12. CXGBE Poll Mode Driver

The CXGBE PMD (librte_net_cxgbe) provides poll mode driver support for Chelsio Terminator 10/25/40/100 Gbps family of adapters. CXGBE PMD has support for the latest Linux and FreeBSD operating systems.

CXGBEVF PMD provides poll mode driver support for SR-IOV Virtual functions and has support for the latest Linux operating systems.

More information can be found at Chelsio Communications Official Website.

12.1. Features

CXGBE and CXGBEVF PMD has support for:

Multiple queues for TX and RX
Receiver Side Steering (RSS) Receiver Side Steering (RSS) on IPv4, IPv6, IPv4-TCP/UDP, IPv6-TCP/UDP. For 4-tuple, enabling ‘RSS on TCP’ and ‘RSS on TCP + UDP’ is supported.
VLAN filtering
Checksum offload
Promiscuous mode
All multicast mode
Port hardware statistics
Jumbo frames
Flow API - Support for both Wildcard (LE-TCAM) and Exact (HASH) match filters.

12.2. Limitations

The Chelsio Terminator series of devices provide two/four ports but expose a single PCI bus address, thus, librte_net_cxgbe registers itself as a PCI driver that allocates one Ethernet device per detected port.

For this reason, one cannot allow/block a single port without allowing/blocking the other ports on the same device.

12.3. Supported Chelsio T5 NICs

1G NICs: T502-BT
10G NICs: T520-BT, T520-CR, T520-LL-CR, T520-SO-CR, T540-CR
40G NICs: T580-CR, T580-LP-CR, T580-SO-CR
Other T5 NICs: T522-CR

12.4. Supported Chelsio T6 NICs

25G NICs: T6425-CR, T6225-CR, T6225-LL-CR, T6225-SO-CR
100G NICs: T62100-CR, T62100-LP-CR, T62100-SO-CR

12.5. Supported SR-IOV Chelsio NICs

SR-IOV virtual functions are supported on all the Chelsio NICs listed in Supported Chelsio T5 NICs and Supported Chelsio T6 NICs.

12.6. Prerequisites

Requires firmware version 1.24.17.0 and higher. Visit Chelsio Download Center to get latest firmware bundled with the latest Chelsio Unified Wire package.

For Linux, installing and loading the latest cxgb4 kernel driver from the Chelsio Unified Wire package should get you the latest firmware. More information can be obtained from the User Guide that is bundled with the Chelsio Unified Wire package.

For FreeBSD, the latest firmware obtained from the Chelsio Unified Wire package must be manually flashed via cxgbetool available in FreeBSD source repository.

Instructions on how to manually flash the firmware are given in section Linux Installation for Linux and section FreeBSD Installation for FreeBSD.

12.7. Runtime Options

The following devargs options can be enabled at runtime. They must be passed as part of EAL arguments. For example,

dpdk-testpmd -a 02:00.4,keep_ovlan=1 -- -i

12.7.1. Common Runtime Options

keep_ovlan (default 0)

Toggle behavior to keep/strip outer VLAN in Q-in-Q packets. If enabled, the outer VLAN tag is preserved in Q-in-Q packets. Otherwise, the outer VLAN tag is stripped in Q-in-Q packets.
tx_mode_latency (default 0)

When set to 1, Tx doesn’t wait for max number of packets to get coalesced and sends the packets immediately at the end of the current Tx burst. When set to 0, Tx waits across multiple Tx bursts until the max number of packets have been coalesced. In this case, Tx only sends the coalesced packets to hardware once the max coalesce limit has been reached.

12.7.2. CXGBE VF Only Runtime Options

force_link_up (default 0)

When set to 1, CXGBEVF PMD always forces link as up for all VFs on underlying Chelsio NICs. This enables multiple VFs on the same NIC to send traffic to each other even when the physical link is down.

12.7.3. CXGBE PF Only Runtime Options

filtermode (default 0)

Apart from the 4-tuple (IP src/dst addresses and TCP/UDP src/dst port addresses), there are only 40-bits available to match other fields in packet headers. So, filtermode devarg allows user to dynamically select a 40-bit supported match field combination for LETCAM (wildcard) filters.

Default value of 0 makes driver pick the combination configured in the firmware configuration file on the adapter.

The supported flags and their corresponding values are shown in table below. These flags can be OR’d to create 1 of the multiple supported combinations for LETCAM filters.

FLAG

VALUE

Physical Port

0x1

PFVF

0x2

Destination MAC

0x4

Ethertype

0x8

Inner VLAN

0x10

Outer VLAN

0x20

IP TOS

0x40

IP Protocol

0x80

The supported filtermode combinations and their corresponding OR’d values are shown in table below.

FILTERMODE COMBINATIONS

VALUE

Protocol, TOS, Outer VLAN, Port

0xE1

Protocol, TOS, Outer VLAN

0xE0

Protocol, TOS, Inner VLAN, Port

0xD1

Protocol, TOS, Inner VLAN

0xD0

Protocol, TOS, PFVF, Port

0xC3

Protocol, TOS, PFVF

0xC2

Protocol, TOS, Port

0xC1

Protocol, TOS

0xC0

Protocol, Outer VLAN, Port

0xA1

Protocol, Outer VLAN

0xA0

Protocol, Inner VLAN, Port

0x91

Protocol, Inner VLAN

0x90

Protocol, Ethertype, DstMAC, Port

0x8D

Protocol, Ethertype, DstMAC

0x8C

Protocol, Ethertype, Port

0x89

Protocol, Ethertype

0x88

Protocol, DstMAC, PFVF, Port

0x87

Protocol, DstMAC, PFVF

0x86

Protocol, DstMAC, Port

0x85

Protocol, DstMAC

0x84

Protocol, PFVF, Port

0x83

Protocol, PFVF

0x82

Protocol, Port

0x81

Protocol

0x80

TOS, Outer VLAN, Port

0x61

TOS, Outer VLAN

0x60

TOS, Inner VLAN, Port

0x51

TOS, Inner VLAN

0x50

TOS, Ethertype, DstMAC, Port

0x4D

TOS, Ethertype, DstMAC

0x4C

TOS, Ethertype, Port

0x49

TOS, Ethertype

0x48

TOS, DstMAC, PFVF, Port

0x47

TOS, DstMAC, PFVF

0x46

TOS, DstMAC, Port

0x45

TOS, DstMAC

0x44

TOS, PFVF, Port

0x43

TOS, PFVF

0x42

TOS, Port

0x41

TOS

0x40

Outer VLAN, Inner VLAN, Port

0x31

Outer VLAN, Ethertype, Port

0x29

Outer VLAN, Ethertype

0x28

Outer VLAN, DstMAC, Port

0x25

Outer VLAN, DstMAC

0x24

Outer VLAN, Port

0x21

Outer VLAN

0x20

Inner VLAN, Ethertype, Port

0x19

Inner VLAN, Ethertype

0x18

Inner VLAN, DstMAC, Port

0x15

Inner VLAN, DstMAC

0x14

Inner VLAN, Port

0x11

Inner VLAN

0x10

Ethertype, DstMAC, Port

0xD

Ethertype, DstMAC

0xC

Ethertype, PFVF, Port

0xB

Ethertype, PFVF

0xA

Ethertype, Port

0x9

Ethertype

0x8

DstMAC, PFVF, Port

0x7

DstMAC, PFVF

0x6

DstMAC, Port

0x5

Destination MAC

0x4

PFVF, Port

0x3

PFVF

0x2

Physical Port

0x1

For example, to enable matching ethertype field in Ethernet header, and protocol field in IPv4 header, the filtermode combination must be given as:

dpdk-testpmd -a 02:00.4,filtermode=0x88 -- -i

filtermask (default 0)

filtermask devarg works similar to filtermode, but is used to configure a filter mode combination for HASH (exact-match) filters.

Note

The combination chosen for filtermask devarg must be a subset of the combination chosen for filtermode devarg.

Default value of 0 makes driver pick the combination configured in the firmware configuration file on the adapter.

Note that the filter rule will only be inserted in HASH region, if the rule contains all the fields specified in the filtermask combination. Otherwise, the filter rule will get inserted in LETCAM region.

The same combination list explained in the tables in filtermode devarg section earlier applies for filtermask devarg, as well.

For example, to enable matching only protocol field in IPv4 header, the filtermask combination must be given as:
```
dpdk-testpmd -a 02:00.4,filtermode=0x88,filtermask=0x80 -- -i
```

12.8. Driver compilation and testing

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

12.9. Linux

12.9.1. Linux Installation

Steps to manually install the latest firmware from the downloaded Chelsio Unified Wire package for Linux operating system are as follows:

Load the kernel module:
```
modprobe cxgb4
```

Use ifconfig to get the interface name assigned to Chelsio card:

ifconfig -a | grep "00:07:43"

Example output:

p1p1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:07:43:2D:EA:C0
p1p2      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:07:43:2D:EA:C8

Install cxgbtool:

cd <path_to_uwire>/tools/cxgbtool
make install

Use cxgbtool to load the firmware config file onto the card:

cxgbtool p1p1 loadcfg <path_to_uwire>/src/network/firmware/t5-config.txt

Use cxgbtool to load the firmware image onto the card:

cxgbtool p1p1 loadfw <path_to_uwire>/src/network/firmware/t5fw-*.bin

Unload and reload the kernel module:
```
modprobe -r cxgb4
modprobe cxgb4
```

Verify with ethtool:

ethtool -i p1p1 | grep "firmware"

Example output:

firmware-version: 1.24.17.0, TP 0.1.23.2

12.9.2. Running testpmd

This section demonstrates how to launch testpmd with Chelsio devices managed by librte_net_cxgbe in Linux operating system.

Load the kernel module:
```
modprobe cxgb4
```
Get the PCI bus addresses of the interfaces bound to cxgb4 driver:
```
dmesg | tail -2
```
Example output:
```
cxgb4 0000:02:00.4 p1p1: renamed from eth0
cxgb4 0000:02:00.4 p1p2: renamed from eth1
```
Note

Both the interfaces of a Chelsio 2-port adapter are bound to the same PCI bus address.
Unload the kernel module:
```
modprobe -ar cxgb4 csiostor
```

Running testpmd

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

Note

Currently, CXGBE PMD only supports the binding of PF4 for Chelsio NICs.

Example output:

[...]
EAL: PCI device 0000:02:00.4 on NUMA socket -1
EAL:   probe driver: 1425:5401 rte_cxgbe_pmd
EAL:   PCI memory mapped at 0x7fd7c0200000
EAL:   PCI memory mapped at 0x7fd77cdfd000
EAL:   PCI memory mapped at 0x7fd7c10b7000
PMD: rte_cxgbe_pmd: fw: 1.24.17.0, TP: 0.1.23.2
PMD: rte_cxgbe_pmd: Coming up as MASTER: Initializing adapter
Interactive-mode selected
Configuring Port 0 (socket 0)
Port 0: 00:07:43:2D:EA:C0
Configuring Port 1 (socket 0)
Port 1: 00:07:43:2D:EA:C8
Checking link statuses...
PMD: rte_cxgbe_pmd: Port0: passive DA port module inserted
PMD: rte_cxgbe_pmd: Port1: passive DA port module inserted
Port 0 Link Up - speed 10000 Mbps - full-duplex
Port 1 Link Up - speed 10000 Mbps - full-duplex
Done
testpmd>

Note

Flow control pause TX/RX is disabled by default and can be enabled via testpmd. Refer section Enable/Disable Flow Control for more details.

12.9.3. Configuring SR-IOV Virtual Functions

This section demonstrates how to enable SR-IOV virtual functions on Chelsio NICs and demonstrates how to run testpmd with SR-IOV virtual functions.

Load the kernel module:
```
modprobe cxgb4
```
Get the PCI bus addresses of the interfaces bound to cxgb4 driver:
```
dmesg | tail -2
```
Example output:
```
cxgb4 0000:02:00.4 p1p1: renamed from eth0
cxgb4 0000:02:00.4 p1p2: renamed from eth1
```
Note

Both the interfaces of a Chelsio 2-port adapter are bound to the same PCI bus address.

Use ifconfig to get the interface name assigned to Chelsio card:

ifconfig -a | grep "00:07:43"

Example output:

p1p1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:07:43:2D:EA:C0
p1p2      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:07:43:2D:EA:C8

Bring up the interfaces:
```
ifconfig p1p1 up
ifconfig p1p2 up
```
Instantiate SR-IOV Virtual Functions. PF0..3 can be used for SR-IOV VFs. Multiple VFs can be instantiated on each of PF0..3. To instantiate one SR-IOV VF on each PF0 and PF1:
```
echo 1 > /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000\:02\:00.0/sriov_numvfs
echo 1 > /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000\:02\:00.1/sriov_numvfs
```

Get the PCI bus addresses of the virtual functions:

lspci | grep -i "Chelsio" | grep -i "VF"

Example output:

02:01.0 Ethernet controller: Chelsio Communications Inc T540-CR Unified Wire Ethernet Controller [VF]
02:01.1 Ethernet controller: Chelsio Communications Inc T540-CR Unified Wire Ethernet Controller [VF]

Running testpmd

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

Example output:

[...]
EAL: PCI device 0000:02:01.0 on NUMA socket 0
EAL:   probe driver: 1425:5803 net_cxgbevf
PMD: rte_cxgbe_pmd: Firmware version: 1.24.17.0
PMD: rte_cxgbe_pmd: TP Microcode version: 0.1.23.2
PMD: rte_cxgbe_pmd: Chelsio rev 0
PMD: rte_cxgbe_pmd: No bootstrap loaded
PMD: rte_cxgbe_pmd: No Expansion ROM loaded
PMD: rte_cxgbe_pmd:  0000:02:01.0 Chelsio rev 0 1G/10GBASE-SFP
EAL: PCI device 0000:02:01.1 on NUMA socket 0
EAL:   probe driver: 1425:5803 net_cxgbevf
PMD: rte_cxgbe_pmd: Firmware version: 1.24.17.0
PMD: rte_cxgbe_pmd: TP Microcode version: 0.1.23.2
PMD: rte_cxgbe_pmd: Chelsio rev 0
PMD: rte_cxgbe_pmd: No bootstrap loaded
PMD: rte_cxgbe_pmd: No Expansion ROM loaded
PMD: rte_cxgbe_pmd:  0000:02:01.1 Chelsio rev 0 1G/10GBASE-SFP
Configuring Port 0 (socket 0)
Port 0: 06:44:29:44:40:00
Configuring Port 1 (socket 0)
Port 1: 06:44:29:44:40:10
Checking link statuses...
Done
testpmd>

12.10. FreeBSD

12.10.1. FreeBSD Installation

Steps to manually install the latest firmware from the downloaded Chelsio Unified Wire package for FreeBSD operating system are as follows:

Load the kernel module:
```
kldload if_cxgbe
```

Use dmesg to get the t5nex instance assigned to the Chelsio card:

dmesg | grep "t5nex"

Example output:

t5nex0: <Chelsio T520-CR> irq 16 at device 0.4 on pci2
cxl0: <port 0> on t5nex0
cxl1: <port 1> on t5nex0
t5nex0: PCIe x8, 2 ports, 14 MSI-X interrupts, 31 eq, 13 iq

In the example above, a Chelsio T520-CR card is bound to a t5nex0 instance.

Install cxgbetool from FreeBSD source repository:

cd <path_to_FreeBSD_source>/tools/tools/cxgbetool/
make && make install

Use cxgbetool to load the firmware image onto the card:

cxgbetool t5nex0 loadfw <path_to_uwire>/src/network/firmware/t5fw-*.bin

Unload and reload the kernel module:
```
kldunload if_cxgbe
kldload if_cxgbe
```

Verify with sysctl:

sysctl -a | grep "t5nex" | grep "firmware"

Example output:

dev.t5nex.0.firmware_version: 1.24.17.0

12.10.2. Running testpmd

This section demonstrates how to launch testpmd with Chelsio devices managed by librte_net_cxgbe in FreeBSD operating system.

Change to DPDK source directory where the target has been compiled in section Driver compilation and testing:
```
cd <DPDK-source-directory>
```
Copy the contigmem kernel module to /boot/kernel directory:
```
cp <build_dir>/kernel/freebsd/contigmem.ko /boot/kernel/
```
Add the following lines to /boot/loader.conf:
```
# reserve 2 x 1G blocks of contiguous memory using contigmem driver
hw.contigmem.num_buffers=2
hw.contigmem.buffer_size=1073741824
# load contigmem module during boot process
contigmem_load="YES"
```
The above lines load the contigmem kernel module during boot process and allocate 2 x 1G blocks of contiguous memory to be used for DPDK later on. This is to avoid issues with potential memory fragmentation during later system up time, which may result in failure of allocating the contiguous memory required for the contigmem kernel module.
Restart the system and ensure the contigmem module is loaded successfully:
```
reboot
kldstat | grep "contigmem"
```
Example output:
```
2    1 0xffffffff817f1000 3118     contigmem.ko
```
Repeat step 1 to ensure that you are in the DPDK source directory.
Load the cxgbe kernel module:
```
kldload if_cxgbe
```
Get the PCI bus addresses of the interfaces bound to t5nex driver:
```
pciconf -l | grep "t5nex"
```
Example output:
```
t5nex0@pci0:2:0:4: class=0x020000 card=0x00001425 chip=0x54011425 rev=0x00
```
In the above example, the t5nex0 is bound to 2:0:4 bus address.

Note

Both the interfaces of a Chelsio 2-port adapter are bound to the same PCI bus address.
Unload the kernel module:
```
kldunload if_cxgbe
```
Set the PCI bus addresses to hw.nic_uio.bdfs kernel environment parameter:
```
kenv hw.nic_uio.bdfs="2:0:4"
```
This automatically binds 2:0:4 to nic_uio kernel driver when it is loaded in the next step.

Note

Currently, CXGBE PMD only supports the binding of PF4 for Chelsio NICs.

Load nic_uio kernel driver:

kldload <build_dir>/kernel/freebsd/nic_uio.ko

Start testpmd with basic parameters:

./<build_dir>/app/dpdk-testpmd -l 0-3 -n 4 -a 0000:02:00.4 -- -i

Example output:

[...]
EAL: PCI device 0000:02:00.4 on NUMA socket 0
EAL:   probe driver: 1425:5401 rte_cxgbe_pmd
EAL:   PCI memory mapped at 0x8007ec000
EAL:   PCI memory mapped at 0x842800000
EAL:   PCI memory mapped at 0x80086c000
PMD: rte_cxgbe_pmd: fw: 1.24.17.0, TP: 0.1.23.2
PMD: rte_cxgbe_pmd: Coming up as MASTER: Initializing adapter
Interactive-mode selected
Configuring Port 0 (socket 0)
Port 0: 00:07:43:2D:EA:C0
Configuring Port 1 (socket 0)
Port 1: 00:07:43:2D:EA:C8
Checking link statuses...
PMD: rte_cxgbe_pmd: Port0: passive DA port module inserted
PMD: rte_cxgbe_pmd: Port1: passive DA port module inserted
Port 0 Link Up - speed 10000 Mbps - full-duplex
Port 1 Link Up - speed 10000 Mbps - full-duplex
Done
testpmd>

Note

Flow control pause TX/RX is disabled by default and can be enabled via testpmd. Refer section Enable/Disable Flow Control for more details.

12.11. Sample Application Notes

12.11.1. Enable/Disable Flow Control

Flow control pause TX/RX is disabled by default and can be enabled via testpmd as follows:

testpmd> set flow_ctrl rx on tx on 0 0 0 0 mac_ctrl_frame_fwd off autoneg on 0
testpmd> set flow_ctrl rx on tx on 0 0 0 0 mac_ctrl_frame_fwd off autoneg on 1

To disable again, run:

testpmd> set flow_ctrl rx off tx off 0 0 0 0 mac_ctrl_frame_fwd off autoneg off 0
testpmd> set flow_ctrl rx off tx off 0 0 0 0 mac_ctrl_frame_fwd off autoneg off 1

12.11.2. Jumbo Mode

There are two ways to enable sending and receiving of jumbo frames via testpmd. One method involves using the mtu command, which changes the mtu of an individual port without having to stop the selected port. Another method involves stopping all the ports first and then running max-pkt-len command to configure the mtu of all the ports with a single command.

To configure each port individually, run the mtu command as follows:
```
testpmd> port config mtu 0 9000
testpmd> port config mtu 1 9000
```
To configure all the ports at once, stop all the ports first and run the max-pkt-len command as follows:
```
testpmd> port stop all
testpmd> port config all max-pkt-len 9000
```