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NAME

       CBQ - Class Based Queueing

SYNOPSIS

       tc  qdisc ... dev dev ( parent classid | root) [ handle major: ] cbq avpkt bytes bandwidth
       rate [ cell bytes ] [ ewma log ] [ mpu bytes ]

       tc class ... dev dev parent major:[minor] [  classid  major:minor  ]  cbq  allot  bytes  [
       bandwidth  rate  ]  [  rate  rate ] prio priority [ weight weight ] [ minburst packets ] [
       maxburst packets ] [ ewma log ] [ cell bytes ]  avpkt  bytes  [  mpu  bytes  ]  [  bounded
       isolated ] [ split handle & defmap defmap ] [ estimator interval timeconstant ]

DESCRIPTION

       Class  Based  Queueing is a classful qdisc that implements a rich linksharing hierarchy of
       classes.  It contains shaping elements as well as prioritizing capabilities.   Shaping  is
       performed  using  link  idle  time  calculations based on the timing of dequeue events and
       underlying link bandwidth.

SHAPING ALGORITHM

       Shaping is done using link idle time calculations, and actions taken if these calculations
       deviate from set limits.

       When  shaping  a 10mbit/s connection to 1mbit/s, the link will be idle 90% of the time. If
       it isn't, it needs to be throttled so that it IS idle 90% of the time.

       From the kernel's perspective, this is hard to measure, so CBQ instead  derives  the  idle
       time from the number of microseconds (in fact, jiffies) that elapse between  requests from
       the device driver for more data. Combined with the  knowledge of  packet  sizes,  this  is
       used to approximate how full or empty the link is.

       This  is rather circumspect and doesn't always arrive at proper results. For example, what
       is the actual link speed of an interface that is not really  able  to  transmit  the  full
       100mbit/s  of  data,  perhaps because of a badly implemented driver? A PCMCIA network card
       will also never achieve 100mbit/s because of the way the bus is designed - again,  how  do
       we calculate the idle time?

       The  physical  link bandwidth may be ill defined in case of not-quite-real network devices
       like PPP over Ethernet or PPTP over TCP/IP.  The  effective  bandwidth  in  that  case  is
       probably determined by the efficiency of pipes to userspace - which not defined.

       During operations, the effective idletime is measured using an exponential weighted moving
       average (EWMA), which considers recent packets to be  exponentially  more  important  than
       past ones. The Unix loadaverage is calculated in the same way.

       The calculated idle time is subtracted from the EWMA measured one, the resulting number is
       called 'avgidle'. A perfectly loaded link has an avgidle of zero: packets  arrive  exactly
       at the calculated interval.

       An  overloaded  link has a negative avgidle and if it gets too negative, CBQ throttles and
       is then 'overlimit'.

       Conversely, an idle link might amass a huge  avgidle,  which  would  then  allow  infinite
       bandwidths after a few hours of silence. To prevent this, avgidle is capped at maxidle.

       If overlimit, in theory, the CBQ could throttle itself for exactly the amount of time that
       was calculated to pass between packets, and then pass one packet, and throttle again.  Due
       to  timer  resolution  constraints,  this  may not be feasible, see the minburst parameter
       below.

CLASSIFICATION

       Within the one CBQ instance many classes may exist. Each of these classes contains another
       qdisc, by default tc-pfifo(8).

       When  enqueueing  a  packet,  CBQ starts at the root and uses various methods to determine
       which class should receive the data. If a verdict is reached, this process is repeated for
       the recipient class which might have further means of classifying traffic to its children,
       if any.

       CBQ has the following methods available to classify a packet to any child classes.

       (i)    skb->priority class encoding.  Can be set from userspace by an application with the
              SO_PRIORITY  setsockopt.   The  skb->priority  class  encoding  only applies if the
              skb->priority holds a major:minor handle of an existing class within  this qdisc.

       (ii)   tc filters attached to the class.

       (iii)  The defmap of a class, as set with the split & defmap parameters.  The  defmap  may
              contain instructions for each possible Linux packet priority.

       Each  class  also has a level.  Leaf nodes, attached to the bottom of the class hierarchy,
       have a level of 0.

CLASSIFICATION ALGORITHM

       Classification is a loop, which terminates when a leaf class is found. At  any  point  the
       loop may jump to the fallback algorithm.

       The loop consists of the following steps:

       (i)    If  the  packet  is  generated  locally  and has a valid classid encoded within its
              skb->priority, choose it and terminate.

       (ii)   Consult the tc filters, if any, attached to this child. If  these  return  a  class
              which  is not a leaf class, restart loop from the class returned.  If it is a leaf,
              choose it and terminate.

       (iii)  If the tc filters did not return a class, but did return a classid, try to  find  a
              class with that id within this qdisc.  Check if the found class is of a lower level
              than the current class. If so, and the returned class is not a leaf  node,  restart
              the  loop  at  the  found  class.  If it is a leaf node, terminate.  If we found an
              upward reference to a higher level, enter the fallback algorithm.

       (iv)   If the tc filters did not return a class, nor a valid reference  to  one,  consider
              the  minor  number  of  the reference to be the priority. Retrieve a class from the
              defmap of this class for the priority. If this did not contain a class, consult the
              defmap  of this class for the BEST_EFFORT class. If this is an upward reference, or
              no BEST_EFFORT class was defined, enter the fallback algorithm. If  a  valid  class
              was  found,  and  it is not a leaf node, restart the loop at this class. If it is a
              leaf, choose it and terminate. If neither the priority distilled from the  classid,
              nor the BEST_EFFORT priority yielded a class, enter the fallback algorithm.

       The fallback algorithm resides outside of the loop and is as follows.

       (i)    Consult  the  defmap  of  the  class  at which the jump to fallback occured. If the
              defmap contains a class for the priority of the class (which is related to the  TOS
              field), choose this class and terminate.

       (ii)   Consult  the map for a class for the BEST_EFFORT priority. If found, choose it, and
              terminate.

       (iii)  Choose the class at which break out to the fallback algorithm occurred. Terminate.

       The packet is enqueued to the class which was chosen when either algorithm terminated.  It
       is  therefore possible for a packet to be enqueued *not* at a leaf node, but in the middle
       of the hierarchy.

LINK SHARING ALGORITHM

       When dequeuing for sending to the network device, CBQ decides which of its classes will be
       allowed  to  send. It does so with a Weighted Round Robin process in which each class with
       packets gets a chance to send in turn. The  WRR  process  starts  by  asking  the  highest
       priority  classes  (lowest  numerically  -  highest  semantically)  for  packets, and will
       continue to do so until they have no more data to offer, in which case the process repeats
       for lower priorities.

       CERTAINTY ENDS HERE, ANK PLEASE HELP

       Each  class is not allowed to send at length though - they can only dequeue a configurable
       amount of data during each round.

       If a class is about to go overlimit, and it is not bounded it will try to  borrow  avgidle
       from siblings that are not isolated.  This process is repeated from the bottom upwards. If
       a class is unable to borrow enough avgidle to send a packet, it is throttled and not asked
       for a packet for enough time for the avgidle to increase above zero.

       I REALLY NEED HELP FIGURING THIS OUT. REST OF DOCUMENT IS PRETTY CERTAIN AGAIN.

QDISC

       The root qdisc of a CBQ class tree has the following parameters:

       parent major:minor | root
              This  mandatory  parameter  determines the place of the CBQ instance, either at the
              root of an interface or within an existing class.

       handle major:
              Like all other qdiscs, the CBQ can be assigned a handle. Should consist only  of  a
              major number, followed by a colon. Optional.

       avpkt bytes
              For calculations, the average packet size must be known. It is silently capped at a
              minimum of 2/3 of the interface MTU. Mandatory.

       bandwidth rate
              To determine the idle time, CBQ must know the bandwidth of your underlying physical
              interface,  or  parent  qdisc.  This  is  a  vital  parameter, more about it later.
              Mandatory.

       cell   The cell size determines he granularity of packet transmission  time  calculations.
              Has a sensible default.

       mpu    A  zero  sized  packet may still take time to transmit. This value is the lower cap
              for packet transmission time calculations - packets smaller  than  this  value  are
              still deemed to have this size. Defaults to zero.

       ewma log
              When  CBQ needs to measure the average idle time, it does so using an Exponentially
              Weighted Moving Average which smooths out measurements into a moving  average.  The
              EWMA  LOG  determines  how much smoothing occurs. Defaults to 5. Lower values imply
              greater sensitivity. Must be between 0 and 31.

       A CBQ qdisc does not shape out of its own accord. It only needs to know certain parameters
       about the underlying link. Actual shaping is done in classes.

CLASSES

       Classes have a host of parameters to configure their operation.

       parent major:minor
              Place  of  this class within the hierarchy. If attached directly to a qdisc and not
              to another class, minor can be omitted. Mandatory.

       classid major:minor
              Like qdiscs, classes can be named. The major number must  be  equal  to  the  major
              number  of  the  qdisc  to  which it belongs. Optional, but needed if this class is
              going to have children.

       weight weight
              When dequeuing to the interface, classes are tried for  traffic  in  a  round-robin
              fashion. Classes with a higher configured qdisc will generally have more traffic to
              offer during each round, so it makes sense to allow it to dequeue more traffic. All
              weights  under  a  class are normalized, so only the ratios matter. Defaults to the
              configured rate, unless the priority of this class is maximal, in which case it  is
              set to 1.

       allot bytes
              Allot  specifies  how  many  bytes  a  qdisc  can  dequeue during each round of the
              process. This parameter is weighted using the renormalized class  weight  described
              above.

       priority priority
              In  the  round-robin  process, classes with the lowest priority field are tried for
              packets first. Mandatory.

       rate rate
              Maximum rate this class and all its children combined can send at. Mandatory.

       bandwidth rate
              This is different from the bandwidth specified when creating a CBQ disc. Only  used
              to  determine  maxidle  and  offtime,  which  are  only  calculated when specifying
              maxburst or minburst. Mandatory if specifying maxburst or minburst.

       maxburst
              This number of packets is used to calculate maxidle so  that  when  avgidle  is  at
              maxidle, this number of average packets can be burst before avgidle drops to 0. Set
              it higher to be more tolerant of bursts. You can't set maxidle directly,  only  via
              this parameter.

       minburst
              As mentioned before, CBQ needs to throttle in case of overlimit. The ideal solution
              is to do so for exactly the calculated idle time, and pass 1 packet. However,  Unix
              kernels  generally  have  a hard time scheduling events shorter than 10ms, so it is
              better to throttle for a longer period, and then pass minburst packets in  one  go,
              and then sleep minburst times longer.

              The  time  to  wait  is  called the offtime. Higher values of minburst lead to more
              accurate shaping in the long term, but to bigger bursts at millisecond timescales.

       minidle
              If avgidle is below 0, we are overlimits and need to wait until avgidle will be big
              enough  to  send  one packet. To prevent a sudden burst from shutting down the link
              for a prolonged period of time, avgidle is reset to minidle if it gets too low.

              Minidle is specified in negative microseconds, so 10 means that avgidle  is  capped
              at -10us.

       bounded
              Signifies that this class will not borrow bandwidth from its siblings.

       isolated
              Means that this class will not borrow bandwidth to its siblings

       split major:minor & defmap bitmap[/bitmap]
              If  consulting  filters  attached  to  a class did not give a verdict, CBQ can also
              classify based on  the  packet's  priority.  There  are  16  priorities  available,
              numbered from 0 to 15.

              The  defmap  specifies which priorities this class wants to receive, specified as a
              bitmap. The Least Significant Bit corresponds to priority zero. The split parameter
              tells CBQ at which class the decision must be made, which should be a (grand)parent
              of the class you are adding.

              As an example, 'tc class add  ...  classid  10:1  cbq  ..  split  10:0  defmap  c0'
              configures class 10:0 to send packets with priorities 6 and 7 to 10:1.

              The  complimentary  configuration would then be: 'tc class add ... classid 10:2 cbq
              ... split 10:0 defmap 3f' Which would send all packets 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 to 10:1.

       estimator interval timeconstant
              CBQ can measure how much bandwidth each class is using, which tc filters can use to
              classify  packets  with.  In order to determine the bandwidth it uses a very simple
              estimator that measures once every  interval  microseconds  how  much  traffic  has
              passed. This again is a EWMA, for which the time constant can be specified, also in
              microseconds. The time constant corresponds to the sluggishness of the  measurement
              or,  conversely,  to  the sensitivity of the average to short bursts. Higher values
              mean less sensitivity.

SOURCES

       o      Sally Floyd and Van Jacobson, "Link-sharing  and  Resource  Management  Models  for
              Packet Networks", IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol.3, No.4, 1995

       o      Sally Floyd, "Notes on CBQ and Guarantee Service", 1995

       o      Sally Floyd, "Notes on Class-Based Queueing: Setting Parameters", 1996

       o      Sally  Floyd  and  Michael  Speer, "Experimental Results for Class-Based Queueing",
              1998, not published.

SEE ALSO

       tc(8)

AUTHOR

       Alexey N. Kuznetsov,  <kuznet@ms2.inr.ac.ru>.  This  manpage  maintained  by  bert  hubert
       <ahu@ds9a.nl>