On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 15:54:20 +0200
Andi Kleen [off-list ref] wrote:

And it should also fix the performance problems with
cat /proc/net/tcp on ppc64/ia64 for large hash tables because the rw locks 
are gone.

Time to convert netstat et al. over the netlink too.

quoted

- I presume that one of the reasons for keeping the hash table so big is to
  keep lock contention low (& to reduce the size of hash chains). If the lookup
  is made lock-free, then could the size of the hash table be reduced (without
  adversely impacting performance)?

Definitely worth trying IMHO. The current hash tables are far
too big. I would do that as followon patches though.

The hashes are big to make the hash effective, not to help the locking
contention.