This fixes a subtle bug in the calculation of the inter-packet gap and shows
that t_delta, as it is currently used, is not needed.
The algorithm from RFC 5348, 8.3 below continually computes a send time t_nom,
which is initialised with the current time t_now; t_gran = 1E6 / HZ specifies
the scheduling granularity, s the packet size, and X the sending rate:
t_distance = t_nom - t_now; // in microseconds
t_delta = min(t_ipi, t_gran) / 2; // `delta' parameter in microseconds
if (t_distance >= t_delta) {
reschedule after (t_distance / 1000) milliseconds;
} else {
t_ipi = s / X; // inter-packet interval in usec
t_nom += t_ipi; // compute the next send time
send packet now;
}
Problem:
--------
Rescheduling requires a conversion into milliseconds (sk_reset_timer()). The
highest jiffy resolution with HZ=1000 is 1 millisecond, so using a higher
granularity does not make much sense here.
As a consequence, values of t_distance < 1000 are truncated to 0. This issue
has so far been resolved by using instead
if (t_distance >= t_delta + 1000)
reschedule after (t_distance / 1000) milliseconds;
This is unnecessarily large, a lower bound is t_delta' = max(t_delta, 1000).
And it implies a further simplification:
a) when HZ >= 500, then t_delta <= t_gran/2 = 10^6/(2*HZ) <= 1000, so that
t_delta' = MAX(1000, t_delta) = 1000 (constant value);
b) when HZ < 500, then t_delta = 1/2*MIN(rtt, t_ipi, t_gran) <= t_gran/2,
so that 1000 <= t_delta' <= t_gran/2.
The maximum error of using a constant t_delta in (b) is less than half a jiffy.
Fix:
----
The patch replaces t_delta with a constant, whose value depends on CONFIG_HZ,
changing the above algorithm to:
if (t_distance >= t_delta')
reschedule after (t_distance / 1000) milliseconds;
where t_delta' = 10^6/(2*HZ) if HZ < 500, and t_delta' = 1000 otherwise.
Signed-off-by: Gerrit Renker <gerrit@erg.abdn.ac.uk>
20cbd3e120