tcp: remove bad timeout logic in fast recovery

tcp_timeout_skb() was intended to trigger fast recovery on timeout,
unfortunately in reality it often causes spurious retransmission
storms during fast recovery. The particular sign is a fast retransmit
over the highest sacked sequence (SND.FACK).

Currently the RTO timer re-arming (as in RFC6298) offers a nice cushion
to avoid spurious timeout: when SND.UNA advances the sender re-arms
RTO and extends the timeout by icsk_rto. The sender does not offset
the time elapsed since the packet at SND.UNA was sent.

But if the next (DUP)ACK arrives later than ~RTTVAR and triggers
tcp_fastretrans_alert(), then tcp_timeout_skb() will mark any packet
sent before the icsk_rto interval lost, including one that's above the
highest sacked sequence. Most likely a large part of scorebard will be
marked.

If most packets are not lost then the subsequent DUPACKs with new SACK
blocks will cause the sender to continue to retransmit packets beyond
SND.FACK spuriously. Even if only one packet is lost the sender may
falsely retransmit almost the entire window.

The situation becomes common in the world of bufferbloat: the RTT
continues to grow as the queue builds up but RTTVAR remains small and
close to the minimum 200ms. If a data packet is lost and the DUPACK
triggered by the next data packet is slightly delayed, then a spurious
retransmission storm forms.

As the original comment on tcp_timeout_skb() suggests: the usefulness
of this feature is questionable. It also wastes cycles walking the
sack scoreboard and is actually harmful because of false recovery.

It's time to remove this.

Signed-off-by: Yuchung Cheng <ycheng@google.com>
Acked-by: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>
Acked-by: Neal Cardwell <ncardwell@google.com>
Acked-by: Nandita Dukkipati <nanditad@google.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>

1 files changed, 0 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/include/net/tcp.h b/include/net/tcp.h
index 5bba80f..e1c3723 100644
--- a/include/net/tcp.h
+++ b/include/net/tcp.h
@@ -1193,7 +1193,6 @@ static inline void tcp_mib_init(struct net *net)
 static inline void tcp_clear_retrans_hints_partial(struct tcp_sock *tp)
 {
 	tp->lost_skb_hint = NULL;
-	tp->scoreboard_skb_hint = NULL;
 }
 
 static inline void tcp_clear_all_retrans_hints(struct tcp_sock *tp)