16. Intel(R) QuickAssist (QAT) Crypto Poll Mode Driver

QAT documentation consists of three parts:

Details of the symmetric crypto service below.
Details of the compression service in the compressdev drivers section.
Details of building the common QAT infrastructure and the PMDs to support the above services. See Building PMDs on QAT below.

16.1. Symmetric Crypto Service on QAT

The QAT crypto PMD provides poll mode crypto driver support for the following hardware accelerator devices:

Intel QuickAssist Technology DH895xCC
Intel QuickAssist Technology C62x
Intel QuickAssist Technology C3xxx
Intel QuickAssist Technology D15xx
Intel QuickAssist Technology C4xxx

16.1.1. Features

The QAT PMD has support for:

Cipher algorithms:

RTE_CRYPTO_CIPHER_3DES_CBC
RTE_CRYPTO_CIPHER_3DES_CTR
RTE_CRYPTO_CIPHER_AES128_CBC
RTE_CRYPTO_CIPHER_AES192_CBC
RTE_CRYPTO_CIPHER_AES256_CBC
RTE_CRYPTO_CIPHER_AES128_CTR
RTE_CRYPTO_CIPHER_AES192_CTR
RTE_CRYPTO_CIPHER_AES256_CTR
RTE_CRYPTO_CIPHER_SNOW3G_UEA2
RTE_CRYPTO_CIPHER_NULL
RTE_CRYPTO_CIPHER_KASUMI_F8
RTE_CRYPTO_CIPHER_DES_CBC
RTE_CRYPTO_CIPHER_AES_DOCSISBPI
RTE_CRYPTO_CIPHER_DES_DOCSISBPI
RTE_CRYPTO_CIPHER_ZUC_EEA3

Hash algorithms:

RTE_CRYPTO_AUTH_SHA1_HMAC
RTE_CRYPTO_AUTH_SHA224_HMAC
RTE_CRYPTO_AUTH_SHA256_HMAC
RTE_CRYPTO_AUTH_SHA384_HMAC
RTE_CRYPTO_AUTH_SHA512_HMAC
RTE_CRYPTO_AUTH_AES_XCBC_MAC
RTE_CRYPTO_AUTH_SNOW3G_UIA2
RTE_CRYPTO_AUTH_MD5_HMAC
RTE_CRYPTO_AUTH_NULL
RTE_CRYPTO_AUTH_KASUMI_F9
RTE_CRYPTO_AUTH_AES_GMAC
RTE_CRYPTO_AUTH_ZUC_EIA3
RTE_CRYPTO_AUTH_AES_CMAC

Supported AEAD algorithms:

RTE_CRYPTO_AEAD_AES_GCM
RTE_CRYPTO_AEAD_AES_CCM

16.1.2. Limitations

Only supports the session-oriented API implementation (session-less APIs are not supported).
SNOW 3G (UEA2), KASUMI (F8) and ZUC (EEA3) supported only if cipher length and offset fields are byte-multiple.
SNOW 3G (UIA2) and ZUC (EIA3) supported only if hash length and offset fields are byte-multiple.
No BSD support as BSD QAT kernel driver not available.
ZUC EEA3/EIA3 is not supported by dh895xcc devices
Maximum additional authenticated data (AAD) for GCM is 240 bytes long and must be passed to the device in a buffer rounded up to the nearest block-size multiple (x16) and padded with zeros.
Queue pairs are not thread-safe (that is, within a single queue pair, RX and TX from different lcores is not supported).

16.1.3. Extra notes on KASUMI F9

When using KASUMI F9 authentication algorithm, the input buffer must be constructed according to the 3GPP KASUMI specification (section 4.4, page 13). The input buffer has to have COUNT (4 bytes), FRESH (4 bytes), MESSAGE and DIRECTION (1 bit) concatenated. After the DIRECTION bit, a single ‘1’ bit is appended, followed by between 0 and 7 ‘0’ bits, so that the total length of the buffer is multiple of 8 bits. Note that the actual message can be any length, specified in bits.

Once this buffer is passed this way, when creating the crypto operation, length of data to authenticate “op.sym.auth.data.length” must be the length of all the items described above, including the padding at the end. Also, offset of data to authenticate “op.sym.auth.data.offset” must be such that points at the start of the COUNT bytes.

16.2. Building PMDs on QAT

A QAT device can host multiple acceleration services:

symmetric cryptography
data compression

These services are provided to DPDK applications via PMDs which register to implement the corresponding cryptodev and compressdev APIs. The PMDs use common QAT driver code which manages the QAT PCI device. They also depend on a QAT kernel driver being installed on the platform, see Dependency on the QAT kernel driver below.

16.2.1. Configuring and Building the DPDK QAT PMDs

Further information on configuring, building and installing DPDK is described here.

Quick instructions for QAT cryptodev PMD are as follows:

cd to the top-level DPDK directory
make defconfig
sed -i 's,\(CONFIG_RTE_LIBRTE_PMD_QAT_SYM\)=n,\1=y,' build/.config
make

Quick instructions for QAT compressdev PMD are as follows:

cd to the top-level DPDK directory
make defconfig
make

16.2.2. Build Configuration

These are the build configuration options affecting QAT, and their default values:

CONFIG_RTE_LIBRTE_PMD_QAT=y
CONFIG_RTE_LIBRTE_PMD_QAT_SYM=n
CONFIG_RTE_PMD_QAT_MAX_PCI_DEVICES=48
CONFIG_RTE_PMD_QAT_COMP_SGL_MAX_SEGMENTS=16
CONFIG_RTE_PMD_QAT_COMP_IM_BUFFER_SIZE=65536

CONFIG_RTE_LIBRTE_PMD_QAT must be enabled for any QAT PMD to be built.

The QAT cryptodev PMD has an external dependency on libcrypto, so is not built by default. CONFIG_RTE_LIBRTE_PMD_QAT_SYM should be enabled to build it.

The QAT compressdev PMD has no external dependencies, so needs no configuration options and is built by default.

The number of VFs per PF varies - see table below. If multiple QAT packages are installed on a platform then CONFIG_RTE_PMD_QAT_MAX_PCI_DEVICES should be adjusted to the number of VFs which the QAT common code will need to handle. Note, there are separate config items for max cryptodevs CONFIG_RTE_CRYPTO_MAX_DEVS and max compressdevs CONFIG_RTE_COMPRESS_MAX_DEVS, if necessary these should be adjusted to handle the total of QAT and other devices which the process will use.

QAT allocates internal structures to handle SGLs. For the compression service CONFIG_RTE_PMD_QAT_COMP_SGL_MAX_SEGMENTS can be changed if more segments are needed. An extra (max_inflight_ops x 16) bytes per queue_pair will be used for every increment.

QAT compression PMD needs intermediate buffers to support Deflate compression with Dynamic Huffman encoding. CONFIG_RTE_PMD_QAT_COMP_IM_BUFFER_SIZE specifies the size of a single buffer, the PMD will allocate a multiple of these, plus some extra space for associated meta-data. For GEN2 devices, 20 buffers are allocated while for GEN1 devices, 12 buffers are allocated, plus 1472 bytes overhead.

Note

If the compressed output of a Deflate operation using Dynamic Huffman Encoding is too big to fit in an intermediate buffer, then the operation will return RTE_COMP_OP_STATUS_ERROR and an error will be displayed. Options for the application in this case are to split the input data into smaller chunks and resubmit in multiple operations or to configure QAT with larger intermediate buffers.

16.2.3. Device and driver naming

The qat cryptodev driver name is “crypto_qat”. The “rte_cryptodev_devices_get()” returns the devices exposed by this driver.
Each qat crypto device has a unique name, in format “<pci bdf>_<service>”, e.g. “0000:41:01.0_qat_sym”. This name can be passed to “rte_cryptodev_get_dev_id()” to get the device_id.

Note

The qat crypto driver name is passed to the dpdk-test-crypto-perf tool in the “-devtype” parameter.

The qat crypto device name is in the format of the slave parameter passed to the crypto scheduler.

The qat compressdev driver name is “compress_qat”. The rte_compressdev_devices_get() returns the devices exposed by this driver.
Each qat compression device has a unique name, in format <pci bdf>_<service>, e.g. “0000:41:01.0_qat_comp”. This name can be passed to rte_compressdev_get_dev_id() to get the device_id.

16.2.4. Dependency on the QAT kernel driver

To use QAT an SRIOV-enabled QAT kernel driver is required. The VF devices created and initialised by this driver will be used by the QAT PMDs.

Instructions for installation are below, but first an explanation of the relationships between the PF/VF devices and the PMDs visible to DPDK applications.

Each QuickAssist PF device exposes a number of VF devices. Each VF device can enable one cryptodev PMD and/or one compressdev PMD. These QAT PMDs share the same underlying device and pci-mgmt code, but are enumerated independently on their respective APIs and appear as independent devices to applications.

Note

Each VF can only be used by one DPDK process. It is not possible to share the same VF across multiple processes, even if these processes are using different acceleration services.

Conversely one DPDK process can use one or more QAT VFs and can expose both cryptodev and compressdev instances on each of those VFs.

16.2.5. Available kernel drivers

Kernel drivers for each device are listed in the following table. Scroll right to check that the driver and device supports the service you require.

Table 16.1 QAT device generations, devices and drivers
Gen	Device	Driver/ver	Kernel Module	Pci Driver	PF Did	#PFs	VF Did	VFs/PF	cryptodev	compressdev
1	DH895xCC	linux/4.4+	qat_dh895xcc	dh895xcc	435	1	443	32	Yes	No
“	“	01.org/4.2.0+	“	“	“	“	“	“	Yes	No
2	C62x	linux/4.5+	qat_c62x	c6xx	37c8	3	37c9	16	Yes	No
“	“	01.org/4.2.0+	“	“	“	“	“	“	Yes	Yes
2	C3xxx	linux/4.5+	qat_c3xxx	c3xxx	19e2	1	19e3	16	Yes	No
“	“	01.org/4.2.0+	“	“	“	“	“	“	Yes	Yes
2	D15xx	p	qat_d15xx	d15xx	6f54	1	6f55	16	Yes	No
3	C4xxx	p	qat_c4xxx	c4xxx	18a0	1	18a1	128	Yes	No

The Driver column indicates either the Linux kernel version in which support for this device was introduced or a driver available on Intel’s 01.org website. There are both linux and 01.org kernel drivers available for some devices. p = release pending.

If you are running on a kernel which includes a driver for your device, see Installation using kernel.org driver below. Otherwise see Installation using 01.org QAT driver.

16.2.6. Installation using kernel.org driver

The examples below are based on the C62x device, if you have a different device use the corresponding values in the above table.

In BIOS ensure that SRIOV is enabled and either:

Disable VT-d or
Enable VT-d and set "intel_iommu=on iommu=pt" in the grub file.

Check that the QAT driver is loaded on your system, by executing:

lsmod | grep qa

You should see the kernel module for your device listed, e.g.:

qat_c62x               5626  0
intel_qat              82336  1 qat_c62x

Next, you need to expose the Virtual Functions (VFs) using the sysfs file system.

First find the BDFs (Bus-Device-Function) of the physical functions (PFs) of your device, e.g.:

lspci -d:37c8

You should see output similar to:

1a:00.0 Co-processor: Intel Corporation Device 37c8
3d:00.0 Co-processor: Intel Corporation Device 37c8
3f:00.0 Co-processor: Intel Corporation Device 37c8

Enable the VFs for each PF by echoing the number of VFs per PF to the pci driver:

echo 16 > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/c6xx/0000:1a:00.0/sriov_numvfs
echo 16 > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/c6xx/0000:3d:00.0/sriov_numvfs
echo 16 > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/c6xx/0000:3f:00.0/sriov_numvfs

Check that the VFs are available for use. For example lspci -d:37c9 should list 48 VF devices available for a C62x device.

To complete the installation follow the instructions in Binding the available VFs to the DPDK UIO driver.

Note

If the QAT kernel modules are not loaded and you see an error like Failed to load MMP firmware qat_895xcc_mmp.bin in kernel logs, this may be as a result of not using a distribution, but just updating the kernel directly.

Download firmware from the kernel firmware repo.

Copy qat binaries to /lib/firmware:

cp qat_895xcc.bin /lib/firmware
cp qat_895xcc_mmp.bin /lib/firmware

Change to your linux source root directory and start the qat kernel modules:

insmod ./drivers/crypto/qat/qat_common/intel_qat.ko
insmod ./drivers/crypto/qat/qat_dh895xcc/qat_dh895xcc.ko

Note

If you see the following warning in /var/log/messages it can be ignored: IOMMU should be enabled for SR-IOV to work correctly.

16.2.7. Installation using 01.org QAT driver

Download the latest QuickAssist Technology Driver from 01.org. Consult the Getting Started Guide at the same URL for further information.

The steps below assume you are:

Building on a platform with one C62x device.
Using package qat1.7.l.4.2.0-000xx.tar.gz.
On Fedora26 kernel 4.11.11-300.fc26.x86_64.

In the BIOS ensure that SRIOV is enabled and VT-d is disabled.

Uninstall any existing QAT driver, for example by running:

./installer.sh uninstall in the directory where originally installed.

Build and install the SRIOV-enabled QAT driver:

mkdir /QAT
cd /QAT

# Copy the package to this location and unpack
tar zxof qat1.7.l.4.2.0-000xx.tar.gz

./configure --enable-icp-sriov=host
make install

You can use cat /sys/kernel/debug/qat<your device type and bdf>/version/fw to confirm the driver is correctly installed and is using firmware version 4.2.0. You can use lspci -d:37c9 to confirm the presence of the 16 VF devices available per C62x PF.

Confirm the driver is correctly installed and is using firmware version 4.2.0:

cat /sys/kernel/debug/qat<your device type and bdf>/version/fw

Confirm the presence of 48 VF devices - 16 per PF:

lspci -d:37c9

To complete the installation - follow instructions in Binding the available VFs to the DPDK UIO driver.

Note

If using a later kernel and the build fails with an error relating to strict_stroul not being available apply the following patch:

/QAT/QAT1.6/quickassist/utilities/downloader/Target_CoreLibs/uclo/include/linux/uclo_platform.h
+ #if LINUX_VERSION_CODE >= KERNEL_VERSION(3,18,5)
+ #define STR_TO_64(str, base, num, endPtr) {endPtr=NULL; if (kstrtoul((str), (base), (num))) printk("Error strtoull convert %s\n", str); }
+ #else
#if LINUX_VERSION_CODE >= KERNEL_VERSION(2,6,38)
#define STR_TO_64(str, base, num, endPtr) {endPtr=NULL; if (strict_strtoull((str), (base), (num))) printk("Error strtoull convert %s\n", str); }
#else
#if LINUX_VERSION_CODE >= KERNEL_VERSION(2,6,25)
#define STR_TO_64(str, base, num, endPtr) {endPtr=NULL; strict_strtoll((str), (base), (num));}
#else
#define STR_TO_64(str, base, num, endPtr)                                 \
     do {                                                               \
           if (str[0] == '-')                                           \
           {                                                            \
                *(num) = -(simple_strtoull((str+1), &(endPtr), (base))); \
           }else {                                                      \
                *(num) = simple_strtoull((str), &(endPtr), (base));      \
           }                                                            \
     } while(0)
+ #endif
#endif
#endif

Note

If the build fails due to missing header files you may need to do following:

sudo yum install zlib-devel
sudo yum install openssl-devel
sudo yum install libudev-devel

Note

If the build or install fails due to mismatching kernel sources you may need to do the following:

sudo yum install kernel-headers-`uname -r`
sudo yum install kernel-src-`uname -r`
sudo yum install kernel-devel-`uname -r`

16.2.8. Binding the available VFs to the DPDK UIO driver

Unbind the VFs from the stock driver so they can be bound to the uio driver.

16.2.8.1. For an Intel(R) QuickAssist Technology DH895xCC device

The unbind command below assumes BDFs of 03:01.00-03:04.07, if your VFs are different adjust the unbind command below:

for device in $(seq 1 4); do \
    for fn in $(seq 0 7); do \
        echo -n 0000:03:0${device}.${fn} > \
        /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000\:03\:0${device}.${fn}/driver/unbind; \
    done; \
done

16.2.8.2. For an Intel(R) QuickAssist Technology C62x device

The unbind command below assumes BDFs of 1a:01.00-1a:02.07, 3d:01.00-3d:02.07 and 3f:01.00-3f:02.07, if your VFs are different adjust the unbind command below:

for device in $(seq 1 2); do \
    for fn in $(seq 0 7); do \
        echo -n 0000:1a:0${device}.${fn} > \
        /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000\:1a\:0${device}.${fn}/driver/unbind; \

        echo -n 0000:3d:0${device}.${fn} > \
        /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000\:3d\:0${device}.${fn}/driver/unbind; \

        echo -n 0000:3f:0${device}.${fn} > \
        /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000\:3f\:0${device}.${fn}/driver/unbind; \
    done; \
done

16.2.8.3. For Intel(R) QuickAssist Technology C3xxx or D15xx device

The unbind command below assumes BDFs of 01:01.00-01:02.07, if your VFs are different adjust the unbind command below:

for device in $(seq 1 2); do \
    for fn in $(seq 0 7); do \
        echo -n 0000:01:0${device}.${fn} > \
        /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000\:01\:0${device}.${fn}/driver/unbind; \
    done; \
done

16.2.8.4. Bind to the DPDK uio driver

Install the DPDK igb_uio driver, bind the VF PCI Device id to it and use lspci to confirm the VF devices are now in use by igb_uio kernel driver, e.g. for the C62x device:

cd to the top-level DPDK directory
modprobe uio
insmod ./build/kmod/igb_uio.ko
echo "8086 37c9" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/igb_uio/new_id
lspci -vvd:37c9

Another way to bind the VFs to the DPDK UIO driver is by using the dpdk-devbind.py script:

cd to the top-level DPDK directory
./usertools/dpdk-devbind.py -b igb_uio 0000:03:01.1

16.2.9. Testing

QAT crypto PMD can be tested by running the test application:

make defconfig
make test-build -j
cd ./build/app
./test -l1 -n1 -w <your qat bdf>
RTE>>cryptodev_qat_autotest

QAT compression PMD can be tested by running the test application:

make defconfig
sed -i 's,\(CONFIG_RTE_COMPRESSDEV_TEST\)=n,\1=y,' build/.config
make test-build -j
cd ./build/app
./test -l1 -n1 -w <your qat bdf>
RTE>>compressdev_autotest

16.2.10. Debugging

There are 2 sets of trace available via the dynamic logging feature:

pmd.qat_dp exposes trace on the data-path.
pmd.qat_general exposes all other trace.

pmd.qat exposes both sets of traces. They can be enabled using the log-level option (where 8=maximum log level) on the process cmdline, e.g. using any of the following:

--log-level="pmd.qat_general,8"
--log-level="pmd.qat_dp,8"
--log-level="pmd.qat,8"

Note

The global RTE_LOG_DP_LEVEL overrides data-path trace so must be set to RTE_LOG_DEBUG to see all the trace. This variable is in config/rte_config.h for meson build and config/common_base for gnu make. Also the dynamic global log level overrides both sets of trace, so e.g. no QAT trace would display in this case:

--log-level="7" --log-level="pmd.qat_general,8"