Multi-core network packet steering: Difference between revisions

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{{copyedit|reason=an encylopedic tone in the lead section|date=July 2025}}

[[Network packet]] steering of transmitted and received traffic for [[Multi-core_processor|multi-core architectures]] is needed in modern network computing environment, especially in [[Data_center|data centers]], where the high bandwidth and heavy loads would easily congestion a single core's [[Queueing theory|queue]].<ref name="RSS++">{{Cite journalbook |lastlast1=Barbette |firstfirst1=Tom |last2=Katsikas |first2=Georgios P. |last3=Maguire |first3=Gerald Q. |last4=Kostić |first4=Dejan |date=2019-12-03 |titlechapter=RSS++: loadLoad and state-aware receive side scaling |urldate=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3359989.33654122019-12-03 |journaltitle=Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Emerging Networking Experiments Andand Technologies |chapter-url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3359989.3365412 |series=CoNEXT '19 |pages=318–333 |___location=New York, NY, USA |publisher=Association for Computing Machinery |doi=10.1145/3359989.3365412 |isbn=978-1-4503-6998-5 }}</ref>

[[File:Simple NIC and cores architecture.png|thumb|upright=1.7|Simple graph showing the path receiving packets need to travel to reach the cores' queues]]

For this reason many techniques, both in hardware and in software, are leveraged in order to distribute the incoming load of packets across the cores of the [[Central processing unit|processor]].

On the traffic-receiving side, the most notable techniques presented in this article are: RSS, aRFS, RPS and RFS.

For transmission, we will focus on XPS.<ref name="General intro">{{Citation |last=Madden |first=Michael M. |title=Challenges Using the Linux Network Stack for Real-Time Communication |date=2019-01-06 |work=AIAA Scitech 2019 Forum |url=https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/6.2019-0503 |access-date=2025-07-10 |series=AIAA SciTech Forum |publisher=American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics |doi=10.2514/6.2019-0503 |pages=99–11 |isbn=978-111-62410-578-4 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Herbert |first=Tom |date=2025-02-24 |title=The alphabet soup of receive packet steering: RSS, RPS, RFS, and aRFS |url=https://medium.com/@tom_84912/the-alphabet-soup-of-receive-packet-steering-rss-rps-rfs-and-arfs-c84347156d68 |access-date=2025-07-10 |website=Medium |language=en}}</ref><br>

As shown by the figure beside, packets coming into the [[Network_interface_controller|network interface card (NIC)]] are processed and loaded to the receiving queues managed by the cores (which are usually implemented as [[Circular buffer|ring buffers]] within the [[User space and kernel space|kernel space]]).

The main objective is being able to leverage all the cores available within the [[Central processing unit|CPU]] to process incoming packets, while also improving performances like [[Latency (engineering)|latency]] and [[Network throughput|throughput]].<ref name="RSS kernel linux docs">{{Cite web|title=RSS kernel linux docs|url=https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v5.1/networking/scaling.html#rss-receive-side-scaling|access-date=2025-07-08|website=kernel.org|publisher=The Linux Kernel documentation|language=en-US}}</ref><ref name="RSS overview by microsoft">{{Cite web|title=RSS overview by microsoft|url=https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/network/introduction-to-receive-side-scaling|access-date=2025-07-08|website=learn.microsoft.com|language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |lastlast1=Wu |firstfirst1=Wenji |last2=DeMar |first2=Phil |last3=Crawford |first3=Matt |date=2011-02-01 |title=Why Can Some Advanced Ethernet NICs Cause Packet Reordering? |url=https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5673999/ |journal=IEEE Communications Letters |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=253–255 |doi=10.1109/LCOMM.2011.122010.102022 |arxiv=1106.0443 |issn=1558-2558}}</ref>

== Hardware techniques ==

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== Further readings ==

* {{Cite journalbook |lastlast1=Enberg |firstfirst1=Pekka |last2=Rao |first2=Ashwin |last3=Tarkoma |first3=Sasu |date=2019-12-09 |titlechapter=Partition-Aware Packet Steering Using XDP and eBPF for Improving Application-Level Parallelism |urldate=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3359993.33667662019-12-09 |journaltitle=Proceedings of the 1st ACM CoNEXT Workshop on Emerging in-Network Computing Paradigms |chapter-url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3359993.3366766 |series=ENCP '19 |pages=27–33 |___location=New York, NY, USA |publisher=Association for Computing Machinery |doi=10.1145/3359993.3366766 |hdl=10138/326309 |isbn=978-1-4503-7000-4}}

* {{Cite journalbook |lastlast1=Helbig |firstfirst1=Maike |last2=Kim |first2=Younghoon |date=2025-01-01 |titlechapter=IAPS: Decreasing Software-Based Packet Steering Overhead Through Interrupt Reduction |urldate=https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10993154/2025-01-01 |journalpages=127–130 |title=2025 International Conference on Information Networking (ICOIN) |doi=10.1109/ICOIN63865.2025.10993154 |isbn=979-8-3315-0694-0 }}

* {{Cite journalbook |lastlast1=Kumar |firstfirst1=Ashwin |last2=Katkam |first2=Rajneesh |last3=Chaudhary |first3=Pranav |last4=Naik |first4=Priyanka |last5=Vutukuru |first5=Mythili |date=2024-05-01 |titlechapter=AppSteer: Framework for Improving Multicore Scalability of Network Functions via Application-aware Packet Steering |urldate=https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10701416/2024-05-01 |journalpages=18–27 |title=2024 IEEE 24th International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud and Internet Computing (CCGrid) |doi=10.1109/CCGrid59990.2024.00012 |isbn=979-8-3503-9566-2 }}

* {{Cite journal |lastlast1=Tyunyayev |firstfirst1=Nikita |last2=Delzotti |first2=Clément |last3=Eran |first3=Haggai |last4=Barbette |first4=Tom |date=2025-06-09 |title=ASNI: Redefining the Interface Between SmartNICs and Applications |url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3730966 |journal=Proc. ACM Netw. |volume=3 |issue=CoNEXT2 |pages=1–22 |doi=10.1145/3730966}}

== External links ==