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Date:      Sun, 3 Oct 2010 15:13:30 +0200
From:      Luigi Rizzo <rizzo@iet.unipi.it>
To:        FreeBSD Net <net@freebsd.org>, Rui Paulo <rpaulo@freebsd.org>, Juli Mallett <jmallett@freebsd.org>, Ryan Stone <rysto32@gmail.com>, Robert Watson <rwatson@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: mbuf changes
Message-ID:  <20101003131330.GA85551@onelab2.iet.unipi.it>
In-Reply-To: <0DB8120D-C02A-49A1-8013-1ED818EDE7E6@freebsd.org>
References:  <4C9DA26D.7000309@freebsd.org> <AANLkTim7oRyVYY3frn7=cn4Et8Acbcq9cXja_bR6YWvP@mail.gmail.com> <4CA51024.8020307@freebsd.org> <alpine.BSF.2.00.1010021627230.49031@fledge.watson.org> <9AD4923A-72AE-4FE3-A869-3AF8ECBF17E2@FreeBSD.org> <AANLkTi=uxARo5O9MASrx9mg-39E2=x05RXxcKUB62JrB@mail.gmail.com> <0DB8120D-C02A-49A1-8013-1ED818EDE7E6@freebsd.org>

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On Sun, Oct 03, 2010 at 12:29:21AM +0100, Rui Paulo wrote:
> On 2 Oct 2010, at 21:35, Juli Mallett wrote:
> 
> > On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 12:07, Rui Paulo <rpaulo@freebsd.org> wrote:
> >> On 2 Oct 2010, at 16:29, Robert Watson wrote:
> >>> On Thu, 30 Sep 2010, Julian Elischer wrote:
> >>>> On 9/30/10 10:49 AM, Ryan Stone wrote:
> >>>>> It's not a big thing but it would be nice to replace the m_next and m_nextpkt fields with queue.h macros.
> >>>> funny, I've never even thought of that..
> >>> 
> >>> I have, and it's a massive change touching code all over the kernel in vast quantities.  While in principle it's a good idea (consistently avoid hand-crafted linked lists), it's something I'd discourage on the basis that it probably won't significant reduce the kernel bug count, but will make it even harder for vendors with large local changes to the network stack to keep up.
> >> 
> >> I think it could also increase the kernel bug count. Unfortunately, we can't do this incrementally.
> > 
> > Can't we?  What about a union, so that we can gradually convert things
> > but keep ABI and API compatibility?  I mean, as long as we use the
> > right queue.h type, anyway, it should be consistent?  STAILQ,
> > presumably.
> 
> Well, I don't have the layout of the mbuf struct offhand, but it's an idea worth investigating.

what is the point of refactoring part of a struct that no new code is
touching ?

I'd like to keep this discussion on the original topics,
i.e. performance-related issues (make room to embed mtags and other
metadata such as FIB; have flexible per-socket initial padding so
we don't always waste 100+ bytes just because ipv6+ipsec is compiled
in; and so on).
Please open another thread if you want to propose cosmetics or
code refactoring or other unrelated changes

Cheers
luigi




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