42. OCTEON TX2 Poll Mode driver

The OCTEON TX2 ETHDEV PMD (librte_pmd_octeontx2) provides poll mode ethdev driver support for the inbuilt network device found in Marvell OCTEON TX2 SoC family as well as for their virtual functions (VF) in SR-IOV context.

More information can be found at Marvell Official Website.

42.1. Features

Features of the OCTEON TX2 Ethdev PMD are:

  • Packet type information
  • Promiscuous mode
  • Jumbo frames
  • SR-IOV VF
  • Lock-free Tx queue
  • Multiple queues for TX and RX
  • Receiver Side Scaling (RSS)
  • MAC/VLAN filtering
  • Multicast MAC filtering
  • Generic flow API
  • Inner and Outer Checksum offload
  • VLAN/QinQ stripping and insertion
  • Port hardware statistics
  • Link state information
  • Link flow control
  • MTU update
  • Scatter-Gather IO support
  • Vector Poll mode driver
  • Debug utilities - Context dump and error interrupt support
  • IEEE1588 timestamping
  • HW offloaded ethdev Rx queue to eventdev event queue packet injection
  • Support Rx interrupt
  • Inline IPsec processing support
  • Traffic Management API

42.2. Prerequisites

See Marvell OCTEON TX2 Platform Guide for setup information.

42.3. Compile time Config Options

The following options may be modified in the config file.

  • CONFIG_RTE_LIBRTE_OCTEONTX2_PMD (default y)

    Toggle compilation of the librte_pmd_octeontx2 driver.

42.4. Driver compilation and testing

Refer to the document compiling and testing a PMD for a NIC for details.

To compile the OCTEON TX2 PMD for Linux arm64 gcc, use arm64-octeontx2-linux-gcc as target.

  1. Running testpmd:

    Follow instructions available in the document compiling and testing a PMD for a NIC to run testpmd.

    Example output:

    ./build/app/testpmd -c 0x300 -w 0002:02:00.0 -- --portmask=0x1 --nb-cores=1 --port-topology=loop --rxq=1 --txq=1
EAL: Detected 24 lcore(s)
EAL: Detected 1 NUMA nodes
EAL: Multi-process socket /var/run/dpdk/rte/mp_socket
EAL: No available hugepages reported in hugepages-2048kB
EAL: Probing VFIO support...
EAL: VFIO support initialized
EAL: PCI device 0002:02:00.0 on NUMA socket 0
EAL:   probe driver: 177d:a063 net_octeontx2
EAL:   using IOMMU type 1 (Type 1)
testpmd: create a new mbuf pool <mbuf_pool_socket_0>: n=267456, size=2176, socket=0
testpmd: preferred mempool ops selected: octeontx2_npa
Configuring Port 0 (socket 0)
PMD: Port 0: Link Up - speed 40000 Mbps - full-duplex

Port 0: link state change event
Port 0: 36:10:66:88:7A:57
Checking link statuses...
Done
No commandline core given, start packet forwarding
io packet forwarding - ports=1 - cores=1 - streams=1 - NUMA support enabled, MP allocation mode: native
Logical Core 9 (socket 0) forwards packets on 1 streams:
  RX P=0/Q=0 (socket 0) -> TX P=0/Q=0 (socket 0) peer=02:00:00:00:00:00

  io packet forwarding packets/burst=32
  nb forwarding cores=1 - nb forwarding ports=1
  port 0: RX queue number: 1 Tx queue number: 1
    Rx offloads=0x0 Tx offloads=0x10000
    RX queue: 0
      RX desc=512 - RX free threshold=0
      RX threshold registers: pthresh=0 hthresh=0  wthresh=0
      RX Offloads=0x0
    TX queue: 0
      TX desc=512 - TX free threshold=0
      TX threshold registers: pthresh=0 hthresh=0  wthresh=0
      TX offloads=0x10000 - TX RS bit threshold=0
Press enter to exit

42.5. Runtime Config Options

  • Rx&Tx scalar mode enable (default 0)

    Ethdev supports both scalar and vector mode, it may be selected at runtime using scalar_enable devargs parameter.

  • RSS reta size (default 64)

    RSS redirection table size may be configured during runtime using reta_size devargs parameter.

    For example:

    -w 0002:02:00.0,reta_size=256

    With the above configuration, reta table of size 256 is populated.

  • Flow priority levels (default 3)

    RTE Flow priority levels can be configured during runtime using flow_max_priority devargs parameter.

    For example:

    -w 0002:02:00.0,flow_max_priority=10

    With the above configuration, priority level was set to 10 (0-9). Max priority level supported is 32.

  • Reserve Flow entries (default 8)

    RTE flow entries can be pre allocated and the size of pre allocation can be selected runtime using flow_prealloc_size devargs parameter.

    For example:

    -w 0002:02:00.0,flow_prealloc_size=4

    With the above configuration, pre alloc size was set to 4. Max pre alloc size supported is 32.

  • Max SQB buffer count (default 512)

    Send queue descriptor buffer count may be limited during runtime using max_sqb_count devargs parameter.

    For example:

    -w 0002:02:00.0,max_sqb_count=64

    With the above configuration, each send queue’s decscriptor buffer count is limited to a maximum of 64 buffers.

  • Switch header enable (default none)

    A port can be configured to a specific switch header type by using switch_header devargs parameter.

    For example:

    -w 0002:02:00.0,switch_header="higig2"

    With the above configuration, higig2 will be enabled on that port and the traffic on this port should be higig2 traffic only. Supported switch header types are “higig2”, “dsa” and “chlen90b”.

  • RSS tag as XOR (default 0)

    C0 HW revision onward, The HW gives an option to configure the RSS adder as

    • rss_adder<7:0> = flow_tag<7:0> ^ flow_tag<15:8> ^ flow_tag<23:16> ^ flow_tag<31:24>
    • rss_adder<7:0> = flow_tag<7:0>

    Latter one aligns with standard NIC behavior vs former one is a legacy RSS adder scheme used in OCTEON TX2 products.

    By default, the driver runs in the latter mode from C0 HW revision onward. Setting this flag to 1 to select the legacy mode.

    For example to select the legacy mode(RSS tag adder as XOR):

    -w 0002:02:00.0,tag_as_xor=1

  • Max SPI for inbound inline IPsec (default 1)

    Max SPI supported for inbound inline IPsec processing can be specified by ipsec_in_max_spi devargs parameter.

    For example:

    -w 0002:02:00.0,ipsec_in_max_spi=128

    With the above configuration, application can enable inline IPsec processing on 128 SAs (SPI 0-127).

  • Lock Rx contexts in NDC cache

    Lock Rx contexts in NDC cache by using lock_rx_ctx parameter.

    For example:

    -w 0002:02:00.0,lock_rx_ctx=1

  • Lock Tx contexts in NDC cache

    Lock Tx contexts in NDC cache by using lock_tx_ctx parameter.

    For example:

    -w 0002:02:00.0,lock_tx_ctx=1

Note

Above devarg parameters are configurable per device, user needs to pass the parameters to all the PCIe devices if application requires to configure on all the ethdev ports.

  • Lock NPA contexts in NDC

    Lock NPA aura and pool contexts in NDC cache. The device args take hexadecimal bitmask where each bit represent the corresponding aura/pool id.

    For example:

    -w 0002:02:00.0,npa_lock_mask=0xf

42.6. Traffic Management API

OCTEON TX2 PMD supports generic DPDK Traffic Management API which allows to configure the following features:

  1. Hierarchical scheduling
  2. Single rate - Two color, Two rate - Three color shaping

Both DWRR and Static Priority(SP) hierarchial scheduling is supported.

Every parent can have atmost 10 SP Children and unlimited DWRR children.

Both PF & VF supports traffic management API with PF supporting 6 levels and VF supporting 5 levels of topology.

42.7. Limitations

42.7.1. mempool_octeontx2 external mempool handler dependency

The OCTEON TX2 SoC family NIC has inbuilt HW assisted external mempool manager. net_octeontx2 pmd only works with mempool_octeontx2 mempool handler as it is performance wise most effective way for packet allocation and Tx buffer recycling on OCTEON TX2 SoC platform.

42.7.2. CRC stripping

The OCTEON TX2 SoC family NICs strip the CRC for every packet being received by the host interface irrespective of the offload configuration.

42.7.3. Multicast MAC filtering

net_octeontx2 pmd supports multicast mac filtering feature only on physical function devices.

42.7.4. SDP interface support

OCTEON TX2 SDP interface support is limited to PF device, No VF support.

42.7.5. Inline Protocol Processing

net_octeontx2 pmd doesn’t support the following features for packets to be inline protocol processed. - TSO offload - VLAN/QinQ offload - Fragmentation

42.8. Debugging Options

Table 42.1 OCTEON TX2 ethdev debug options
# Component EAL log command
1 NIX –log-level=’pmd.net.octeontx2,8’
2 NPC –log-level=’pmd.net.octeontx2.flow,8’

42.9. RTE Flow Support

The OCTEON TX2 SoC family NIC has support for the following patterns and actions.

Patterns:

Table 42.2 Item types
# Pattern Type
1 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_ETH
2 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_VLAN
3 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_E_TAG
4 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_IPV4
5 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_IPV6
6 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_ARP_ETH_IPV4
7 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_MPLS
8 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_ICMP
9 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_UDP
10 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_TCP
11 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_SCTP
12 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_ESP
13 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_GRE
14 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_NVGRE
15 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_VXLAN
16 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_GTPC
17 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_GTPU
18 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_GENEVE
19 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_VXLAN_GPE
20 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_IPV6_EXT
21 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_VOID
22 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_ANY
23 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_GRE_KEY
24 RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_HIGIG2

Note

RTE_FLOW_ITEM_TYPE_GRE_KEY works only when checksum and routing bits in the GRE header are equal to 0.

Actions:

Table 42.3 Ingress action types
# Action Type
1 RTE_FLOW_ACTION_TYPE_VOID
2 RTE_FLOW_ACTION_TYPE_MARK
3 RTE_FLOW_ACTION_TYPE_FLAG
4 RTE_FLOW_ACTION_TYPE_COUNT
5 RTE_FLOW_ACTION_TYPE_DROP
6 RTE_FLOW_ACTION_TYPE_QUEUE
7 RTE_FLOW_ACTION_TYPE_RSS
8 RTE_FLOW_ACTION_TYPE_SECURITY
9 RTE_FLOW_ACTION_TYPE_PF
10 RTE_FLOW_ACTION_TYPE_VF
Table 42.4 Egress action types
# Action Type
1 RTE_FLOW_ACTION_TYPE_COUNT
2 RTE_FLOW_ACTION_TYPE_DROP