tcp: when scheduling TLP, time of RTO should account for current ACK

Fix the TLP scheduling logic so that when scheduling a TLP probe, we
ensure that the estimated time at which an RTO would fire accounts for
the fact that ACKs indicating forward progress should push back RTO
times.

After the following fix:

df92c8394e6e ("tcp: fix xmit timer to only be reset if data ACKed/SACKed")

we had an unintentional behavior change in the following kind of
scenario: suppose the RTT variance has been very low recently. Then
suppose we send out a flight of N packets and our RTT is 100ms:

t=0: send a flight of N packets
t=100ms: receive an ACK for N-1 packets

The response before df92c8394e6e that was:
  -> schedule a TLP for now + RTO_interval

The response after df92c8394e6e is:
  -> schedule a TLP for t=0 + RTO_interval

Since RTO_interval = srtt + RTT_variance, this means that we have
scheduled a TLP timer at a point in the future that only accounts for
RTT_variance. If the RTT_variance term is small, this means that the
timer fires soon.

Before df92c8394e6e this would not happen, because in that code, when
we receive an ACK for a prefix of flight, we did:

    1) Near the top of tcp_ack(), switch from TLP timer to RTO
       at write_queue_head->paket_tx_time + RTO_interval:
            if (icsk->icsk_pending == ICSK_TIME_LOSS_PROBE)
                   tcp_rearm_rto(sk);

    2) In tcp_clean_rtx_queue(), update the RTO to now + RTO_interval:
            if (flag & FLAG_ACKED) {
                   tcp_rearm_rto(sk);

    3) In tcp_ack() after tcp_fastretrans_alert() switch from RTO
       to TLP at now + RTO_interval:
            if (icsk->icsk_pending == ICSK_TIME_RETRANS)
                   tcp_schedule_loss_probe(sk);

In df92c8394e6e we removed that 3-phase dance, and instead directly
set the TLP timer once: we set the TLP timer in cases like this to
write_queue_head->packet_tx_time + RTO_interval. So if the RTT
variance is small, then this means that this is setting the TLP timer
to fire quite soon. This means if the ACK for the tail of the flight
takes longer than an RTT to arrive (often due to delayed ACKs), then
the TLP timer fires too quickly.

Fixes: df92c8394e6e ("tcp: fix xmit timer to only be reset if data ACKed/SACKed")
Signed-off-by: Neal Cardwell <ncardwell@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Yuchung Cheng <ycheng@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>
Acked-by: Soheil Hassas Yeganeh <soheil@google.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>

1 files changed, 1 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/net/ipv4/tcp_input.c b/net/ipv4/tcp_input.c
index f844c06c0676..734cfc8ff76e 100644
--- a/net/ipv4/tcp_input.c
+++ b/net/ipv4/tcp_input.c
@@ -2964,7 +2964,7 @@ void tcp_rearm_rto(struct sock *sk)
 /* Try to schedule a loss probe; if that doesn't work, then schedule an RTO. */
 static void tcp_set_xmit_timer(struct sock *sk)
 {
-	if (!tcp_schedule_loss_probe(sk))
+	if (!tcp_schedule_loss_probe(sk, true))
 		tcp_rearm_rto(sk);
 }