/proc/net/stat/ndisc_cache show unresolved_discards appears to show 0
unresolved_discards:
entries,allocs,destroys,hash_grows,lookups,hits,res_failed,rcv_probes_mcast,rcv_probes_ucast,periodic_gc_runs,forced_gc_runs,unresolved_discards,table_fulls
00000005,00000005,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,000021af,00000000,00000000,00000000
00000005,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000
On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 10:48 AM Willem de Bruijn
<willemdebruijn.ker...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, May 15, 2019 at 3:57 PM Adam Urban <adam.ur...@appleguru.org> wrote:
> >
> > We have an application where we are use sendmsg() to send (lots of)
> > UDP packets to multiple destinations over a single socket, repeatedly,
> > and at a pretty constant rate using IPv4.
> >
> > In some cases, some of these destinations are no longer present on the
> > network, but we continue sending data to them anyways. The missing
> > devices are usually a temporary situation, but can last for
> > days/weeks/months.
> >
> > We are seeing an issue where packets sent even to destinations that
> > are present on the network are getting dropped while the kernel
> > performs arp updates.
> >
> > We see a -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable) return value
> > from the sendmsg() call when this is happening:
> >
> > sendmsg(72, {msg_name(16)={sa_family=AF_INET, sin_port=htons(1234),
> > sin_addr=inet_addr("10.1.2.3")}, msg_iov(1)=[{"\4\1"..., 96}],
> > msg_controllen=0, msg_flags=0}, MSG_NOSIGNAL) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource
> > temporarily unavailable)
> >
> > Looking at packet captures, during this time you see the kernel arping
> > for the devices that aren't on the network, timing out, arping again,
> > timing out, and then finally arping a 3rd time before setting the
> > INCOMPLETE state again (very briefly being in a FAILED state).
> >
> > "Good" packets don't start going out again until the 3rd timeout
> > happens, and then they go out for about 1s until the 3s delay from ARP
> > happens again.
> >
> > Interestingly, this isn't an all or nothing situation. With only a few
> > (2-3) devices missing, we don't run into this "blocking" situation and
> > data always goes out. But once 4 or more devices are missing, it
> > happens. Setting static ARP entries for the missing supplies, even if
> > they are bogus, resolves the issue, but of course results in packets
> > with a bogus destination going out on the wire instead of getting
> > dropped by the kernel.
> >
> > Can anyone explain why this is happening? I have tried tuning the
> > unres_qlen sysctl without effect and will next try to set the
> > MSG_DONTWAIT socket option to try and see if that helps. But I want to
> > make sure I understand what is going on.
> >
> > Are there any parameters we can tune so that UDP packets sent to
> > INCOMPLETE destinations are immediately dropped? What's the best way
> > to prevent a socket from being unavailable while arp operations are
> > happening (assuming arp is the cause)?
>
> Sounds like hitting SO_SNDBUF limit due to datagrams being held on the
> neighbor queue. Especially since the issue occurs only as the number
> of unreachable destinations exceeds some threshold. Does
> /proc/net/stat/ndisc_cache show unresolved_discards? Increasing
> unres_qlen may make matters only worse if more datagrams can get
> queued. See also the branch on NUD_INCOMPLETE in __neigh_event_send.
