nsp1.txt

NSP1.PAT is a patch for RSTS V10.1 for DECnet/E to improve dataflow
under SIMH - see Paul Koning's e-mail to the simh mailing list dated
03-May-2016

> On Apr 19, 2016, at 2:46 PM, Paul Koning <paulkoning@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> With help from Mark Pizzolato, I've been looking at why RSTS (DECnet/E)
> operates so slowly when it's dealing with one way transfers.
> This is independent of protocol and datalink type; it shows up very clearly
> in NFT (any kind of file transfer or directory listing) and also in NET
> (Set Host).  The symptom is that data comes across in fairly short bursts,
> separated by about a second of pause.
>
> This turns out to be an interaction between the DECnet/E queueing rules
> and the very fast operation of SIMH on modern hosts. DECnet/E will queue
> up to some small number of NSP segments for any given connection, set by
> the executor parameter "data transmit queue max".  The default value is
> 4 or 5, but it can be set higher, and that helps some.
>
> The trouble is this: if you have a one way data flow, for example NFT or
> FAL doing a copy, the sending program simply fires off a sequence of
> send-packet operations until it gets a "queue full" reject from the kernel.
> At that point it delays, but the delay is one second since sleep operations
> have one second granularity.  The other end acks all that data quite
> promptly, but since the emulation runs so fast, the whole transmit queue
> can fill up before the ack from the other end arrives, so the queue full
> condition occurs, then a one second delay, then the process starts over.
>
> This sort of thing doesn't happen on request/response exchanges; for example
> the NCP command LOOP NODE runs at top speed because traffic is going both
> ways.
>
> I tried fiddling with the data queue limit to see if increasing it would
> help.  It seems to, but it's not sufficient.  What does work is a larger
> queue limit (32 looks good) combined with CPU throttling to slow things
> down a bit.  I used "set throttle 2000/1" (which produces a 1 ms delay
> every 2000 instructions, i.e., roughly 2 MIPS processing speed which is at
> the high end of what real PDP-11s can do).  Those two changes combined
> make file transfer run smoothly and fast.
>
> Ideally DECnet/E should cancel the program sleep when the queue transitions
> from full to not-full, but that's not part of the existing logic (at least
> not unless the program explicitly asks for "link status notifications").
> I could probably add that; the question is how large a change it is --
> does it exceed what's feasible for a patch.  I may still do that, but at
> least for now the above should be helpful.

Followup: I created a patch that implements the "wake up when the queue goes
not-full".  Or more precisely, it wakes up the process whenever an ack is
received; that covers the problem case and probably doesn't create many other
wakeups since the program is unlikely to be sleeping otherwise.

The attached patch script does the job.  This is for RSTS V10.1.  I will take a
look at RSTS 9.6; the patch is unlikely to apply there (offsets probably don't
match) but the concept will apply there too.  I don't have other DECnet/E
versions, let alone source listings which is what's needed to create the patch.

With this patch, you can run at full emulation speed, with the default queue
limit (5).  In fact, I would recommend setting that limit; if you make the
queue limit significantly larger, the patch doesn't help and things are still
slow.  I suspect that comes from overrunning the queue limits at the receiving
end.  (Note that DECnet/E leaves the flow control choice to the application,
and most use "no" flow control, i.e., on/off only which isn't effective if the
sender can overrun the buffer pool of the receiver.)

To apply the patch, give it to ONLPAT and select the monitor SIL (just <CR>
will give  you the installed one).  Or you can do it with the PATCH option at
boot time, in that case enter the information manually.  The manual will spell
this out some more, I expect.

I have no idea if this issue can appear on real PDP-11 systems.  Possibly, if
you have a fast CPU, a fast network (Ethernet) and enough latency to make the
issue visible (more than a few milliseconds but way under a second).  In any
case, it's unlikely to hurt, and it clearly helps a great deal in emulated
systems.

        paul