kcm: Add description in Documentation

Add kcm.txt to desribe KCM and interfaces.

Signed-off-by: Tom Herbert <tom@herbertland.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>

1 files changed, 285 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/networking/kcm.txt b/Documentation/networking/kcm.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3476ede
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/networking/kcm.txt
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+Kernel Connection Mulitplexor
+-----------------------------
+
+Kernel Connection Multiplexor (KCM) is a mechanism that provides a message based
+interface over TCP for generic application protocols. With KCM an application
+can efficiently send and receive application protocol messages over TCP using
+datagram sockets.
+
+KCM implements an NxM multiplexor in the kernel as diagrammed below:
+
++------------+   +------------+   +------------+   +------------+
+| KCM socket |   | KCM socket |   | KCM socket |   | KCM socket |
++------------+   +------------+   +------------+   +------------+
+      |                 |               |                |
+      +-----------+     |               |     +----------+
+                  |     |               |     |
+               +----------------------------------+
+               |           Multiplexor            |
+               +----------------------------------+
+                 |   |           |           |  |
+       +---------+   |           |           |  ------------+
+       |             |           |           |              |
++----------+  +----------+  +----------+  +----------+ +----------+
+|  Psock   |  |  Psock   |  |  Psock   |  |  Psock   | |  Psock   |
++----------+  +----------+  +----------+  +----------+ +----------+
+      |              |           |            |             |
++----------+  +----------+  +----------+  +----------+ +----------+
+| TCP sock |  | TCP sock |  | TCP sock |  | TCP sock | | TCP sock |
++----------+  +----------+  +----------+  +----------+ +----------+
+
+KCM sockets
+-----------
+
+The KCM sockets provide the user interface to the muliplexor. All the KCM sockets
+bound to a multiplexor are considered to have equivalent function, and I/O
+operations in different sockets may be done in parallel without the need for
+synchronization between threads in userspace.
+
+Multiplexor
+-----------
+
+The multiplexor provides the message steering. In the transmit path, messages
+written on a KCM socket are sent atomically on an appropriate TCP socket.
+Similarly, in the receive path, messages are constructed on each TCP socket
+(Psock) and complete messages are steered to a KCM socket.
+
+TCP sockets & Psocks
+--------------------
+
+TCP sockets may be bound to a KCM multiplexor. A Psock structure is allocated
+for each bound TCP socket, this structure holds the state for constructing
+messages on receive as well as other connection specific information for KCM.
+
+Connected mode semantics
+------------------------
+
+Each multiplexor assumes that all attached TCP connections are to the same
+destination and can use the different connections for load balancing when
+transmitting. The normal send and recv calls (include sendmmsg and recvmmsg)
+can be used to send and receive messages from the KCM socket.
+
+Socket types
+------------
+
+KCM supports SOCK_DGRAM and SOCK_SEQPACKET socket types.
+
+Message delineation
+-------------------
+
+Messages are sent over a TCP stream with some application protocol message
+format that typically includes a header which frames the messages. The length
+of a received message can be deduced from the application protocol header
+(often just a simple length field).
+
+A TCP stream must be parsed to determine message boundaries. Berkeley Packet
+Filter (BPF) is used for this. When attaching a TCP socket to a multiplexor a
+BPF program must be specified. The program is called at the start of receiving
+a new message and is given an skbuff that contains the bytes received so far.
+It parses the message header and returns the length of the message. Given this
+information, KCM will construct the message of the stated length and deliver it
+to a KCM socket.
+
+TCP socket management
+---------------------
+
+When a TCP socket is attached to a KCM multiplexor data ready (POLLIN) and
+write space available (POLLOUT) events are handled by the multiplexor. If there
+is a state change (disconnection) or other error on a TCP socket, an error is
+posted on the TCP socket so that a POLLERR event happens and KCM discontinues
+using the socket. When the application gets the error notification for a
+TCP socket, it should unattach the socket from KCM and then handle the error
+condition (the typical response is to close the socket and create a new
+connection if necessary).
+
+KCM limits the maximum receive message size to be the size of the receive
+socket buffer on the attached TCP socket (the socket buffer size can be set by
+SO_RCVBUF). If the length of a new message reported by the BPF program is
+greater than this limit a corresponding error (EMSGSIZE) is posted on the TCP
+socket. The BPF program may also enforce a maximum messages size and report an
+error when it is exceeded.
+
+A timeout may be set for assembling messages on a receive socket. The timeout
+value is taken from the receive timeout of the attached TCP socket (this is set
+by SO_RCVTIMEO). If the timer expires before assembly is complete an error
+(ETIMEDOUT) is posted on the socket.
+
+User interface
+==============
+
+Creating a multiplexor
+----------------------
+
+A new multiplexor and initial KCM socket is created by a socket call:
+
+  socket(AF_KCM, type, protocol)
+
+  - type is either SOCK_DGRAM or SOCK_SEQPACKET
+  - protocol is KCMPROTO_CONNECTED
+
+Cloning KCM sockets
+-------------------
+
+After the first KCM socket is created using the socket call as described
+above, additional sockets for the multiplexor can be created by cloning
+a KCM socket. This is accomplished by an ioctl on a KCM socket:
+
+  /* From linux/kcm.h */
+  struct kcm_clone {
+        int fd;
+  };
+
+  struct kcm_clone info;
+
+  memset(&info, 0, sizeof(info));
+
+  err = ioctl(kcmfd, SIOCKCMCLONE, &info);
+
+  if (!err)
+    newkcmfd = info.fd;
+
+Attach transport sockets
+------------------------
+
+Attaching of transport sockets to a multiplexor is performed by calling an
+ioctl on a KCM socket for the multiplexor. e.g.:
+
+  /* From linux/kcm.h */
+  struct kcm_attach {
+        int fd;
+	int bpf_fd;
+  };
+
+  struct kcm_attach info;
+
+  memset(&info, 0, sizeof(info));
+
+  info.fd = tcpfd;
+  info.bpf_fd = bpf_prog_fd;
+
+  ioctl(kcmfd, SIOCKCMATTACH, &info);
+
+The kcm_attach structure contains:
+  fd: file descriptor for TCP socket being attached
+  bpf_prog_fd: file descriptor for compiled BPF program downloaded
+
+Unattach transport sockets
+--------------------------
+
+Unattaching a transport socket from a multiplexor is straightforward. An
+"unattach" ioctl is done with the kcm_unattach structure as the argument:
+
+  /* From linux/kcm.h */
+  struct kcm_unattach {
+        int fd;
+  };
+
+  struct kcm_unattach info;
+
+  memset(&info, 0, sizeof(info));
+
+  info.fd = cfd;
+
+  ioctl(fd, SIOCKCMUNATTACH, &info);
+
+Disabling receive on KCM socket
+-------------------------------
+
+A setsockopt is used to disable or enable receiving on a KCM socket.
+When receive is disabled, any pending messages in the socket's
+receive buffer are moved to other sockets. This feature is useful
+if an application thread knows that it will be doing a lot of
+work on a request and won't be able to service new messages for a
+while. Example use:
+
+  int val = 1;
+
+  setsockopt(kcmfd, SOL_KCM, KCM_RECV_DISABLE, &val, sizeof(val))
+
+BFP programs for message delineation
+------------------------------------
+
+BPF programs can be compiled using the BPF LLVM backend. For exmple,
+the BPF program for parsing Thrift is:
+
+  #include "bpf.h" /* for __sk_buff */
+  #include "bpf_helpers.h" /* for load_word intrinsic */
+
+  SEC("socket_kcm")
+  int bpf_prog1(struct __sk_buff *skb)
+  {
+       return load_word(skb, 0) + 4;
+  }
+
+  char _license[] SEC("license") = "GPL";
+
+Use in applications
+===================
+
+KCM accelerates application layer protocols. Specifically, it allows
+applications to use a message based interface for sending and receiving
+messages. The kernel provides necessary assurances that messages are sent
+and received atomically. This relieves much of the burden applications have
+in mapping a message based protocol onto the TCP stream. KCM also make
+application layer messages a unit of work in the kernel for the purposes of
+steerng and scheduling, which in turn allows a simpler networking model in
+multithreaded applications.
+
+Configurations
+--------------
+
+In an Nx1 configuration, KCM logically provides multiple socket handles
+to the same TCP connection. This allows parallelism between in I/O
+operations on the TCP socket (for instance copyin and copyout of data is
+parallelized). In an application, a KCM socket can be opened for each
+processing thread and inserted into the epoll (similar to how SO_REUSEPORT
+is used to allow multiple listener sockets on the same port).
+
+In a MxN configuration, multiple connections are established to the
+same destination. These are used for simple load balancing.
+
+Message batching
+----------------
+
+The primary purpose of KCM is load balancing between KCM sockets and hence
+threads in a nominal use case. Perfect load balancing, that is steering
+each received message to a different KCM socket or steering each sent
+message to a different TCP socket, can negatively impact performance
+since this doesn't allow for affinities to be established. Balancing
+based on groups, or batches of messages, can be beneficial for performance.
+
+On transmit, there are three ways an application can batch (pipeline)
+messages on a KCM socket.
+  1) Send multiple messages in a single sendmmsg.
+  2) Send a group of messages each with a sendmsg call, where all messages
+     except the last have MSG_BATCH in the flags of sendmsg call.
+  3) Create "super message" composed of multiple messages and send this
+     with a single sendmsg.
+
+On receive, the KCM module attempts to queue messages received on the
+same KCM socket during each TCP ready callback. The targeted KCM socket
+changes at each receive ready callback on the KCM socket. The application
+does not need to configure this.
+
+Error handling
+--------------
+
+An application should include a thread to monitor errors raised on
+the TCP connection. Normally, this will be done by placing each
+TCP socket attached to a KCM multiplexor in epoll set for POLLERR
+event. If an error occurs on an attached TCP socket, KCM sets an EPIPE
+on the socket thus waking up the application thread. When the application
+sees the error (which may just be a disconnect) it should unattach the
+socket from KCM and then close it. It is assumed that once an error is
+posted on the TCP socket the data stream is unrecoverable (i.e. an error
+may have occurred in in the middle of receiving a messssge).
+
+TCP connection monitoring
+-------------------------
+
+In KCM there is no means to correlate a message to the TCP socket that
+was used to send or receive the message (except in the case there is
+only one attached TCP socket). However, the application does retain
+an open file descriptor to the socket so it will be able to get statistics
+from the socket which can be used in detecting issues (such as high
+retransmissions on the socket).