Network Interface Controller Drivers

• 1. Overview of Networking Drivers
• 2. Features Overview
  • 2.1. Speed capabilities
  • 2.2. Link status
  • 2.3. Link status event
  • 2.4. Removal event
  • 2.5. Queue status event
  • 2.6. Rx interrupt
  • 2.7. Lock-free Tx queue
  • 2.8. Fast mbuf free
  • 2.9. Free Tx mbuf on demand
  • 2.10. Queue start/stop
  • 2.11. MTU update
  • 2.12. Jumbo frame
  • 2.13. Scattered Rx
  • 2.14. LRO
  • 2.15. TSO
  • 2.16. Promiscuous mode
  • 2.17. Allmulticast mode
  • 2.18. Unicast MAC filter
  • 2.19. Multicast MAC filter
  • 2.20. RSS hash
  • 2.21. Inner RSS
  • 2.22. RSS key update
  • 2.23. RSS reta update
  • 2.24. VMDq
  • 2.25. SR-IOV
  • 2.26. DCB
  • 2.27. VLAN filter
  • 2.28. Ethertype filter
  • 2.29. N-tuple filter
  • 2.30. SYN filter
  • 2.31. Tunnel filter
  • 2.32. Flexible filter
  • 2.33. Hash filter
  • 2.34. Flow director
  • 2.35. Flow control
  • 2.36. Flow API
  • 2.37. Rate limitation
  • 2.38. Traffic mirroring
  • 2.39. Inline crypto
  • 2.40. CRC offload
  • 2.41. VLAN offload
  • 2.42. QinQ offload
  • 2.43. L3 checksum offload
  • 2.44. L4 checksum offload
  • 2.45. Timestamp offload
  • 2.46. MACsec offload
  • 2.47. Inner L3 checksum
  • 2.48. Inner L4 checksum
  • 2.49. Packet type parsing
  • 2.50. Timesync
  • 2.51. Rx descriptor status
  • 2.52. Tx descriptor status
  • 2.53. Basic stats
  • 2.54. Extended stats
  • 2.55. Stats per queue
  • 2.56. FW version
  • 2.57. EEPROM dump
  • 2.58. Module EEPROM dump
  • 2.59. Registers dump
  • 2.60. LED
  • 2.61. Multiprocess aware
  • 2.62. BSD nic_uio
  • 2.63. Linux UIO
  • 2.64. Linux VFIO
  • 2.65. Other kdrv
  • 2.66. ARMv7
  • 2.67. ARMv8
  • 2.68. Power8
  • 2.69. x86-32
  • 2.70. x86-64
  • 2.71. Usage doc
  • 2.72. Design doc
  • 2.73. Perf doc
  • 2.74. Runtime Rx queue setup
  • 2.75. Runtime Tx queue setup
  • 2.76. Other dev ops not represented by a Feature
• 3. Compiling and testing a PMD for a NIC
  • 3.1. Driver Compilation
  • 3.2. Running testpmd in Linux
• 4. ARK Poll Mode Driver
  • 4.1. Overview
  • 4.2. Device Parameters
  • 4.3. Data Path Interface
  • 4.4. Configuration Information
  • 4.5. Building DPDK
  • 4.6. Supported ARK RTL PCIe Instances
  • 4.7. Supported Operating Systems
  • 4.8. Supported Features
  • 4.9. Unsupported Features
  • 4.10. Pre-Requisites
  • 4.11. Usage Example
• 5. Aquantia Atlantic DPDK Driver
  • 5.1. Supported features
  • 5.2. Configuration Information
    • 5.2.1. Application Programming Interface
    • 5.2.2. Limitations or Known issues
    • 5.2.3. Supported Chipsets and NICs
• 6. AVP Poll Mode Driver
  • 6.1. Features and Limitations of the AVP PMD
  • 6.2. Prerequisites
  • 6.3. Launching a VM with an AVP type network attachment
• 7. AXGBE Poll Mode Driver
  • 7.1. Supported Features
  • 7.2. Configuration Information
  • 7.3. Building DPDK
  • 7.4. Prerequisites and Pre-conditions
  • 7.5. Usage Example
• 8. BNX2X Poll Mode Driver
  • 8.1. Supported Features
  • 8.2. Non-supported Features
  • 8.3. Co-existence considerations
  • 8.4. Supported QLogic NICs
  • 8.5. Prerequisites
  • 8.6. Pre-Installation Configuration
    • 8.6.1. Config File Options
  • 8.7. Driver compilation and testing
  • 8.8. SR-IOV: Prerequisites and sample Application Notes
• 9. BNXT Poll Mode Driver
  • 9.1. Limitations
• 10. CXGBE Poll Mode Driver
  • 10.1. Features
  • 10.2. Limitations
  • 10.3. Supported Chelsio T5 NICs
  • 10.4. Supported Chelsio T6 NICs
  • 10.5. Supported SR-IOV Chelsio NICs
  • 10.6. Prerequisites
  • 10.7. Pre-Installation Configuration
    • 10.7.1. Config File Options
    • 10.7.2. Runtime Options
  • 10.8. Driver compilation and testing
  • 10.9. Linux
    • 10.9.1. Linux Installation
    • 10.9.2. Running testpmd
    • 10.9.3. Configuring SR-IOV Virtual Functions
  • 10.10. FreeBSD
    • 10.10.1. FreeBSD Installation
    • 10.10.2. Running testpmd
  • 10.11. Sample Application Notes
    • 10.11.1. Enable/Disable Flow Control
    • 10.11.2. Jumbo Mode
• 11. DPAA Poll Mode Driver
  • 11.1. NXP DPAA (Data Path Acceleration Architecture - Gen 1)
    • 11.1.1. DPAA Overview
  • 11.2. DPAA DPDK - Poll Mode Driver Overview
    • 11.2.1. DPAA Bus driver
    • 11.2.2. DPAA NIC Driver (PMD)
    • 11.2.3. DPAA Mempool Driver
  • 11.3. Whitelisting & Blacklisting
  • 11.4. Supported DPAA SoCs
  • 11.5. Prerequisites
  • 11.6. Pre-Installation Configuration
    • 11.6.1. Config File Options
    • 11.6.2. Environment Variables
  • 11.7. Driver compilation and testing
  • 11.8. Limitations
    • 11.8.1. Platform Requirement
    • 11.8.2. Maximum packet length
    • 11.8.3. Multiprocess Support
• 12. DPAA2 Poll Mode Driver
  • 12.1. NXP DPAA2 (Data Path Acceleration Architecture Gen2)
    • 12.1.1. DPAA2 Overview
    • 12.1.2. Overview of DPAA2 Objects
    • 12.1.3. DPAA2 Objects for an Ethernet Network Interface
    • 12.1.4. Object Connections
    • 12.1.5. Interrupts
  • 12.2. DPAA2 DPDK - Poll Mode Driver Overview
    • 12.2.1. DPAA2 bus driver
    • 12.2.2. DPIO driver
    • 12.2.3. DPBP based Mempool driver
    • 12.2.4. DPAA2 NIC Driver
  • 12.3. Supported DPAA2 SoCs
  • 12.4. Prerequisites
  • 12.5. Pre-Installation Configuration
    • 12.5.1. Config File Options
  • 12.6. Driver compilation and testing
  • 12.7. Enabling logs
  • 12.8. Whitelisting & Blacklisting
  • 12.9. Limitations
    • 12.9.1. Platform Requirement
    • 12.9.2. Maximum packet length
    • 12.9.3. Other Limitations
• 13. Driver for VM Emulated Devices
  • 13.1. Validated Hypervisors
  • 13.2. Recommended Guest Operating System in Virtual Machine
  • 13.3. Setting Up a KVM Virtual Machine
  • 13.4. Known Limitations of Emulated Devices
• 14. ENA Poll Mode Driver
  • 14.1. Overview
  • 14.2. Management Interface
  • 14.3. Data Path Interface
  • 14.4. Configuration information
  • 14.5. Building DPDK
  • 14.6. Supported ENA adapters
  • 14.7. Supported Operating Systems
  • 14.8. Supported features
  • 14.9. Unsupported features
  • 14.10. Prerequisites
  • 14.11. Usage example
• 15. ENETC Poll Mode Driver
  • 15.1. ENETC
    • 15.1.1. ENETC Overview
    • 15.1.2. ENETC Features
    • 15.1.3. NIC Driver (PMD)
    • 15.1.4. Supported ENETC SoCs
    • 15.1.5. Prerequisites
    • 15.1.6. Driver compilation and testing
• 16. ENIC Poll Mode Driver
  • 16.1. How to obtain ENIC PMD integrated DPDK
  • 16.2. Configuration information
  • 16.3. Flow director support
  • 16.4. SR-IOV mode utilization
  • 16.5. Generic Flow API support
  • 16.6. Overlay Offload
  • 16.7. Ingress VLAN Rewrite
  • 16.8. Vectorized Rx Handler
  • 16.9. Limitations
  • 16.10. How to build the suite
  • 16.11. Supported Cisco VIC adapters
  • 16.12. Supported Operating Systems
  • 16.13. Supported features
  • 16.14. Known bugs and unsupported features in this release
  • 16.15. Prerequisites
  • 16.16. Additional Reference
  • 16.17. Contact Information
• 17. FM10K Poll Mode Driver
  • 17.1. FTAG Based Forwarding of FM10K
  • 17.2. Vector PMD for FM10K
    • 17.2.1. RX Constraints
    • 17.2.2. TX Constraint
  • 17.3. Limitations
    • 17.3.1. Switch manager
    • 17.3.2. Support for Switch Restart
    • 17.3.3. CRC stripping
    • 17.3.4. Maximum packet length
    • 17.3.5. Statistic Polling Frequency
    • 17.3.6. Interrupt mode
• 18. I40E Poll Mode Driver
  • 18.1. Features
  • 18.2. Prerequisites
  • 18.3. Recommended Matching List
  • 18.4. Pre-Installation Configuration
    • 18.4.1. Config File Options
    • 18.4.2. Runtime Config Options
    • 18.4.3. Vector RX Pre-conditions
  • 18.5. Driver compilation and testing
  • 18.6. SR-IOV: Prerequisites and sample Application Notes
  • 18.7. Sample Application Notes
    • 18.7.1. Vlan filter
    • 18.7.2. Flow Director
    • 18.7.3. Floating VEB
    • 18.7.4. Dynamic Device Personalization (DDP)
    • 18.7.5. Input set configuration
    • 18.7.6. Queue region configuration
  • 18.8. Limitations or Known issues
    • 18.8.1. MPLS packet classification
    • 18.8.2. 16 Byte RX Descriptor setting on DPDK VF
    • 18.8.3. Receive packets with Ethertype 0x88A8
    • 18.8.4. Incorrect Rx statistics when packet is oversize
    • 18.8.5. RX/TX statistics may be incorrect when register overflowed
    • 18.8.6. VF & TC max bandwidth setting
    • 18.8.7. TC TX scheduling mode setting
    • 18.8.8. VF performance is impacted by PCI extended tag setting
    • 18.8.9. Vlan strip of VF
    • 18.8.10. DCB function
    • 18.8.11. Global configuration warning
  • 18.9. High Performance of Small Packets on 40GbE NIC
    • 18.9.1. Use 16 Bytes RX Descriptor Size
    • 18.9.2. Input set requirement of each pctype for FDIR
  • 18.10. Example of getting best performance with l3fwd example
    • 18.10.1. Tx bytes affected by the link status change
• 19. IFCVF vDPA driver
  • 19.1. Pre-Installation Configuration
    • 19.1.1. Config File Options
  • 19.2. IFCVF vDPA Implementation
    • 19.2.1. Key IFCVF vDPA driver ops
    • 19.2.2. To create a vhost port with IFC VF
  • 19.3. Features
  • 19.4. Prerequisites
  • 19.5. Limitations
    • 19.5.1. Dependency on vfio-pci
    • 19.5.2. Live Migration with VIRTIO_NET_F_GUEST_ANNOUNCE
• 20. IGB Poll Mode Driver
  • 20.1. Features
  • 20.2. Limitations or Known issues
  • 20.3. Supported Chipsets and NICs
• 21. IXGBE Driver
  • 21.1. Vector PMD for IXGBE
    • 21.1.1. RX Constraints
    • 21.1.2. TX Constraint
  • 21.2. Application Programming Interface
  • 21.3. Sample Application Notes
    • 21.3.1. l3fwd
    • 21.3.2. load_balancer
  • 21.4. Limitations or Known issues
    • 21.4.1. Malicious Driver Detection not Supported
    • 21.4.2. Statistics
    • 21.4.3. MTU setting
    • 21.4.4. VF MAC address setting
    • 21.4.5. X550 does not support legacy interrupt mode
  • 21.5. Inline crypto processing support
  • 21.6. Virtual Function Port Representors
  • 21.7. Supported Chipsets and NICs
• 22. Intel Virtual Function Driver
  • 22.1. SR-IOV Mode Utilization in a DPDK Environment
    • 22.1.1. Physical and Virtual Function Infrastructure
    • 22.1.2. Validated Hypervisors
    • 22.1.3. Expected Guest Operating System in Virtual Machine
  • 22.2. Setting Up a KVM Virtual Machine Monitor
  • 22.3. DPDK SR-IOV PMD PF/VF Driver Usage Model
    • 22.3.1. Fast Host-based Packet Processing
  • 22.4. SR-IOV (PF/VF) Approach for Inter-VM Communication
• 23. KNI Poll Mode Driver
  • 23.1. Usage
  • 23.2. Default interface configuration
  • 23.3. PMD arguments
  • 23.4. PMD log messages
  • 23.5. PMD testing
• 24. LiquidIO VF Poll Mode Driver
  • 24.1. Supported LiquidIO Adapters
  • 24.2. Pre-Installation Configuration
  • 24.3. SR-IOV: Prerequisites and Sample Application Notes
  • 24.4. Limitations
    • 24.4.1. VF MTU
    • 24.4.2. VLAN offload
    • 24.4.3. Ring size
    • 24.4.4. CRC stripping
• 25. MLX4 poll mode driver library
  • 25.1. Implementation details
  • 25.2. Configuration
    • 25.2.1. Compilation options
    • 25.2.2. Environment variables
    • 25.2.3. Run-time configuration
    • 25.2.4. Kernel module parameters
  • 25.3. Limitations
  • 25.4. Prerequisites
    • 25.4.1. Current RDMA core package and Linux kernel (recommended)
    • 25.4.2. Mellanox OFED as a fallback
  • 25.5. Supported NICs
  • 25.6. Quick Start Guide
  • 25.7. Performance tuning
  • 25.8. Usage example
• 26. MLX5 poll mode driver
  • 26.1. Implementation details
  • 26.2. Features
  • 26.3. Limitations
  • 26.4. Statistics
  • 26.5. Configuration
    • 26.5.1. Compilation options
    • 26.5.2. Environment variables
    • 26.5.3. Run-time configuration
    • 26.5.4. Firmware configuration
  • 26.6. Prerequisites
    • 26.6.1. Installation
  • 26.7. Supported NICs
  • 26.8. Quick Start Guide on OFED
  • 26.9. Performance tuning
  • 26.10. Notes for testpmd
  • 26.11. Usage example
• 27. MVNETA Poll Mode Driver
  • 27.1. Features
  • 27.2. Limitations
  • 27.3. Prerequisites
  • 27.4. Pre-Installation Configuration
    • 27.4.1. Config File Options
    • 27.4.2. Runtime options
  • 27.5. Building DPDK
  • 27.6. Usage Example
• 28. MVPP2 Poll Mode Driver
  • 28.1. Features
  • 28.2. Limitations
  • 28.3. Prerequisites
  • 28.4. Config File Options
  • 28.5. Building DPDK
  • 28.6. Usage Example
  • 28.7. Extended stats
  • 28.8. QoS Configuration
    • 28.8.1. Configuration syntax
  • 28.9. Flow API
    • 28.9.1. Supported flow actions
    • 28.9.2. Supported flow items
    • 28.9.3. Classifier match engine
    • 28.9.4. Flow rules usage example
    • 28.9.5. Limitations
  • 28.10. Traffic metering and policing
    • 28.10.1. Limitations
    • 28.10.2. Usage example
  • 28.11. Traffic Management API
    • 28.11.1. Limitations
    • 28.11.2. Usage example
• 29. Netvsc poll mode driver
  • 29.1. Features and Limitations of Hyper-V PMD
  • 29.2. Installation
  • 29.3. Prerequisites
  • 29.4. Netvsc PMD arguments
• 30. NFP poll mode driver library
  • 30.1. Dependencies
  • 30.2. Building the software
  • 30.3. Driver compilation and testing
  • 30.4. Using the PF
  • 30.5. PF multiport support
  • 30.6. System configuration
• 31. OCTEON TX Poll Mode driver
  • 31.1. Features
  • 31.2. Supported OCTEON TX SoCs
  • 31.3. Unsupported features
  • 31.4. Prerequisites
  • 31.5. Pre-Installation Configuration
    • 31.5.1. Config File Options
    • 31.5.2. Driver compilation and testing
  • 31.6. Initialization
    • 31.6.1. Device arguments
    • 31.6.2. Dependency
  • 31.7. Limitations
    • 31.7.1. octeontx_fpavf external mempool handler dependency
    • 31.7.2. CRC stripping
    • 31.7.3. Maximum packet length
• 32. QEDE Poll Mode Driver
  • 32.1. Supported Features
  • 32.2. Non-supported Features
  • 32.3. Co-existence considerations
  • 32.4. Supported QLogic Adapters
  • 32.5. Prerequisites
    • 32.5.1. Performance note
    • 32.5.2. Config File Options
  • 32.6. Driver compilation and testing
  • 32.7. SR-IOV: Prerequisites and Sample Application Notes
• 33. Solarflare libefx-based Poll Mode Driver
  • 33.1. Features
  • 33.2. Non-supported Features
  • 33.3. Limitations
    • 33.3.1. Equal stride super-buffer mode
  • 33.4. Tunnels support
  • 33.5. Flow API support
    • 33.5.1. Ethernet destination individual/group match
    • 33.5.2. Exceptions to flow rules
  • 33.6. Supported NICs
  • 33.7. Prerequisites
  • 33.8. Pre-Installation Configuration
    • 33.8.1. Config File Options
    • 33.8.2. Per-Device Parameters
    • 33.8.3. Dynamic Logging Parameters
• 34. Soft NIC Poll Mode Driver
  • 34.1. Flow
  • 34.2. Supported Operating Systems
  • 34.3. Build options
  • 34.4. Soft NIC PMD arguments
  • 34.5. Soft NIC testing
  • 34.6. Soft NIC Firmware
  • 34.7. QoS API Support:
  • 34.8. Flow API support:
    • 34.8.1. Example:
• 35. SZEDATA2 poll mode driver library
  • 35.1. Prerequisites
    • 35.1.1. Versions of the packages
  • 35.2. Configuration
  • 35.3. Using the SZEDATA2 PMD
  • 35.4. NFB card architecture
  • 35.5. Limitations
  • 35.6. Example of usage
• 36. Tun|Tap Poll Mode Driver
  • 36.1. Flow API support
    • 36.1.1. Examples of testpmd flow rules
  • 36.2. Multi-process sharing
  • 36.3. Example
  • 36.4. RSS specifics
  • 36.5. Systems supporting flow API
• 37. ThunderX NICVF Poll Mode Driver
  • 37.1. Features
  • 37.2. Supported ThunderX SoCs
  • 37.3. Prerequisites
  • 37.4. Pre-Installation Configuration
    • 37.4.1. Config File Options
  • 37.5. Driver compilation and testing
  • 37.6. Linux
    • 37.6.1. SR-IOV: Prerequisites and sample Application Notes
    • 37.6.2. Multiple Queue Set per DPDK port configuration
    • 37.6.3. Example device binding
  • 37.7. Module params
    • 37.7.1. skip_data_bytes
  • 37.8. Limitations
    • 37.8.1. CRC stripping
    • 37.8.2. Maximum packet length
    • 37.8.3. Maximum packet segments
    • 37.8.4. skip_data_bytes
• 38. VDEV_NETVSC driver
  • 38.1. Implementation details
  • 38.2. Build options
  • 38.3. Run-time parameters
• 39. Poll Mode Driver for Emulated Virtio NIC
  • 39.1. Virtio Implementation in DPDK
  • 39.2. Features and Limitations of virtio PMD
  • 39.3. Prerequisites
  • 39.4. Virtio with kni vhost Back End
  • 39.5. Virtio with qemu virtio Back End
  • 39.6. Virtio PMD Rx/Tx Callbacks
  • 39.7. Interrupt mode
    • 39.7.1. Prerequisites for Rx interrupts
    • 39.7.2. Example
  • 39.8. Virtio PMD arguments
• 40. Poll Mode Driver that wraps vhost library
  • 40.1. Vhost Implementation in DPDK
  • 40.2. Features and Limitations of vhost PMD
  • 40.3. Vhost PMD arguments
  • 40.4. Vhost PMD event handling
  • 40.5. Vhost PMD with testpmd application
• 41. Poll Mode Driver for Paravirtual VMXNET3 NIC
  • 41.1. VMXNET3 Implementation in the DPDK
  • 41.2. Features and Limitations of VMXNET3 PMD
  • 41.3. Prerequisites
  • 41.4. VMXNET3 with a Native NIC Connected to a vSwitch
  • 41.5. VMXNET3 Chaining VMs Connected to a vSwitch
• 42. Libpcap and Ring Based Poll Mode Drivers
  • 42.1. Using the Drivers from the EAL Command Line
    • 42.1.1. Libpcap-based PMD
    • 42.1.2. Rings-based PMD
    • 42.1.3. Using the Poll Mode Driver from an Application
• 43. Fail-safe poll mode driver library
  • 43.1. Features
  • 43.2. Compilation option
  • 43.3. Using the Fail-safe PMD from the EAL command line
    • 43.3.1. Fail-safe command line parameters
    • 43.3.2. Usage example
  • 43.4. Using the Fail-safe PMD from an application
  • 43.5. Plug-in feature
  • 43.6. Plug-out feature
  • 43.7. Fail-safe glossary