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. AVP Poll Mode Driver
- 5.1. Features and Limitations of the AVP PMD
- 5.2. Prerequisites
- 5.3. Launching a VM with an AVP type network attachment
6. AXGBE Poll Mode Driver
- 6.1. Supported Features
- 6.2. Configuration Information
- 6.3. Building DPDK
- 6.4. Prerequisites and Pre-conditions
- 6.5. Usage Example
7. BNX2X Poll Mode Driver
- 7.1. Supported Features
- 7.2. Non-supported Features
- 7.3. Co-existence considerations
- 7.4. Supported QLogic NICs
- 7.5. Prerequisites
- 7.6. Pre-Installation Configuration
  - 7.6.1. Config File Options
- 7.7. Driver compilation and testing
- 7.8. SR-IOV: Prerequisites and sample Application Notes
8. BNXT Poll Mode Driver
- 8.1. Limitations
9. CXGBE Poll Mode Driver
- 9.1. Features
- 9.2. Limitations
- 9.3. Supported Chelsio T5 NICs
- 9.4. Supported Chelsio T6 NICs
- 9.5. Supported SR-IOV Chelsio NICs
- 9.6. Prerequisites
- 9.7. Pre-Installation Configuration
  - 9.7.1. Config File Options
  - 9.7.2. Runtime Options
- 9.8. Driver compilation and testing
- 9.9. Linux
- 9.10. FreeBSD
  - 9.10.1. FreeBSD Installation
  - 9.10.2. Running testpmd
- 9.11. Sample Application Notes
  - 9.11.1. Enable/Disable Flow Control
  - 9.11.2. Jumbo Mode
10. DPAA Poll Mode Driver
- 10.1. NXP DPAA (Data Path Acceleration Architecture - Gen 1)
  - 10.1.1. DPAA Overview
- 10.2. DPAA DPDK - Poll Mode Driver Overview
- 10.3. Whitelisting & Blacklisting
- 10.4. Supported DPAA SoCs
- 10.5. Prerequisites
- 10.6. Pre-Installation Configuration
  - 10.6.1. Config File Options
  - 10.6.2. Environment Variables
- 10.7. Driver compilation and testing
- 10.8. Limitations
11. DPAA2 Poll Mode Driver
- 11.1. NXP DPAA2 (Data Path Acceleration Architecture Gen2)
- 11.2. DPAA2 DPDK - Poll Mode Driver Overview
- 11.3. Supported DPAA2 SoCs
- 11.4. Prerequisites
- 11.5. Pre-Installation Configuration
  - 11.5.1. Config File Options
- 11.6. Driver compilation and testing
- 11.7. Enabling logs
- 11.8. Whitelisting & Blacklisting
- 11.9. Limitations
12. Driver for VM Emulated Devices
- 12.1. Validated Hypervisors
- 12.2. Recommended Guest Operating System in Virtual Machine
- 12.3. Setting Up a KVM Virtual Machine
- 12.4. Known Limitations of Emulated Devices
13. ENA Poll Mode Driver
- 13.1. Overview
- 13.2. Management Interface
- 13.3. Data Path Interface
- 13.4. Configuration information
- 13.5. Building DPDK
- 13.6. Supported ENA adapters
- 13.7. Supported Operating Systems
- 13.8. Supported features
- 13.9. Unsupported features
- 13.10. Prerequisites
- 13.11. Usage example
14. ENIC Poll Mode Driver
- 14.1. How to obtain ENIC PMD integrated DPDK
- 14.2. Configuration information
- 14.3. Flow director support
- 14.4. SR-IOV mode utilization
- 14.5. Generic Flow API support
- 14.6. Overlay Offload
- 14.7. Ingress VLAN Rewrite
- 14.8. Limitations
- 14.9. How to build the suite
- 14.10. Supported Cisco VIC adapters
- 14.11. Supported Operating Systems
- 14.12. Supported features
- 14.13. Known bugs and unsupported features in this release
- 14.14. Prerequisites
- 14.15. Additional Reference
- 14.16. Contact Information
15. FM10K Poll Mode Driver
- 15.1. FTAG Based Forwarding of FM10K
- 15.2. Vector PMD for FM10K
  - 15.2.1. RX Constraints
  - 15.2.2. TX Constraint
- 15.3. Limitations
16. I40E Poll Mode Driver
- 16.1. Features
- 16.2. Prerequisites
- 16.3. Recommended Matching List
- 16.4. Pre-Installation Configuration
- 16.5. Driver compilation and testing
- 16.6. SR-IOV: Prerequisites and sample Application Notes
- 16.7. Sample Application Notes
- 16.8. Limitations or Known issues
- 16.9. High Performance of Small Packets on 40GbE NIC
  - 16.9.1. Use 16 Bytes RX Descriptor Size
- 16.10. Example of getting best performance with l3fwd example
17. IFCVF vDPA driver
- 17.1. Pre-Installation Configuration
  - 17.1.1. Config File Options
- 17.2. IFCVF vDPA Implementation
  - 17.2.1. Key IFCVF vDPA driver ops
  - 17.2.2. To create a vhost port with IFC VF
- 17.3. Features
- 17.4. Prerequisites
- 17.5. Limitations
  - 17.5.1. Dependency on vfio-pci
  - 17.5.2. Live Migration with VIRTIO_NET_F_GUEST_ANNOUNCE
18. IGB Poll Mode Driver
- 18.1. Features
- 18.2. Limitations or Known issues
- 18.3. Supported Chipsets and NICs
19. IXGBE Driver
- 19.1. Vector PMD for IXGBE
  - 19.1.1. RX Constraints
  - 19.1.2. TX Constraint
- 19.2. Application Programming Interface
- 19.3. Sample Application Notes
  - 19.3.1. l3fwd
  - 19.3.2. load_balancer
- 19.4. Limitations or Known issues
- 19.5. Inline crypto processing support
- 19.6. Virtual Function Port Representors
- 19.7. Supported Chipsets and NICs
20. Intel Virtual Function Driver
- 20.1. SR-IOV Mode Utilization in a DPDK Environment
- 20.2. Setting Up a KVM Virtual Machine Monitor
- 20.3. DPDK SR-IOV PMD PF/VF Driver Usage Model
  - 20.3.1. Fast Host-based Packet Processing
- 20.4. SR-IOV (PF/VF) Approach for Inter-VM Communication
21. KNI Poll Mode Driver
- 21.1. Usage
- 21.2. Default interface configuration
- 21.3. PMD arguments
- 21.4. PMD log messages
- 21.5. PMD testing
22. LiquidIO VF Poll Mode Driver
- 22.1. Supported LiquidIO Adapters
- 22.2. Pre-Installation Configuration
- 22.3. SR-IOV: Prerequisites and Sample Application Notes
- 22.4. Limitations
23. MLX4 poll mode driver library
- 23.1. Implementation details
- 23.2. Configuration
- 23.3. Limitations
- 23.4. Prerequisites
  - 23.4.1. Current RDMA core package and Linux kernel (recommended)
  - 23.4.2. Mellanox OFED as a fallback
- 23.5. Supported NICs
- 23.6. Quick Start Guide
- 23.7. Performance tuning
- 23.8. Usage example
24. MLX5 poll mode driver
- 24.1. Implementation details
- 24.2. Features
- 24.3. Limitations
- 24.4. Statistics
- 24.5. Configuration
- 24.6. Prerequisites
  - 24.6.1. Installation
- 24.7. Supported NICs
- 24.8. Quick Start Guide on OFED
- 24.9. Performance tuning
- 24.10. Notes for testpmd
- 24.11. Usage example
25. MVPP2 Poll Mode Driver
- 25.1. Features
- 25.2. Limitations
- 25.3. Prerequisites
- 25.4. Config File Options
- 25.5. QoS Configuration
  - 25.5.1. Configuration syntax
- 25.6. Building DPDK
- 25.7. Flow API
- 25.8. Usage Example
26. Netvsc poll mode driver
- 26.1. Features and Limitations of Hyper-V PMD
- 26.2. Installation
- 26.3. Prerequisites
27. NFP poll mode driver library
- 27.1. Dependencies
- 27.2. Building the software
- 27.3. Driver compilation and testing
- 27.4. Using the PF
- 27.5. PF multiport support
- 27.6. System configuration
28. OCTEONTX Poll Mode driver
- 28.1. Features
- 28.2. Supported OCTEONTX SoCs
- 28.3. Unsupported features
- 28.4. Prerequisites
- 28.5. Pre-Installation Configuration
  - 28.5.1. Config File Options
  - 28.5.2. Driver compilation and testing
- 28.6. Initialization
  - 28.6.1. Device arguments
  - 28.6.2. Dependency
- 28.7. Limitations
29. QEDE Poll Mode Driver
- 29.1. Supported Features
- 29.2. Non-supported Features
- 29.3. Co-existence considerations
- 29.4. Supported QLogic Adapters
- 29.5. Prerequisites
  - 29.5.1. Performance note
  - 29.5.2. Config File Options
- 29.6. Driver compilation and testing
- 29.7. SR-IOV: Prerequisites and Sample Application Notes
30. Solarflare libefx-based Poll Mode Driver
- 30.1. Features
- 30.2. Non-supported Features
- 30.3. Limitations
  - 30.3.1. Equal stride super-buffer mode
- 30.4. Tunnels support
- 30.5. Flow API support
  - 30.5.1. Ethernet destinaton individual/group match
  - 30.5.2. Exceptions to flow rules
- 30.6. Supported NICs
- 30.7. Prerequisites
- 30.8. Pre-Installation Configuration
31. Soft NIC Poll Mode Driver
- 31.1. Flow
- 31.2. Supported Operating Systems
- 31.3. Build options
- 31.4. Soft NIC PMD arguments
- 31.5. Soft NIC testing
- 31.6. Soft NIC Firmware
32. SZEDATA2 poll mode driver library
- 32.1. Prerequisites
  - 32.1.1. Versions of the packages
- 32.2. Configuration
- 32.3. Using the SZEDATA2 PMD
- 32.4. NFB card architecture
- 32.5. Limitations
- 32.6. Example of usage
33. Tun|Tap Poll Mode Driver
- 33.1. Flow API support
  - 33.1.1. Examples of testpmd flow rules
- 33.2. Example
- 33.3. RSS specifics
- 33.4. Systems supporting flow API
34. ThunderX NICVF Poll Mode Driver
- 34.1. Features
- 34.2. Supported ThunderX SoCs
- 34.3. Prerequisites
- 34.4. Pre-Installation Configuration
  - 34.4.1. Config File Options
- 34.5. Driver compilation and testing
- 34.6. Linux
- 34.7. Module params
  - 34.7.1. skip_data_bytes
- 34.8. Limitations
35. VDEV_NETVSC driver
- 35.1. Implementation details
- 35.2. Build options
- 35.3. Run-time parameters
36. Poll Mode Driver for Emulated Virtio NIC
- 36.1. Virtio Implementation in DPDK
- 36.2. Features and Limitations of virtio PMD
- 36.3. Prerequisites
- 36.4. Virtio with kni vhost Back End
- 36.5. Virtio with qemu virtio Back End
- 36.6. Virtio PMD Rx/Tx Callbacks
- 36.7. Interrupt mode
  - 36.7.1. Prerequisites for Rx interrupts
  - 36.7.2. Example
- 36.8. Virtio PMD arguments
37. Poll Mode Driver that wraps vhost library
- 37.1. Vhost Implementation in DPDK
- 37.2. Features and Limitations of vhost PMD
- 37.3. Vhost PMD arguments
- 37.4. Vhost PMD event handling
- 37.5. Vhost PMD with testpmd application
38. Poll Mode Driver for Paravirtual VMXNET3 NIC
- 38.1. VMXNET3 Implementation in the DPDK
- 38.2. Features and Limitations of VMXNET3 PMD
- 38.3. Prerequisites
- 38.4. VMXNET3 with a Native NIC Connected to a vSwitch
- 38.5. VMXNET3 Chaining VMs Connected to a vSwitch
39. Libpcap and Ring Based Poll Mode Drivers
- 39.1. Using the Drivers from the EAL Command Line
40. Fail-safe poll mode driver library
- 40.1. Features
- 40.2. Compilation option
- 40.3. Using the Fail-safe PMD from the EAL command line
  - 40.3.1. Fail-safe command line parameters
  - 40.3.2. Usage example
- 40.4. Using the Fail-safe PMD from an application
- 40.5. Plug-in feature
- 40.6. Plug-out feature
- 40.7. Fail-safe glossary

Figures

Fig. 20.1 Virtualization for a Single Port NIC in SR-IOV Mode

Fig. 20.2 Performance Benchmark Setup

Fig. 20.3 Fast Host-based Packet Processing

Fig. 20.4 Inter-VM Communication

Fig. 36.1 Host2VM Communication Example Using kni vhost Back End

Fig. 36.3 Host2VM Communication Example Using qemu vhost Back End

Fig. 38.3 Assigning a VMXNET3 interface to a VM using VMware vSphere Client

Fig. 38.4 VMXNET3 with a Native NIC Connected to a vSwitch

Fig. 38.5 VMXNET3 Chaining VMs Connected to a vSwitch