4. DPDK Release 17.02

4.1. New Features

  • Added support for representing buses in EAL

    The rte_bus structure was introduced into the EAL. This allows for devices to be represented by buses they are connected to. A new bus can be added to DPDK by extending the rte_bus structure and implementing the scan and probe functions. Once a new bus is registered using the provided APIs, new devices can be detected and initialized using bus scan and probe callbacks.

    With this change, devices other than PCI or VDEV type can be represented in the DPDK framework.

  • Added generic EAL API for I/O device memory read/write operations.

    This API introduces 8 bit, 16 bit, 32 bit and 64 bit I/O device memory read/write operations along with “relaxed” versions.

    Weakly-ordered architectures like ARM need an additional I/O barrier for device memory read/write access over PCI bus. By introducing the EAL abstraction for I/O device memory read/write access, the drivers can access I/O device memory in an architecture-agnostic manner. The relaxed version does not have an additional I/O memory barrier, which is useful in accessing the device registers of integrated controllers which is implicitly strongly ordered with respect to memory access.

  • Added generic flow API (rte_flow).

    This API provides a generic means to configure hardware to match specific ingress or egress traffic, alter its behavior and query related counters according to any number of user-defined rules.

    In order to expose a single interface with an unambiguous behavior that is common to all poll-mode drivers (PMDs) the rte_flow API is slightly higher-level than the legacy filtering framework, which it encompasses and supersedes (including all functions and filter types) .

    See the Generic flow API documentation for more information.

  • Added firmware version get API.

    Added a new function rte_eth_dev_fw_version_get() to fetch the firmware version for a given device.

  • Added APIs for MACsec offload support to the ixgbe PMD.

    Six new APIs have been added to the ixgbe PMD for MACsec offload support. The declarations for the APIs can be found in rte_pmd_ixgbe.h.

  • Added I219 NICs support.

    Added support for I219 Intel 1GbE NICs.

  • Added VF Daemon (VFD) for i40e. - EXPERIMENTAL

    This is an EXPERIMENTAL feature to enhance the capability of the DPDK PF as many VF management features are not currently supported by the kernel PF driver. Some new private APIs are implemented directly in the PMD without an abstraction layer. They can be used directly by some users who have the need.

    The new APIs to control VFs directly from PF include:

    • Set VF MAC anti-spoofing.
    • Set VF VLAN anti-spoofing.
    • Set TX loopback.
    • Set VF unicast promiscuous mode.
    • Set VF multicast promiscuous mode.
    • Set VF MTU.
    • Get/reset VF stats.
    • Set VF MAC address.
    • Set VF VLAN stripping.
    • Vf VLAN insertion.
    • Set VF broadcast mode.
    • Set VF VLAN tag.
    • Set VF VLAN filter.

    VFD also includes VF to PF mailbox message management from an application. When the PF receives mailbox messages from the VF the PF should call the callback provided by the application to know if they’re permitted to be processed.

    As an EXPERIMENTAL feature, please be aware it can be changed or even removed without prior notice.

  • Updated the i40e base driver.

    Updated the i40e base driver, including the following changes:

    • Replace existing legacy memcpy() calls with i40e_memcpy() calls.
    • Use BIT() macro instead of bit fields.
    • Add clear all WoL filters implementation.
    • Add broadcast promiscuous control per VLAN.
    • Remove unused X722_SUPPORT and I40E_NDIS_SUPPORT macros.

  • Updated the enic driver.

    • Set new Rx checksum flags in mbufs to indicate unknown, good or bad checksums.
    • Fix set/remove of MAC addresses. Allow up to 64 addresses per device.
    • Enable TSO on outer headers.

  • Added Solarflare libefx-based network PMD.

    Added a new network PMD which supports Solarflare SFN7xxx and SFN8xxx family of 10/40 Gbps adapters.

  • Updated the mlx4 driver.

    • Addressed a few bugs.

  • Added support for Mellanox ConnectX-5 adapters (mlx5).

    Added support for Mellanox ConnectX-5 family of 10/25/40/50/100 Gbps adapters to the existing mlx5 PMD.

  • Updated the mlx5 driver.

    • Improve Tx performance by using vector logic.
    • Improve RSS balancing when number of queues is not a power of two.
    • Generic flow API support for Ethernet, IPv4, IPv4, UDP, TCP, VLAN and VXLAN pattern items with DROP and QUEUE actions.
    • Support for extended statistics.
    • Addressed several data path bugs.
    • As of MLNX_OFED 4.0-1.0.1.0, the Toeplitz RSS hash function is not symmetric anymore for consistency with other PMDs.

  • virtio-user with vhost-kernel as another exceptional path.

    Previously, we upstreamed a virtual device, virtio-user with vhost-user as the backend as a way of enabling IPC (Inter-Process Communication) and user space container networking.

    Virtio-user with vhost-kernel as the backend is a solution for the exception path, such as KNI, which exchanges packets with the kernel networking stack. This solution is very promising in:

    • Maintenance: vhost and vhost-net (kernel) is an upstreamed and extensively used kernel module.
    • Features: vhost-net is designed to be a networking solution, which has lots of networking related features, like multi-queue, TSO, multi-seg mbuf, etc.
    • Performance: similar to KNI, this solution would use one or more kthreads to send/receive packets from user space DPDK applications, which has little impact on user space polling thread (except that it might enter into kernel space to wake up those kthreads if necessary).

  • Added virtio Rx interrupt support.

    Added a feature to enable Rx interrupt mode for virtio pci net devices as bound to VFIO (noiommu mode) and driven by virtio PMD.

    With this feature, the virtio PMD can switch between polling mode and interrupt mode, to achieve best performance, and at the same time save power. It can work on both legacy and modern virtio devices. In this mode, each rxq is mapped with an excluded MSIx interrupt.

    See the Virtio Interrupt Mode documentation for more information.

  • Added ARMv8 crypto PMD.

    A new crypto PMD has been added, which provides combined mode cryptographic operations optimized for ARMv8 processors. The driver can be used to enhance performance in processing chained operations such as cipher + HMAC.

  • Updated the QAT PMD.

    The QAT PMD has been updated with additional support for:

    • DES algorithm.
    • Scatter-gather list (SGL) support.

  • Updated the AESNI MB PMD.

    • The Intel(R) Multi Buffer Crypto for IPsec library used in AESNI MB PMD has been moved to a new repository, in GitHub.
    • Support has been added for single operations (cipher only and authentication only).

  • Updated the AES-NI GCM PMD.

    The AES-NI GCM PMD was migrated from the Multi Buffer library to the ISA-L library. The migration entailed adding additional support for:

    • GMAC algorithm.
    • 256-bit cipher key.
    • Session-less mode.
    • Out-of place processing
    • Scatter-gather support for chained mbufs (only out-of place and destination mbuf must be contiguous)

  • Added crypto performance test application.

    Added a new performance test application for measuring performance parameters of PMDs available in the crypto tree.

  • Added Elastic Flow Distributor library (rte_efd).

    Added a new library which uses perfect hashing to determine a target/value for a given incoming flow key.

    The library does not store the key itself for lookup operations, and therefore, lookup performance is not dependent on the key size. Also, the target/value can be any arbitrary value (8 bits by default). Finally, the storage requirement is much smaller than a hash-based flow table and therefore, it can better fit in CPU cache and scale to millions of flow keys.

    See the Elastic Flow Distributor Library documentation in the Programmers Guide document, for more information.

4.2. Resolved Issues

4.2.1. Drivers

  • net/virtio: Fixed multiple process support.

    Fixed a few regressions introduced in recent releases that break the virtio multiple process support.

4.2.2. Examples

  • examples/ethtool: Fixed crash with non-PCI devices.

    Fixed issue where querying a non-PCI device was dereferencing non-existent PCI data resulting in a segmentation fault.

4.3. API Changes

  • Moved five APIs for VF management from the ethdev to the ixgbe PMD.

    The following five APIs for VF management from the PF have been removed from the ethdev, renamed, and added to the ixgbe PMD:

    rte_eth_dev_set_vf_rate_limit()
rte_eth_dev_set_vf_rx()
rte_eth_dev_set_vf_rxmode()
rte_eth_dev_set_vf_tx()
rte_eth_dev_set_vf_vlan_filter()

    The API’s have been renamed to the following:

    rte_pmd_ixgbe_set_vf_rate_limit()
rte_pmd_ixgbe_set_vf_rx()
rte_pmd_ixgbe_set_vf_rxmode()
rte_pmd_ixgbe_set_vf_tx()
rte_pmd_ixgbe_set_vf_vlan_filter()

    The declarations for the API’s can be found in rte_pmd_ixgbe.h.

4.4. ABI Changes

4.5. Shared Library Versions

The libraries prepended with a plus sign were incremented in this version.

  librte_acl.so.2
  librte_cfgfile.so.2
  librte_cmdline.so.2
  librte_cryptodev.so.2
  librte_distributor.so.1
  librte_eal.so.3
+ librte_ethdev.so.6
  librte_hash.so.2
  librte_ip_frag.so.1
  librte_jobstats.so.1
  librte_kni.so.2
  librte_kvargs.so.1
  librte_lpm.so.2
  librte_mbuf.so.2
  librte_mempool.so.2
  librte_meter.so.1
  librte_net.so.1
  librte_pdump.so.1
  librte_pipeline.so.3
  librte_pmd_bond.so.1
  librte_pmd_ring.so.2
  librte_port.so.3
  librte_power.so.1
  librte_reorder.so.1
  librte_ring.so.1
  librte_sched.so.1
  librte_table.so.2
  librte_timer.so.1
  librte_vhost.so.3

4.6. Tested Platforms

This release has been tested with the below list of CPU/device/firmware/OS. Each section describes a different set of combinations.

  • Intel(R) platforms with Mellanox(R) NICs combinations

    • Platform details
      • Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2697 v2 @ 2.70GHz
      • Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2680 v2 @ 2.80GHz
      • Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2697 v3 @ 2.60GHz
    • OS:
      • CentOS 7.0
      • Fedora 23
      • Fedora 24
      • FreeBSD 10.3
      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2
      • SUSE Enterprise Linux 12
      • Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
      • Ubuntu 15.10
      • Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
      • Wind River Linux 8
    • MLNX_OFED: 4.0-1.0.1.0
    • NICs:
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-3 Pro 40G MCX354A-FCC_Ax (2x40G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1007
        • Firmware version: 2.40.5030
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 10G MCX4111A-XCAT (1x10G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1013
        • Firmware version: 12.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 10G MCX4121A-XCAT (2x10G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1013
        • Firmware version: 12.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 25G MCX4111A-ACAT (1x25G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1013
        • Firmware version: 12.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 25G MCX4121A-ACAT (2x25G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1013
        • Firmware version: 12.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 40G MCX4131A-BCAT/MCX413A-BCAT (1x40G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1013
        • Firmware version: 12.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 40G MCX415A-BCAT (1x40G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x16
        • Device ID: 15b3:1013
        • Firmware version: 12.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 50G MCX4131A-GCAT/MCX413A-GCAT (1x50G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1013
        • Firmware version: 12.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 50G MCX414A-BCAT (2x50G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1013
        • Firmware version: 12.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 50G MCX415A-GCAT/MCX416A-BCAT/MCX416A-GCAT (2x50G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x16
        • Device ID: 15b3:1013
        • Firmware version: 12.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 50G MCX415A-CCAT (1x100G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x16
        • Device ID: 15b3:1013
        • Firmware version: 12.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 100G MCX416A-CCAT (2x100G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x16
        • Device ID: 15b3:1013
        • Firmware version: 12.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 Lx 10G MCX4121A-XCAT (2x10G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1015
        • Firmware version: 14.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 Lx 25G MCX4121A-ACAT (2x25G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1015
        • Firmware version: 14.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-5 100G MCX556A-ECAT (2x100G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x16
        • Device ID: 15b3:1017
        • Firmware version: 16.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX-5 Ex EN 100G MCX516A-CDAT (2x100G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 4.0 x16
        • Device ID: 15b3:1019
        • Firmware version: 16.18.1000

  • IBM(R) Power8(R) with Mellanox(R) NICs combinations

    • Machine:
      • Processor: POWER8E (raw), AltiVec supported
        • type-model: 8247-22L
        • Firmware FW810.21 (SV810_108)
    • OS: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS PPC le
    • MLNX_OFED: 4.0-1.0.1.0
    • NICs:
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 10G MCX4111A-XCAT (1x10G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1013
        • Firmware version: 12.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 10G MCX4121A-XCAT (2x10G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1013
        • Firmware version: 12.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 25G MCX4111A-ACAT (1x25G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1013
        • Firmware version: 12.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 25G MCX4121A-ACAT (2x25G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1013
        • Firmware version: 12.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 40G MCX4131A-BCAT/MCX413A-BCAT (1x40G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1013
        • Firmware version: 12.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 40G MCX415A-BCAT (1x40G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x16
        • Device ID: 15b3:1013
        • Firmware version: 12.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 50G MCX4131A-GCAT/MCX413A-GCAT (1x50G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1013
        • Firmware version: 12.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 50G MCX414A-BCAT (2x50G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1013
        • Firmware version: 12.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 50G MCX415A-GCAT/MCX416A-BCAT/MCX416A-GCAT (2x50G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x16
        • Device ID: 15b3:1013
        • Firmware version: 12.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 50G MCX415A-CCAT (1x100G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x16
        • Device ID: 15b3:1013
        • Firmware version: 12.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 100G MCX416A-CCAT (2x100G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x16
        • Device ID: 15b3:1013
        • Firmware version: 12.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 Lx 10G MCX4121A-XCAT (2x10G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1015
        • Firmware version: 14.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-4 Lx 25G MCX4121A-ACAT (2x25G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1015
        • Firmware version: 14.18.1000
      • Mellanox(R) ConnectX(R)-5 100G MCX556A-ECAT (2x100G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x16
        • Device ID: 15b3:1017
        • Firmware version: 16.18.1000

  • Intel(R) platforms with Intel(R) NICs combinations

    • Platform details
      • Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU C2758 @ 2.40GHz
      • Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU D-1540 @ 2.00GHz
      • Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-4667 v3 @ 2.00GHz
      • Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2680 v2 @ 2.80GHz
      • Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2699 v3 @ 2.30GHz
      • Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2695 v4 @ 2.10GHz
      • Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2658 v2 @ 2.40GHz
    • OS:
      • CentOS 7.2
      • Fedora 25
      • FreeBSD 11
      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.3
      • SUSE Enterprise Linux 12
      • Wind River Linux 8
      • Ubuntu 16.04
      • Ubuntu 16.10
    • NICs:
      • Intel(R) 82599ES 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller
        • Firmware version: 0x61bf0001
        • Device id (pf/vf): 8086:10fb / 8086:10ed
        • Driver version: 4.0.1-k (ixgbe)
      • Intel(R) Corporation Ethernet Connection X552/X557-AT 10GBASE-T
        • Firmware version: 0x800001cf
        • Device id (pf/vf): 8086:15ad / 8086:15a8
        • Driver version: 4.2.5 (ixgbe)
      • Intel(R) Ethernet Converged Network Adapter X710-DA4 (4x10G)
        • Firmware version: 5.05
        • Device id (pf/vf): 8086:1572 / 8086:154c
        • Driver version: 1.5.23 (i40e)
      • Intel(R) Ethernet Converged Network Adapter X710-DA2 (2x10G)
        • Firmware version: 5.05
        • Device id (pf/vf): 8086:1572 / 8086:154c
        • Driver version: 1.5.23 (i40e)
      • Intel(R) Ethernet Converged Network Adapter XL710-QDA1 (1x40G)
        • Firmware version: 5.05
        • Device id (pf/vf): 8086:1584 / 8086:154c
        • Driver version: 1.5.23 (i40e)
      • Intel(R) Ethernet Converged Network Adapter XL710-QDA2 (2X40G)
        • Firmware version: 5.05
        • Device id (pf/vf): 8086:1583 / 8086:154c
        • Driver version: 1.5.23 (i40e)
      • Intel(R) Corporation I350 Gigabit Network Connection
        • Firmware version: 1.48, 0x800006e7
        • Device id (pf/vf): 8086:1521 / 8086:1520
        • Driver version: 5.2.13-k (igb)