tcp: remove obsolete and unused RFC3517/RFC6675 loss recovery code

RACK-TLP loss detection has been enabled as the default loss detection
algorithm for Linux TCP since 2018, in:

 commit b38a51fec1c1 ("tcp: disable RFC6675 loss detection")

In case users ran into unexpected bugs or performance regressions,
that commit allowed Linux system administrators to revert to using
RFC3517/RFC6675 loss recovery by setting net.ipv4.tcp_recovery to 0.

In the seven years since 2018, our team has not heard reports of
anyone reverting Linux TCP to use RFC3517/RFC6675 loss recovery, and
we can't find any record in web searches of such a revert.

RACK-TLP was published as a standards-track RFC, RFC8985, in February
2021.

Several other major TCP implementations have default-enabled RACK-TLP
at this point as well.

RACK-TLP offers several significant performance advantages over
RFC3517/RFC6675 loss recovery, including much better performance in
the common cases of tail drops, lost retransmissions, and reordering.

It is now time to remove the obsolete and unused RFC3517/RFC6675 loss
recovery code. This will allow a substantial simplification of the
Linux TCP code base, and removes 12 bytes of state in every tcp_sock
for 64-bit machines (8 bytes on 32-bit machines).

To arrange the commits in reasonable sizes, this patch series is split
into 3 commits. The following 2 commits remove bookkeeping state and
code that is no longer needed after this removal of RFC3517/RFC6675
loss recovery.

Suggested-by: Yuchung Cheng <ycheng@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Neal Cardwell <ncardwell@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Yuchung Cheng <ycheng@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20250615001435.2390793-2-ncardwell.sw@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>

1 files changed, 10 insertions, 127 deletions

diff --git a/net/ipv4/tcp_input.c b/net/ipv4/tcp_input.c
index 8ec92dec321a..dc234d3854aa 100644
--- a/net/ipv4/tcp_input.c
+++ b/net/ipv4/tcp_input.c
@@ -2151,12 +2151,6 @@ static inline void tcp_init_undo(struct tcp_sock *tp)
 		tp->undo_retrans = -1;
 }
 
-static bool tcp_is_rack(const struct sock *sk)
-{
-	return READ_ONCE(sock_net(sk)->ipv4.sysctl_tcp_recovery) &
-		TCP_RACK_LOSS_DETECTION;
-}
-
 /* If we detect SACK reneging, forget all SACK information
  * and reset tags completely, otherwise preserve SACKs. If receiver
  * dropped its ofo queue, we will know this due to reneging detection.
@@ -2182,8 +2176,7 @@ static void tcp_timeout_mark_lost(struct sock *sk)
 	skb_rbtree_walk_from(skb) {
 		if (is_reneg)
 			TCP_SKB_CB(skb)->sacked &= ~TCPCB_SACKED_ACKED;
-		else if (tcp_is_rack(sk) && skb != head &&
-			 tcp_rack_skb_timeout(tp, skb, 0) > 0)
+		else if (skb != head && tcp_rack_skb_timeout(tp, skb, 0) > 0)
 			continue; /* Don't mark recently sent ones lost yet */
 		tcp_mark_skb_lost(sk, skb);
 	}
@@ -2264,22 +2257,6 @@ static bool tcp_check_sack_reneging(struct sock *sk, int *ack_flag)
 	return false;
 }
 
-/* Heurestics to calculate number of duplicate ACKs. There's no dupACKs
- * counter when SACK is enabled (without SACK, sacked_out is used for
- * that purpose).
- *
- * With reordering, holes may still be in flight, so RFC3517 recovery
- * uses pure sacked_out (total number of SACKed segments) even though
- * it violates the RFC that uses duplicate ACKs, often these are equal
- * but when e.g. out-of-window ACKs or packet duplication occurs,
- * they differ. Since neither occurs due to loss, TCP should really
- * ignore them.
- */
-static inline int tcp_dupack_heuristics(const struct tcp_sock *tp)
-{
-	return tp->sacked_out + 1;
-}
-
 /* Linux NewReno/SACK/ECN state machine.
  * --------------------------------------
  *
@@ -2332,13 +2309,7 @@ static inline int tcp_dupack_heuristics(const struct tcp_sock *tp)
  *
  *		If the receiver supports SACK:
  *
- *		RFC6675/3517: It is the conventional algorithm. A packet is
- *		considered lost if the number of higher sequence packets
- *		SACKed is greater than or equal the DUPACK thoreshold
- *		(reordering). This is implemented in tcp_mark_head_lost and
- *		tcp_update_scoreboard.
- *
- *		RACK (draft-ietf-tcpm-rack-01): it is a newer algorithm
+ *		RACK (RFC8985): RACK is a newer loss detection algorithm
  *		(2017-) that checks timing instead of counting DUPACKs.
  *		Essentially a packet is considered lost if it's not S/ACKed
  *		after RTT + reordering_window, where both metrics are
@@ -2353,8 +2324,8 @@ static inline int tcp_dupack_heuristics(const struct tcp_sock *tp)
  *		is lost (NewReno). This heuristics are the same in NewReno
  *		and SACK.
  *
- * Really tricky (and requiring careful tuning) part of algorithm
- * is hidden in functions tcp_time_to_recover() and tcp_xmit_retransmit_queue().
+ * The really tricky (and requiring careful tuning) part of the algorithm
+ * is hidden in the RACK code in tcp_recovery.c and tcp_xmit_retransmit_queue().
  * The first determines the moment _when_ we should reduce CWND and,
  * hence, slow down forward transmission. In fact, it determines the moment
  * when we decide that hole is caused by loss, rather than by a reorder.
@@ -2381,79 +2352,8 @@ static bool tcp_time_to_recover(struct sock *sk, int flag)
 {
 	struct tcp_sock *tp = tcp_sk(sk);
 
-	/* Trick#1: The loss is proven. */
-	if (tp->lost_out)
-		return true;
-
-	/* Not-A-Trick#2 : Classic rule... */
-	if (!tcp_is_rack(sk) && tcp_dupack_heuristics(tp) > tp->reordering)
-		return true;
-
-	return false;
-}
-
-/* Detect loss in event "A" above by marking head of queue up as lost.
- * For RFC3517 SACK, a segment is considered lost if it
- * has at least tp->reordering SACKed seqments above it; "packets" refers to
- * the maximum SACKed segments to pass before reaching this limit.
- */
-static void tcp_mark_head_lost(struct sock *sk, int packets, int mark_head)
-{
-	struct tcp_sock *tp = tcp_sk(sk);
-	struct sk_buff *skb;
-	int cnt;
-	/* Use SACK to deduce losses of new sequences sent during recovery */
-	const u32 loss_high = tp->snd_nxt;
-
-	WARN_ON(packets > tp->packets_out);
-	skb = tp->lost_skb_hint;
-	if (skb) {
-		/* Head already handled? */
-		if (mark_head && after(TCP_SKB_CB(skb)->seq, tp->snd_una))
-			return;
-		cnt = tp->lost_cnt_hint;
-	} else {
-		skb = tcp_rtx_queue_head(sk);
-		cnt = 0;
-	}
-
-	skb_rbtree_walk_from(skb) {
-		/* TODO: do this better */
-		/* this is not the most efficient way to do this... */
-		tp->lost_skb_hint = skb;
-		tp->lost_cnt_hint = cnt;
-
-		if (after(TCP_SKB_CB(skb)->end_seq, loss_high))
-			break;
-
-		if (TCP_SKB_CB(skb)->sacked & TCPCB_SACKED_ACKED)
-			cnt += tcp_skb_pcount(skb);
-
-		if (cnt > packets)
-			break;
-
-		if (!(TCP_SKB_CB(skb)->sacked & TCPCB_LOST))
-			tcp_mark_skb_lost(sk, skb);
-
-		if (mark_head)
-			break;
-	}
-	tcp_verify_left_out(tp);
-}
-
-/* Account newly detected lost packet(s) */
-
-static void tcp_update_scoreboard(struct sock *sk, int fast_rexmit)
-{
-	struct tcp_sock *tp = tcp_sk(sk);
-
-	if (tcp_is_sack(tp)) {
-		int sacked_upto = tp->sacked_out - tp->reordering;
-		if (sacked_upto >= 0)
-			tcp_mark_head_lost(sk, sacked_upto, 0);
-		else if (fast_rexmit)
-			tcp_mark_head_lost(sk, 1, 1);
-	}
+	/* Has loss detection marked at least one packet lost? */
+	return tp->lost_out != 0;
 }
 
 static bool tcp_tsopt_ecr_before(const struct tcp_sock *tp, u32 when)
@@ -2990,17 +2890,8 @@ static void tcp_process_loss(struct sock *sk, int flag, int num_dupack,
 	*rexmit = REXMIT_LOST;
 }
 
-static bool tcp_force_fast_retransmit(struct sock *sk)
-{
-	struct tcp_sock *tp = tcp_sk(sk);
-
-	return after(tcp_highest_sack_seq(tp),
-		     tp->snd_una + tp->reordering * tp->mss_cache);
-}
-
 /* Undo during fast recovery after partial ACK. */
-static bool tcp_try_undo_partial(struct sock *sk, u32 prior_snd_una,
-				 bool *do_lost)
+static bool tcp_try_undo_partial(struct sock *sk, u32 prior_snd_una)
 {
 	struct tcp_sock *tp = tcp_sk(sk);
 
@@ -3025,9 +2916,6 @@ static bool tcp_try_undo_partial(struct sock *sk, u32 prior_snd_una,
 		tcp_undo_cwnd_reduction(sk, true);
 		NET_INC_STATS(sock_net(sk), LINUX_MIB_TCPPARTIALUNDO);
 		tcp_try_keep_open(sk);
-	} else {
-		/* Partial ACK arrived. Force fast retransmit. */
-		*do_lost = tcp_force_fast_retransmit(sk);
 	}
 	return false;
 }
@@ -3041,7 +2929,7 @@ static void tcp_identify_packet_loss(struct sock *sk, int *ack_flag)
 
 	if (unlikely(tcp_is_reno(tp))) {
 		tcp_newreno_mark_lost(sk, *ack_flag & FLAG_SND_UNA_ADVANCED);
-	} else if (tcp_is_rack(sk)) {
+	} else {
 		u32 prior_retrans = tp->retrans_out;
 
 		if (tcp_rack_mark_lost(sk))
@@ -3068,10 +2956,8 @@ static void tcp_fastretrans_alert(struct sock *sk, const u32 prior_snd_una,
 {
 	struct inet_connection_sock *icsk = inet_csk(sk);
 	struct tcp_sock *tp = tcp_sk(sk);
-	int fast_rexmit = 0, flag = *ack_flag;
+	int flag = *ack_flag;
 	bool ece_ack = flag & FLAG_ECE;
-	bool do_lost = num_dupack || ((flag & FLAG_DATA_SACKED) &&
-				      tcp_force_fast_retransmit(sk));
 
 	if (!tp->packets_out && tp->sacked_out)
 		tp->sacked_out = 0;
@@ -3120,7 +3006,7 @@ static void tcp_fastretrans_alert(struct sock *sk, const u32 prior_snd_una,
 		if (!(flag & FLAG_SND_UNA_ADVANCED)) {
 			if (tcp_is_reno(tp))
 				tcp_add_reno_sack(sk, num_dupack, ece_ack);
-		} else if (tcp_try_undo_partial(sk, prior_snd_una, &do_lost))
+		} else if (tcp_try_undo_partial(sk, prior_snd_una))
 			return;
 
 		if (tcp_try_undo_dsack(sk))
@@ -3175,11 +3061,8 @@ static void tcp_fastretrans_alert(struct sock *sk, const u32 prior_snd_una,
 
 		/* Otherwise enter Recovery state */
 		tcp_enter_recovery(sk, ece_ack);
-		fast_rexmit = 1;
 	}
 
-	if (!tcp_is_rack(sk) && do_lost)
-		tcp_update_scoreboard(sk, fast_rexmit);
 	*rexmit = REXMIT_LOST;
 }