3. Running the Application

3.1. EAL Command-line Options

The following are the EAL command-line options that can be used in conjunction with the testpmd, or any other DPDK application. See the DPDK Getting Started Guides for more information on these options.

• -c COREMASK

  Set the hexadecimal bitmask of the cores to run on.

• -l CORELIST

  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 COREMAP

  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.

• --master-lcore ID

  Core ID that is used as master.

• -n NUM

  Set the number of memory channels to use.

• -b, --pci-blacklist domain:bus:devid.func

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

• -d LIB.so

  Load an external driver. Multiple -d options are allowed.

• -w, --pci-whitelist domain:bus:devid:func

  Add a PCI device in white list.

• -m MB

  Memory to allocate. See also --socket-mem.

• -r NUM

  Set the number of memory ranks (auto-detected by default).

• -v

  Display the version information on startup.

• --xen-dom0

  Support application running on Xen Domain0 without hugetlbfs.

• --syslog

  Set the syslog facility.

• --socket-mem

  Set the memory to allocate on specific sockets (use comma separated values).

• --huge-dir

  Specify the directory where the hugetlbfs is mounted.

• --proc-type

  Set the type of the current process.

• --file-prefix

  Prefix for hugepage filenames.

• -vmware-tsc-map

  Use VMware TSC map instead of native RDTSC.

• --vdev

  Add a virtual device using the format:

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

  For example:

  --vdev 'eth_pcap0,rx_pcap=input.pcap,tx_pcap=output.pcap'
  

• --base-virtaddr

  Specify base virtual address.

• --create-uio-dev

  Create /dev/uioX (usually done by hotplug).

• --no-shconf

  No shared config (mmap-ed files).

• --no-pci

  Disable pci.

• --no-hpet

  Disable hpet.

• --no-huge

  Use malloc instead of hugetlbfs.

3.2. Testpmd Command-line Options

The following are the command-line options for the testpmd applications. They must be separated from the EAL options, shown in the previous section, with a -- separator:

sudo ./testpmd -c 0xF -n 4 -- -i --portmask=0x1 --nb-cores=2

The commandline options are:

• -i, --interactive

  Run testpmd in interactive mode. In this mode, the testpmd starts with a prompt that can be used to start and stop forwarding, configure the application and display stats on the current packet processing session. See Testpmd Runtime Functions for more details.

  In non-interactive mode, the application starts with the configuration specified on the command-line and immediately enters forwarding mode.

• -h, --help

  Display a help message and quit.

• -a, --auto-start

  Start forwarding on initialization.

• --nb-cores=N

  Set the number of forwarding cores, where 1 <= N <= “number of cores” or CONFIG_RTE_MAX_LCORE from the configuration file. The default value is 1.

• --nb-ports=N

  Set the number of forwarding ports, where 1 <= N <= “number of ports” on the board or CONFIG_RTE_MAX_ETHPORTS from the configuration file. The default value is the number of ports on the board.

• --coremask=0xXX

  Set the hexadecimal bitmask of the cores running the packet forwarding test. The master lcore is reserved for command line parsing only and cannot be masked on for packet forwarding.

• --portmask=0xXX

  Set the hexadecimal bitmask of the ports used by the packet forwarding test.

• --numa

  Enable NUMA-aware allocation of RX/TX rings and of RX memory buffers (mbufs).

• --port-numa-config=(port,socket)[,(port,socket)]

  Specify the socket on which the memory pool to be used by the port will be allocated.

• --ring-numa-config=(port,flag,socket)[,(port,flag,socket)]

  Specify the socket on which the TX/RX rings for the port will be allocated. Where flag is 1 for RX, 2 for TX, and 3 for RX and TX.

• --socket-num=N

  Set the socket from which all memory is allocated in NUMA mode, where 0 <= N < number of sockets on the board.

• --mbuf-size=N

  Set the data size of the mbufs used to N bytes, where N < 65536. The default value is 2048.

• --total-num-mbufs=N

  Set the number of mbufs to be allocated in the mbuf pools, where N > 1024.

• --max-pkt-len=N

  Set the maximum packet size to N bytes, where N >= 64. The default value is 1518.

• --eth-peers-configfile=name

  Use a configuration file containing the Ethernet addresses of the peer ports. The configuration file should contain the Ethernet addresses on separate lines:

  XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:01
  XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:02
  ...
  

• --eth-peer=N,XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

  Set the MAC address XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX of the peer port N, where 0 <= N < CONFIG_RTE_MAX_ETHPORTS from the configuration file.

• --pkt-filter-mode=mode

  Set Flow Director mode where mode is either none (the default), signature or perfect. See flow_director_filter for more details.

• --pkt-filter-report-hash=mode

  Set Flow Director hash match reporting mode where mode is none, match (the default) or always.

• --pkt-filter-size=N

  Set Flow Director allocated memory size, where N is 64K, 128K or 256K. Sizes are in kilobytes. The default is 64.

• --pkt-filter-flexbytes-offset=N

  Set the flexbytes offset. The offset is defined in words (not bytes) counted from the first byte of the destination Ethernet MAC address, where N is 0 <= N <= 32. The default value is 0x6.

• --pkt-filter-drop-queue=N

  Set the drop-queue. In perfect filter mode, when a rule is added with queue = -1, the packet will be enqueued into the RX drop-queue. If the drop-queue does not exist, the packet is dropped. The default value is N=127.

• --crc-strip

  Enable hardware CRC stripping.

• --enable-rx-cksum

  Enable hardware RX checksum offload.

• --enable-scatter

  Enable scatter (multi-segment) RX.

• --disable-hw-vlan

  Disable hardware VLAN.

• --disable-hw-vlan-filter

  Disable hardware VLAN filter.

• --disable-hw-vlan-strip

  Disable hardware VLAN strip.

• --disable-hw-vlan-extend

  Disable hardware VLAN extend.

• --enable-drop-en

  Enable per-queue packet drop for packets with no descriptors.

• --disable-rss

  Disable RSS (Receive Side Scaling).

• --port-topology=mode

  Set port topology, where mode is paired (the default) or chained.

  In paired mode, the forwarding is between pairs of ports, for example: (0,1), (2,3), (4,5).

  In chained mode, the forwarding is to the next available port in the port mask, for example: (0,1), (1,2), (2,0).

  The ordering of the ports can be changed using the portlist testpmd runtime function.

• --forward-mode=mode

  Set the forwarding mode where mode is one of the following:

  io (the default)
  mac
  mac_swap
  flowgen
  rxonly
  txonly
  csum
  icmpecho
  ieee1588
  

• --rss-ip

  Set RSS functions for IPv4/IPv6 only.

• --rss-udp

  Set RSS functions for IPv4/IPv6 and UDP.

• --rxq=N

  Set the number of RX queues per port to N, where 1 <= N <= 65535. The default value is 1.

• --rxd=N

  Set the number of descriptors in the RX rings to N, where N > 0. The default value is 128.

• --txq=N

  Set the number of TX queues per port to N, where 1 <= N <= 65535. The default value is 1.

• --txd=N

  Set the number of descriptors in the TX rings to N, where N > 0. The default value is 512.

• --burst=N

  Set the number of packets per burst to N, where 1 <= N <= 512. The default value is 16.

• --mbcache=N

  Set the cache of mbuf memory pools to N, where 0 <= N <= 512. The default value is 16.

• --rxpt=N

  Set the prefetch threshold register of RX rings to N, where N >= 0. The default value is 8.

• --rxht=N

  Set the host threshold register of RX rings to N, where N >= 0. The default value is 8.

• --rxfreet=N

  Set the free threshold of RX descriptors to N, where 0 <= N < value of –rxd. The default value is 0.

• --rxwt=N

  Set the write-back threshold register of RX rings to N, where N >= 0. The default value is 4.

• --txpt=N

  Set the prefetch threshold register of TX rings to N, where N >= 0. The default value is 36.

• --txht=N

  Set the host threshold register of TX rings to N, where N >= 0. The default value is 0.

• --txwt=N

  Set the write-back threshold register of TX rings to N, where N >= 0. The default value is 0.

• --txfreet=N

  Set the transmit free threshold of TX rings to N, where 0 <= N <= value of --txd. The default value is 0.

• --txrst=N

  Set the transmit RS bit threshold of TX rings to N, where 0 <= N <= value of --txd. The default value is 0.

• --txqflags=0xXXXXXXXX

  Set the hexadecimal bitmask of TX queue flags, where 0 <= N <= 0x7FFFFFFF. The default value is 0.

  Note

  When using hardware offload functions such as vlan or checksum add txqflags=0 to force the full-featured TX code path. In some PMDs this may already be the default.

• --rx-queue-stats-mapping=(port,queue,mapping)[,(port,queue,mapping)]

  Set the RX queues statistics counters mapping 0 <= mapping <= 15.

• --tx-queue-stats-mapping=(port,queue,mapping)[,(port,queue,mapping)]

  Set the TX queues statistics counters mapping 0 <= mapping <= 15.

• --no-flush-rx

  Don’t flush the RX streams before starting forwarding. Used mainly with the PCAP PMD.

• --txpkts=X[,Y]

  Set TX segment sizes.

• --disable-link-check

  Disable check on link status when starting/stopping ports.