[PATCH net-next v5 00/11] net: tunnel: introduce noref xmit flows for tunnels
From: Marek Mietus <hidden>
Date: 2026-01-13 16:52:32
Currently, tunnel xmit flows always take a reference on the dst_entry for each xmitted packet. These atomic operations are redundant in some flows. This patchset introduces the infrastructure required for converting the tunnel xmit flows to noref, and converts them where possible. These changes improve tunnel performance, since less atomic operations are used. There are already noref optimizations in both ipv4 and ip6. (See __ip_queue_xmit, inet6_csk_xmit) This patchset implements similar optimizations in ip and udp tunnels. Benchmarks: I used a vxlan tunnel over a pair of veth peers and measured the average throughput over multiple samples. I ran 100 samples on a clean build, and another 100 on a patched build. Each sample ran for 120 seconds. These were my results: clean: 71.95 mb/sec, stddev = 1.71 patched: 74.92 mb/sec, stddev = 1.35 TL;DR - This patchset results in a 4% improvement in throughput for vxlan. It's safe to assume that we might see similar results when testing other tunnels. Changes in v5: - Reverted dstref object implementation - Converted tunnel xmit functions to be noref instead of using dstref objects - Added a "noref" output boolean argument in the tunnel lookup functions in order to return noref dsts Link to v4: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20251112072720.5076-1-mmietus97@yahoo.com/ (local) Marek Mietus (11): net: dst_cache: add noref versions for dst_cache net: tunnel: convert iptunnel_xmit to noref net: tunnel: convert udp_tunnel{6,}_xmit_skb to noref net: tunnel: allow noref dsts in udp_tunnel{,6}_dst_lookup net: ovpn: convert ovpn_udp{4,6}_output to use a noref dst wireguard: socket: convert send{4,6} to use a noref dst when possible net: tunnel: convert ip_md_tunnel_xmit to use a noref dst when possible net: tunnel: convert ip_tunnel_xmit to use a noref dst when possible net: sctp: convert sctp_v{4,6}_xmit to use a noref dst when possible net: sit: convert ipip6_tunnel_xmit to use a noref dst net: tipc: convert tipc_udp_xmit to use a noref dst drivers/net/amt.c | 3 + drivers/net/bareudp.c | 28 +++++-- drivers/net/geneve.c | 59 ++++++++++----- drivers/net/gtp.c | 5 ++ drivers/net/ovpn/udp.c | 8 +- drivers/net/vxlan/vxlan_core.c | 39 +++++++--- drivers/net/wireguard/socket.c | 12 ++- include/net/dst_cache.h | 71 ++++++++++++++++++ include/net/udp_tunnel.h | 6 +- net/core/dst_cache.c | 133 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--- net/ipv4/ip_tunnel.c | 47 +++++++----- net/ipv4/ip_tunnel_core.c | 2 +- net/ipv4/udp_tunnel_core.c | 16 ++-- net/ipv6/ip6_udp_tunnel.c | 19 +++-- net/ipv6/sit.c | 13 +--- net/sctp/ipv6.c | 4 +- net/sctp/protocol.c | 4 +- net/tipc/udp_media.c | 6 +- 18 files changed, 372 insertions(+), 103 deletions(-) -- 2.51.0