5. EAL parameters

-c <core mask>

Set the hexadecimal bitmask of the cores to run on.
-l <core list>

List of cores to run on

The argument format is <c1>[-c2][,c3[-c4],...] where c1, c2, etc are core indexes between 0 and 128.
--lcores <core map>

Map lcore set to physical cpu set

The argument format is:
```
<lcores[@cpus]>[<,lcores[@cpus]>...]
```
Lcore and CPU lists are grouped by ( and ) Within the group. The - character is used as a range separator and , is used as a single number separator. The grouping () can be omitted for single element group. The @ can be omitted if cpus and lcores have the same value.

Note

At a given instance only one core option --lcores, -l or -c can be used.

--master-lcore <core ID>

Core ID that is used as master.
-s <service core mask>

Hexadecimal bitmask of cores to be used as service cores.

-b, --pci-blacklist <[domain:]bus:devid.func>

Blacklist a PCI device to prevent EAL from using it. Multiple -b options are allowed.

Note

PCI blacklist cannot be used with -w option.

-w, --pci-whitelist <[domain:]bus:devid.func>

Add a PCI device in white list.

Note

PCI whitelist cannot be used with -b option.

--vdev <device arguments>

Add a virtual device using the format:

<driver><id>[,key=val, ...]

For example:

--vdev 'net_pcap0,rx_pcap=input.pcap,tx_pcap=output.pcap'

-d <path to shared object or directory>

Load external drivers. An argument can be a single shared object file, or a directory containing multiple driver shared objects. Multiple -d options are allowed.
--no-pci

Disable PCI bus.

--proc-type <primary|secondary|auto>

Set the type of the current process.
--base-virtaddr <address>

Attempt to use a different starting address for all memory maps of the primary DPDK process. This can be helpful if secondary processes cannot start due to conflicts in address map.

-n <number of channels>

Set the number of memory channels to use.
-r <number of ranks>

Set the number of memory ranks (auto-detected by default).
-m <megabytes>

Amount of memory to preallocate at startup.
--in-memory

Do not create any shared data structures and run entirely in memory. Implies --no-shconf and (if applicable) --huge-unlink.
--iova-mode <pa|va>

Force IOVA mode to a specific value.

--no-shconf

No shared files created (implies no secondary process support).
--no-huge

Use anonymous memory instead of hugepages (implies no secondary process support).
--log-level <type:val>

Specify log level for a specific component. For example:
```
--log-level eal:8
```
Can be specified multiple times.

5.1. Common EAL parameters