SMC-R Interpretation Series – Part 2: SMC-R: A hybrid solution of TCP and RDMA

By SIG for High Performance Networking

1. Introduction

In the previous article, " SMC-R Interpretation Series – Part 1: Transparently Improve TCP Application Network Performance on the Cloud", we learned that compared to TCP, RDMA can bypass software protocol stack and offload network transmission to hardware. This feature can increase network bandwidth and reduce network latency and CPU load. And SMC-R is further compatible with the socket interface while providing RDMA services, which can improve network performance for TCP applications transparently. Therefore, the high-performance network SIG in OpenAnolis believes that SMC-R will become an important component of the next-generation data center kernel protoco and has made a lot of optimizations, feeding back to the upstream Linux community.

As the second article in the SMC-R series, we will focus on the complete SMC-R communication process. Through the specific process of connection, transmission, and destruction, readers can realize that SMC-R is a hybrid solution that combines generic TCP and high-performance RDMA.

2. Communication Process

As mentioned in the previous article, there are two ways to use SMC-R protocols. One is to explicitly create the AF_SMC socket in the application. The second is to transparently replace the AF_INET socket in the application with the AF_SMC socket by using LD_PRELOAD or ULP + eBPF. By default, the node using SMC-R communication has loaded the SMC kernel module and run the application on the SMC-R protocol in the above way.

Next, we take the first contact (the first connection between the two ends of the communication) scenario as an example to introduce the SMC-R communication process.

2.1 Confirmation of Peer Capability

When using SMC-R communication, we first need to confirm whether the peer supports the SMC-R protocol. Therefore, when the SMC-R protocol stack creates an SMC socket for the application, it creates and maintains a TCP socket (clcsock) associated with it in the kernel, and establishes a TCP connection with the peer based on the clcsock.

(Figure 1. TCP handshake confirms peer SMC-R capability)

In the TCP connection three-way handshake, the SYN/ACK sent by one end of the SMC-R protocol carries a special TCP option (Kind = 254, Magic Number=0xe2d4) to indicate that it supports SMC-R. By checking the SYN/ACK sent by the peer, the communication node learns Peer's SMC-R capability and then decides whether to continue using SMC-R communication.

(Figure 2. Three-way handshake carrying special TCP option [1])

(Figure 3. TCP options that represent SMC-R)

2.2 Protocol Fallback

If one of the two ends of the communication indicates that SMC-R is unable to be supported during the preceding TCP handshake, the protocol fallback process is triggered.

When performing protocol fallback, the socket corresponding to fd held by application will be replaced from smc socket to clcsock. Then, the application will use TCP protocol to communicate, thus ensuring that the data transmission will not be interrupted due to protocol compatibility issues.

It should be noted that the protocol fallback only occurs during the communication negotiation process, such as the TCP handshake mentioned before, or the SMC-R connection establishment process mentioned below. To facilitate tracking and diagnosis, the SMC-R protocol classifies the potential fallback reasons. Through the userspace utilities smc-tools, users can observe the protocol fallback events and causes.

(Figure 4. Observe fallback through smc-tools)

2.3 Establish an SMC-R Connection

If both ends support SMC-R in the TCP handshake, a SMC-R connection will be established. The establishment of SMC-R connections depends on TCP connections to pass control messages, which are called Connection Layer Control (CLC) messages.

(Figure 5. Use CLC messages to establish an SMC-R connection)

The main responsibility of CLC messages is to synchronize information such as RDMA resources and shared memory at both ends. The process of establishing an SMC-R connection is similar to that of an SSL handshake, which includes Proposal, Accept, Decline, and Confirm. During the connection establishment process, if an unrecoverable exception (such as RDMA resource invalid) occurs, the protocol fallback process will also be triggered.

(Figure 6. SMC-R handshake process [1])

Specially, in the 'first contact' scenario, there is no available RDMA resources between the two ends. Therefore, when the first SMC-R connection is established, RDMA resources required for SMC-R communication such as QPs and shared memory, will be applied.

2.3.1 Create RDMA Resources

At the initial stage of SMC-R connection establishment, both ends find available RDMA devices and create necessary RDMA resources based on the found devices, including Queue Pair (QP), Completion Queue (CQ), Memory Region (MR), Protect Domain (PD).

Among them, QP and CQ are the basis of RDMA communication and provide an asynchronous communication mechanism between RDMA users (such as SMC kernel protocol stack) and RDMA devices (RNIC).

QP is essentially a Work Queue (WQ) that stores Work Request (WR). The WQ responsible for sending is called Send Queue (SQ), and the WQ responsible for receiving is called Receive Queue (RQ). The two always appear in pairs and are called QP. The user packages the tasks that are required for RNIC to complete as a Work Queue Element (WQE) and posts them to the QP. The RNIC takes the WQE out of the QP and completes the tasks.

CQ is essentially a queue that stores Work Completion (WC). After the RNIC completes the WR, the completion information is packaged as a Completion Queue Element (CQE) into the CQ. The user polled CQE from the CQ and learned that the RNIC has completed a certain WR.

(Figure 7. RDMA work queue)

2.3.2 Establish an RDMA Link

The two ends of the communication synchronize the created RDMA resources to the peer through CLC messages, thus establishing an RDMA link based on RC (Reliable Connection) QP between the two ends. In SMC-R, this point-to-point logical RDMA link is called an SMC-R Link. An SMC-R Link carries data traffic from multiple SMC-R connections.

(Figure 8. SMC Link)

Multiple pairs of RNICs between communication nodes result in multiple links. These Links logically form a group, which is called an SMC-R Link Group.

(Figure 9. SMC-R Link Group)

In the Linux implementation, each Link Group has 1-3 Links and can host up to 255 SMC-R connections. These connections are evenly associated with a Link of the Link Group. The data sent by the application over the SMC-R connection will be transmitted by the associated Link (RDMA Link).

In the same Link Group, all Links are "equal" to each other. This "equality" is reflected in the fact that Links in the same Link Group have the right to access all send and receive buffers (sndbuf and RMB mentioned below) of SMC-R connection in the group, and can carry any SMC-R connection data streams. Therefore, when a Link is invalid (such as RNIC down), all connections associated with this Link can be migrated to another Link of the same Link Group. This makes SMC-R communication stable and reliable and has certain disaster recovery capabilities.

In SMC-R, the Link (Group) is created at first contact and destroyed after the last SMC-R connection is disconnected for a while (10 mins in the Linux implementation). It has a longer life cycle than the connection. SMC-R connections created after the first contact will try to reuse the existing Link (Group). This design makes full use of existing RDMA resources and avoids the additional overhead caused by frequent creation and destruction.

2.3.3 Apply for RDMA Memory

The SMC-R protocol stack allocates a separate send and receive buffer for each SMC-R connection: sndbuf (send buffer) and RMB (Remote Memory Buffer, receive buffer). They are two contiguous ring buffers and 16KB to 512KB in size.

(Figure 10. SMC-R connection ring buffer)

Among them, sndbuf is used to store the data to be sent by the connection and is registered as DMA memory. The local RNIC device can directly access sndbuf and take the payload from it. The RMB is used to store the data written by the remote node RNIC. Since it needs to be accessed by the remote node, RMB is registered as RDMA memory.

The process of registering RDMA memory is called Memory Registration. It mainly performs the following operations:

Generate an Memory Translation Table: RDMA users (such as local/remote SMC-R protocol stacks) usually use virtual address (VA) for memory addressing, while RNIC uses physical address (PA). The RNIC obtains VA from the WQE or data packet and translate it to PA by looking up the table, thus accessing the correct memory. Therefore, the priority of Memory Registration is to form the address translation table of the target memory.
Pin Memory: Modern OS will replace unused memory data, which will cause the mapping relationship in the Memory translation table to become invalid. Thus, Memory Registration pins the target memory and locks the VA-to-PA mapping relationship.
Restrict Memory Access: To avoid illegal memory access, Memory Registration generates two memory keys for the target memory: Local Key (l_key) and Remote Key (r_key). A memory key is essentially a sequence. Local or remote access to RDMA memory with l_key or r_key ensures that memory access is legal. In SMC-R, the addr and r_key required by the remote node to access the local RMB are encapsulated as a Remote Token (rtoken), which is passed to the remote end through CLC messages so that it has the permission to remotely access the local RMB.

After the SMC-R connection is destroyed, the corresponding sndbuf and RMB will be reclaimed to the memory pool maintained by Link Group for subsequent reuse by new connections. This reduces the impact of RDMA memory creation/destruction on connection establishment performance.

(Figure 11. sndbuf / RMB memory pool)

2.4 Verify SMC-R Link

In the first contact scenario, the newly established SMC-R Link has not been verified. Therefore, before the Link is officially used to transmit application data, both ends of the communication send a Link Layer Control (LLC) message based on the Link to check whether the Link is available.

(Figure 12. Use LLC messages to confirm the availability of SMC Link)

LLC messages are usually in request-response mode and are used to transmit control information at the Link level, such as adding /deleting /confirming Links, confirming /deleting r_key.

(Figure 13. LLC message request-response mode)

Category	Description
ADD_LINK	Add a new Link to the Link Group.
CONFIRM_LINK	Check whether the newly created Link can work properly.
DELETE_LINK	Delete a specific Link or an entire Link Group.
CONFIRM_RKEY	Notify the Link peer when adding RMB.
DELETE_RKEY	Notify the Link peer when one or more RMB is deleted.
TEST_LINK	Check whether the Link is healthy and active.

(Table/ Typical LLC message meaning)

The transmission of LLC messages is completed based on the SEND operation of RDMA, as opposed to the RDMA WRITE operation mentioned later.

(Figure 14. SEND operation)

SEND operation is also called "bilateral operation" since it requires both ends of the communication to participate. The transmission process of a SEND is:

The RDMA user of receiver posts RWQE to the local RQ. The length of the data to be received and the reserved memory address are recorded in the RWQE.
The RDMA user of sender posts SWQE to the local SQ. The length of the data to be sent and the memory address is recorded in the SWQE. The sending-end RNIC takes out the data of the corresponding length according to the information recorded by SWQE and sends it to the peer.
After receiving the data, the receiver RNIC takes out the first RWQE in the RQ and stores the data according to the memory address and length recorded therein.

By sending and receiving LLC messages of the CONFIRM_LINK type on the Link, both ends of the communication confirm that the newly created Link has the capability of RDMA communication and can be used to transmit data.

2.5 Communication Based on Shared Memory

Through the preceding steps, the SMC-R connection in the first contact scenario finally ended. Then, the application will transfer data through an established SMC-R connection.

(Figure 15. Communication based on RDMA shared memory)

The data sent by the application to the SMC-R connection is written to the remote node RMB by the associated Link through RDMA WRITE operation.

(Figure 16. RDMA WRITE operations)

Unlike the SEND operation mentioned before, RDMA WRITE is called a "unilateral operation". This is because only the end that initiated RDMA WRITE participates in the data transmission, and the RDMA user on the receiving end does not participate and is not aware of the arrival of the data. The following is the procedure of an RDMA WRITE operation:

In the preliminary stage, the RDMA user of receiver registers the send and receive buffer as RDMA memory and informs the sending end of the rkey so that it has the right to directly access the memory of receiver.
The RDMA user of sender posts SWQE to the SQ. Unlike SEND, the SWQE of RDMA WRITE contains not only the local memory address and length of the data but also the memory address where the data will be stored at the receiving end and the r_key required to access the memory of receiver. The RNIC of sender transmits the data to the receiver based on the information recorded in the SWQE.
The RNIC of receiver verifies the r_key in the packet and stores the data to a specified memory address. The RDMA user of receiver does not know that the data has been written to the memory.

Since RDMA WRITE does not require the participation of the RDMA users of receiver, it is ideal for the direct writing of large amounts of data. However, since the receiver is not aware of the arrival of the data, the sender needs to send a control message to notify the receiver through the SEND operation after writing the data. In SMC-R, this control message is called a Connection Data Control (CDC) message. CDC messages contain RMB-related control information to synchronize data read and write.

Content	Meaning
Sequence number	CDC message serial number
Alert token	The SMC-R connection ID that sent this message
Producer cursor	RMB data production cursor (Updated by the writer)
Producer cursor wrap seqno	The times of RMB data producing wrap (Updated by the writer)
Consumer cursor wrap seqno	The times of RMB data consuming wrap (Updated by readers)
Consumer cursor	RMB data consuming cursor (Updated by readers)

(Table/ CDC messages)

In the first article of the series, we mentioned that "shared memory" in the SMC-R refers to RMB on the receiver. Combined with the preceding RDMA WRITE operations and CDC messages, the SMC-R shared memory communication process can be summarized as follows:

(Figure 17. Shared memory communication details)

The data of the sender is copied to the kernel sndbuf by the application buffer through the socket interface (sndbuf is not shown in the figure).
The protocol stack writes data to the receiver RMB through RDMA WRITE operation.
The sender sends a CDC message through the SENDoperation to inform the receiver that new data is coming.
The receiver copies data from RMB to the application buffer.
The receiver sends CDC messages through SEND operation to inform the sender that some data in RMB has been consumed.

2.6 Connection Closing and Resource Destruction

After the data transmission is completed, the SMC-R connection closing process will be initiated. Similar to TCP, SMC-R connections also have a semi-closed/ closed state. The disconnected SMC-R connection is unbound from the Link (Group). The related sndbuf and RMB are also reclaimed to the memory pool for reuse. At the same time, the TCP connection associated with the SMC-R connection also enters the closing process and is finally released.

If there is no connection in the Link (Group), the Link (Group) will also enter the destruction process after waiting for a while (10 mins in Linux implementation). Destroying Link (Group) will release all RDMA resources related to it, including QP, CQ, PD, MR, and all sndbuf and RMB.

3. Summary

In this article, we took the first contact scenario as an example to introduce the complete SMC-R communication process. The process includes: confirming the peer's SMC-R capability through TCP handshake; using TCP connection to transfer CLC messages, exchanging RDMA resources, creating RDMA links, and establishing SMC-R connections; sending LLC messages through RDMA SEND operation to verify Link availability; transmitting data by RDMA WRITE based on Link; closing SMC-R and TCP connections and destroy RDMA resources.

These processes reflect the "hybrid" feature of SMC-R. SMC-R not only takes advantage of the generality of TCP, such as confirming the peer capability through TCP connection but also takes advantage of the high performance of RDMA, such as transmitting application data traffic through Link. Therefore, SMC-R can provide TCP applications with transparent and senseless network performance improvement while being compatible with the key functions of the existing TCP/IP ecosystem.

References

[1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc7609

Community

SMC-R Interpretation Series – Part 2: SMC-R: A hybrid solution of TCP and RDMA

1. Introduction

2. Communication Process

2.1 Confirmation of Peer Capability

2.2 Protocol Fallback

2.3 Establish an SMC-R Connection

2.3.1 Create RDMA Resources

2.3.2 Establish an RDMA Link

2.3.3 Apply for RDMA Memory

2.4 Verify SMC-R Link

2.5 Communication Based on Shared Memory

2.6 Connection Closing and Resource Destruction

3. Summary

References

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