | ||
| tools | ||
| usr | ||
| virt | ||
| .clang-format | ||
| .cocciconfig | ||
| .get_maintainer.ignore | ||
| .gitattributes | ||
| .gitignore | ||
| .mailmap | ||
| .rustfmt.toml | ||
| COPYING | ||
| CREDITS | ||
| Kbuild | ||
| Kconfig | ||
| MAINTAINERS | ||
| Makefile | ||
| README | ||
Linux kernel
============
There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.
In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``. The formatted documentation can also be read online at:
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/
There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.
Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.