5. DPDK Release 20.05

5.1. New Features

  • Added Trace Library and Tracepoints.

    Added a native implementation of the “common trace format” (CTF) based trace library. This allows the user add tracepoints in an application/library to get runtime trace/debug information for control, and fast APIs with minimum impact on fast path performance. Typical trace overhead is ~20 cycles and instrumentation overhead is 1 cycle. Added tracepoints in EAL, ethdev, cryptodev, eventdev and mempool libraries for important functions.

  • Added APIs for RCU defer queues.

    Added APIs to create and delete defer queues. Additional APIs are provided to enqueue a deleted resource and reclaim the resource in the future. These APIs help an application use lock-free data structures with less effort.

  • Added new API for rte_ring.

    • Introduced new synchronization modes for rte_ring.

      Introduced new optional MT synchronization modes for rte_ring: Relaxed Tail Sync (RTS) mode and Head/Tail Sync (HTS) mode. With these modes selected, rte_ring shows significant improvements for average enqueue/dequeue times on overcommitted systems.

    • Added peek style API for rte_ring.

      For rings with producer/consumer in RTE_RING_SYNC_ST, RTE_RING_SYNC_MT_HTS mode, provide the ability to split enqueue/dequeue operation into two phases (enqueue/dequeue start and enqueue/dequeue finish). This allows the user to inspect objects in the ring without removing them (aka MT safe peek).

  • Added flow aging support.

    Added flow aging support to detect and report aged-out flows, including:

    • Added new action: RTE_FLOW_ACTION_TYPE_AGE to set the timeout and the application flow context for each flow.
    • Added new event: RTE_ETH_EVENT_FLOW_AGED for the driver to report that there are new aged-out flows.
    • Added new query: rte_flow_get_aged_flows to get the aged-out flows contexts from the port.

  • ethdev: Added a new value to link speed for 200Gbps.

    Added a new ethdev value to for link speeds of 200Gbps.

  • Updated the Amazon ena driver.

    Updated the ena PMD with new features and improvements, including:

    • Added support for large LLQ (Low-latency queue) headers.
    • Added Tx drops as a new extended driver statistic.
    • Added support for accelerated LLQ mode.
    • Handling of the 0 length descriptors on the Rx path.

  • Updated Broadcom bnxt driver.

    Updated the Broadcom bnxt driver with new features and improvements, including:

    • Added support for host based flow table management.
    • Added flow counters to extended stats.
    • Added PCI function stats to extended stats.

  • Updated Cisco enic driver.

    Updated Cisco enic driver GENEVE tunneling support:

    • Added support to control GENEVE tunneling via UCSM/CIMC and removed devarg.
    • Added GENEVE port number configuration.

  • Updated Hisilicon hns3 driver.

    Updated Hisilicon hns3 driver with new features and improvements, including:

    • Added support for TSO.
    • Added support for configuring promiscuous and allmulticast mode for VF.

  • Added a new driver for Intel Foxville I225 devices.

    Added the new igc net driver for Intel Foxville I225 devices. See the IGC Poll Mode Driver NIC guide for more details on this new driver.

  • Updated Intel i40e driver.

    Updated i40e PMD with new features and improvements, including:

    • Enabled MAC address as FDIR input set for ipv4-other, ipv4-udp and ipv4-tcp.
    • Added support for RSS using L3/L4 source/destination only.
    • Added support for setting hash function in rte flow.

  • Updated the Intel iavf driver.

    Update the Intel iavf driver with new features and improvements, including:

    • Added generic filter support.
    • Added advanced iavf with FDIR capability.
    • Added advanced RSS configuration for VFs.

  • Updated the Intel ice driver.

    Updated the Intel ice driver with new features and improvements, including:

    • Added support for DCF (Device Config Function) feature.
    • Added switch filter support for Intel DCF.

  • Updated Marvell OCTEON TX2 ethdev driver.

    Updated Marvell OCTEON TX2 ethdev driver with traffic manager support, including:

    • Hierarchical Scheduling with DWRR and SP.
    • Single rate - Two color, Two rate - Three color shaping.

  • Updated Mellanox mlx5 driver.

    Updated Mellanox mlx5 driver with new features and improvements, including:

    • Added support for matching on IPv4 Time To Live and IPv6 Hop Limit.
    • Added support for creating Relaxed Ordering Memory Regions.
    • Added support for configuring Hairpin queue data buffer size.
    • Added support for jumbo frame size (9K MTU) in Multi-Packet RQ mode.
    • Removed flow rules caching for memory saving and compliance with ethdev API.
    • Optimized the memory consumption of flows.
    • Added support for flow aging based on hardware counters.
    • Added support for flow patterns with wildcard VLAN items (without VID value).
    • Updated support for matching on GTP headers, added match on GTP flags.

  • Added Chacha20-Poly1305 algorithm to Cryptodev API.

    Added support for Chacha20-Poly1305 AEAD algorithm in Cryptodev.

  • Updated the AESNI MB crypto PMD.

    • Added support for intel-ipsec-mb version 0.54.
    • Updated the AESNI MB PMD with AES-256 DOCSIS algorithm.
    • Added support for synchronous Crypto burst API.

  • Updated the AESNI GCM crypto PMD.

    Added support for intel-ipsec-mb version 0.54.

  • Updated the ZUC crypto PMD.

    • Added support for intel-ipsec-mb version 0.54.
    • Updated the PMD to support Multi-buffer ZUC-EIA3, improving performance significantly, when using intel-ipsec-mb version 0.54

  • Updated the SNOW3G crypto PMD.

    Added support for intel-ipsec-mb version 0.54.

  • Updated the KASUMI crypto PMD.

    Added support for intel-ipsec-mb version 0.54.

  • Updated the QuickAssist Technology (QAT) Crypto PMD.

    • Added handling of mixed crypto algorithms in QAT PMD for GEN2.

      Enabled handling of mixed algorithms in encrypted digest hash-cipher (generation) and cipher-hash (verification) requests in QAT PMD when running on GEN2 QAT hardware with particular firmware versions (GEN3 support was added in DPDK 20.02).

    • Added plain SHA-1, 224, 256, 384, 512 support to QAT PMD.

      Added support for plain SHA-1, SHA-224, SHA-256, SHA-384 and SHA-512 hashes to QAT PMD.

    • Added AES-GCM/GMAC J0 support to QAT PMD.

      Added support for AES-GCM/GMAC J0 to Intel QuickAssist Technology PMD. The user can use this feature by passing a zero length IV in the appropriate xform. For more information refer to the doxygen comments in rte_crypto_sym.h for J0.

    • Updated the QAT PMD for AES-256 DOCSIS.

      Added AES-256 DOCSIS algorithm support to the QAT PMD.

  • Updated the QuickAssist Technology (QAT) Compression PMD.

    Added special buffer handling when the internal QAT intermediate buffer is too small for the Huffman dynamic compression operation. Instead of falling back to fixed compression, the operation is now split into multiple smaller dynamic compression requests (which are possible to execute on QAT) and their results are then combined and copied into the output buffer. This is not possible if any checksum calculation was requested - in such cases the code falls back to fixed compression as before.

  • Updated the turbo_sw bbdev PMD.

    Added support for large size code blocks which do not fit in one mbuf segment.

  • Added Intel FPGA_5GNR_FEC bbdev PMD.

    Added a new fpga_5gnr_fec bbdev driver for the Intel® FPGA PAC (Programmable Acceleration Card) N3000. See the Intel(R) FPGA 5GNR FEC Poll Mode Driver BBDEV guide for more details on this new driver.

  • Updated the DSW event device.

    Updated the DSW PMD with new features and improvements, including:

    • Improved flow migration mechanism, allowing faster and more accurate load balancing.
    • Improved behavior on high-core count systems.
    • Reduced latency in low-load situations.
    • Extended DSW xstats with migration and load-related statistics.

  • Updated ipsec-secgw sample application.

    Updated the ipsec-secgw sample application with the following features:

    • Updated the application to add event based packet processing. The worker thread(s) would receive events and submit them back to the event device after the processing. This way, multicore scaling and HW assisted scheduling is achieved by making use of the event device capabilities. The event mode currently only supports inline IPsec protocol offload.
    • Updated the application to support key sizes for AES-192-CBC, AES-192-GCM, AES-256-GCM algorithms.
    • Added IPsec inbound load-distribution support for the application using NIC load distribution feature (Flow Director).

  • Updated Telemetry Library.

    The updated Telemetry library has been significantly improved in relation to the original version to make it more accessible and scalable:

    • It now enables DPDK libraries and applications to provide their own specific telemetry information, rather than being limited to what could be reported through the metrics library.
    • It is no longer dependent on the external Jansson library, which allows Telemetry be enabled by default.
    • The socket handling has been simplified making it easier for clients to connect and retrieve information.

  • Added the rte_graph library.

    The Graph architecture abstracts the data processing functions as nodes and links them together to create a complex graph to enable reusable/modular data processing functions. The graph library provides APIs to enable graph framework operations such as create, lookup, dump and destroy on graph and node operations such as clone, edge update, and edge shrink, etc. The API also allows the creation of a stats cluster to monitor per graph and per node statistics.

  • Added the rte_node library.

    Added the rte_node library that consists of nodes used by the rte_graph library. Each node performs a specific packet processing function based on the application configuration.

    The following nodes are added:

    • Null node: A skeleton node that defines the general structure of a node.
    • Ethernet device node: Consists of Ethernet Rx/Tx nodes as well as Ethernet control APIs.
    • IPv4 lookup node: Consists of IPv4 extract and LPM lookup node. Routes can be configured by the application through the rte_node_ip4_route_add function.
    • IPv4 rewrite node: Consists of IPv4 and Ethernet header rewrite functionality that can be configured through the rte_node_ip4_rewrite_add function.
    • Packet drop node: Frees the packets received to their respective mempool.

  • Added new l3fwd-graph sample application.

    Added an example application l3fwd-graph. This demonstrates the usage of the graph library and node library for packet processing. In addition to the library usage demonstration, this application can be used for performance comparison of the existing l3fwd (static code without any nodes) with the modular l3fwd-graph approach.

  • Updated the testpmd application.

    Added a new cmdline option --rx-mq-mode which can be used to test PMD’s behaviour on handling Rx mq mode.

  • Added support for GCC 10.

    Added support for building with GCC 10.1.

5.2. API Changes

  • mempool: The API of rte_mempool_populate_iova() and rte_mempool_populate_virt() changed to return 0 instead of -EINVAL when there is not enough room to store one object.

5.3. ABI Changes

  • No ABI change that would break compatibility with DPDK 20.02 and 19.11.

5.4. Tested Platforms

  • Intel® platforms with Broadcom® NICs combinations
    • CPU:
      • Intel® Xeon® Gold 6154 CPU @ 3.00GHz
      • Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2650 v2 @ 2.60GHz
      • Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2667 v3 @ 3.20GHz
      • Intel® Xeon® Gold 6142 CPU @ 2.60GHz
      • Intel® Xeon® Silver 4110 CPU @ 2.10GHz
    • OS:
      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 8.1
      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.6
      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.5
      • Ubuntu 16.04
      • Centos 8.1
      • Centos 7.7
    • upstream kernel:
      • Linux 5.3
    • NICs:
      • Broadcom® NetXtreme-E® Series P225p (2x25G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Firmware version: 214.4.81.0 and above
      • Broadcom® NetXtreme-E® Series P425p (4x25G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x16
        • Firmware version: 216.4.259.0 and above
      • Broadcom® NetXtreme-E® Series P2100G (2x100G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x16
        • Firmware version: 216.1.259.0 and above
      • Broadcom® NetXtreme-E® Series P425p (4x25G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 4.0 x16
        • Firmware version: 216.1.259.0 and above
      • Broadcom® NetXtreme-E® Series P2100G (2x100G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 4.0 x16
        • Firmware version: 216.1.259.0 and above
  • Intel® platforms with Intel® NICs combinations
    • CPU
      • Intel® Atom™ CPU C3758 @ 2.20GHz
      • Intel® Atom™ CPU C3858 @ 2.00GHz
      • Intel® Atom™ CPU C3958 @ 2.00GHz
      • Intel® Xeon® CPU D-1541 @ 2.10GHz
      • Intel® Xeon® CPU D-1553N @ 2.30GHz
      • Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2680 0 @ 2.70GHz
      • Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2680 v2 @ 2.80GHz
      • Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2699 v3 @ 2.30GHz
      • Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2699 v4 @ 2.20GHz
      • Intel® Xeon® Gold 5218N CPU @ 2.30GHz
      • Intel® Xeon® Gold 6139 CPU @ 2.30GHz
      • Intel® Xeon® Gold 6252N CPU @ 2.30GHz
      • Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8180 CPU @ 2.50GHz
      • Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8280M CPU @ 2.70GHz
    • OS:
      • CentOS 7.7
      • CentOS 8.0
      • Fedora 32
      • FreeBSD 12.1
      • OpenWRT 19.07
      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 8.0
      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.7
      • Suse15 SP1
      • Ubuntu 16.04
      • Ubuntu 18.04
      • Ubuntu 20.04
    • NICs:
      • Intel® 82599ES 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller
        • Firmware version: 0x61bf0001
        • Device id (pf/vf): 8086:10fb / 8086:10ed
        • Driver version: 5.6.5 (ixgbe)
      • Intel® Corporation Ethernet Connection X552/X557-AT 10GBASE-T
        • Firmware version: 0x800003e7
        • Device id (pf/vf): 8086:15ad / 8086:15a8
        • Driver version: 5.1.0-k (ixgbe)
      • Intel® Corporation Ethernet Controller 10G X550T
        • Firmware version: 0x80000482
        • Device id (pf): 8086:1563
        • Driver version: 5.6.5 (ixgbe)
      • Intel® Ethernet Converged Network Adapter X710-DA4 (4x10G)
        • Firmware version: 7.20 0x800079e8 1.2585.0
        • Device id (pf/vf): 8086:1572 / 8086:154c
        • Driver version: 2.11.29 (i40e)
      • Intel® Corporation Ethernet Connection X722 for 10GbE SFP+ (4x10G)
        • Firmware version: 4.11 0x80001def 1.1999.0
        • Device id (pf/vf): 8086:37d0 / 8086:37cd
        • Driver version: 2.11.29 (i40e)
      • Intel® Corporation Ethernet Connection X722 for 10GBASE-T (2x10G)
        • Firmware version: 4.10 0x80001a7a
        • Device id (pf/vf): 8086:37d2 / 8086:37cd
        • Driver version: 2.11.29 (i40e)
      • Intel® Ethernet Converged Network Adapter XXV710-DA2 (2x25G)
        • Firmware version: 7.30 0x800080a2 1.2658.0
        • Device id (pf/vf): 8086:158b / 8086:154c
        • Driver version: 2.11.27_rc13 (i40e)
      • Intel® Ethernet Converged Network Adapter XL710-QDA2 (2X40G)
        • Firmware version: 7.30 0x800080ab 1.2658.0
        • Device id (pf/vf): 8086:1583 / 8086:154c
        • Driver version: 2.11.27_rc13 (i40e)
      • Intel® Corporation I350 Gigabit Network Connection
        • Firmware version: 1.63, 0x80000cbc
        • Device id (pf/vf): 8086:1521 / 8086:1520
        • Driver version: 5.4.0-k (igb)
      • Intel® Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connection
        • Firmware version: 3.25, 0x800006eb
        • Device id (pf): 8086:1533
        • Driver version: 5.6.5(igb)
      • Intel® Ethernet Controller 10-Gigabit X540-AT2
        • Firmware version: 0x800005f9
        • Device id (pf): 8086:1528
        • Driver version: 5.1.0-k(ixgbe)
      • Intel® Ethernet Converged Network Adapter X710-T2L
        • Firmware version: 7.30 0x80008061 1.2585.0
        • Device id (pf): 8086:15ff
        • Driver version: 2.11.27_rc13(i40e)
  • Intel® platforms with Mellanox® NICs combinations
    • CPU:
      • Intel® Xeon® Gold 6154 CPU @ 3.00GHz
      • Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2697A v4 @ 2.60GHz
      • Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2697 v3 @ 2.60GHz
      • Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2680 v2 @ 2.80GHz
      • Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2650 v4 @ 2.20GHz
      • Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2640 @ 2.50GHz
      • Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2620 v4 @ 2.10GHz
    • OS:
      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.5 (Maipo)
      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.4 (Maipo)
      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.3 (Maipo)
      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.2 (Maipo)
      • Ubuntu 18.04
      • Ubuntu 16.04
    • OFED:
      • MLNX_OFED 4.7-3.2.9.0
      • MLNX_OFED 5.0-2.1.8.0 and above
    • upstream kernel:
      • Linux 5.7.0-rc5 and above
    • rdma-core:
      • rdma-core-29.0-1 and above
    • NICs:
      • Mellanox® ConnectX®-3 Pro 40G MCX354A-FCC_Ax (2x40G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1007
        • Firmware version: 2.42.5000
      • Mellanox® ConnectX®-3 Pro 40G MCX354A-FCCT (2x40G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1007
        • Firmware version: 2.42.5000
      • Mellanox® ConnectX®-4 Lx 25G MCX4121A-ACAT (2x25G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1015
        • Firmware version: 14.27.2008 and above
      • Mellanox® ConnectX®-4 Lx 50G MCX4131A-GCAT (1x50G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
        • Device ID: 15b3:1015
        • Firmware version: 14.27.2008 and above
      • Mellanox® ConnectX®-5 100G MCX516A-CCAT (2x100G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x16
        • Device ID: 15b3:1017
        • Firmware version: 16.27.2008 and above
      • Mellanox® ConnectX®-5 100G MCX556A-ECAT (2x100G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x16
        • Device ID: 15b3:1017
        • Firmware version: 16.27.2008 and above
      • Mellanox® ConnectX®-5 100G MCX556A-EDAT (2x100G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 3.0 x16
        • Device ID: 15b3:1017
        • Firmware version: 16.27.2008 and above
      • Mellanox® ConnectX®-5 Ex EN 100G MCX516A-CDAT (2x100G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 4.0 x16
        • Device ID: 15b3:1019
        • Firmware version: 16.27.2008 and above
      • Mellanox® ConnectX®-6 Dx EN 100G MCX623106AN-CDAT (2x100G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 4.0 x16
        • Device ID: 15b3:101d
        • Firmware version: 22.27.2008 and above
  • IBM Power 9 platforms with Mellanox® NICs combinations
    • CPU:
      • POWER9 2.2 (pvr 004e 1202) 2300MHz
    • OS:
      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.6
    • NICs:
      • Mellanox® ConnectX®-5 100G MCX556A-ECAT (2x100G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 4.0 x16
        • Device ID: 15b3:1017
        • Firmware version: 16.27.2008
      • Mellanox® ConnectX®-6 Dx 100G MCX623106AN-CDAT (2x100G)
        • Host interface: PCI Express 4.0 x16
        • Device ID: 15b3:101d
        • Firmware version: 22.27.2008
    • OFED:
      • MLNX_OFED 5.0-2.1.8.0
  • ARMv8 SoC combinations from Marvell (with integrated NICs)
    • SoC:
      • CN83xx, CN96xx, CN93xx
    • OS (Based on Marvell OCTEON TX SDK-10.3.2.0-PR12):
      • Arch Linux
      • Buildroot 2018.11
      • Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS
      • Ubuntu 16.10
      • Ubuntu 18.04.1
      • Ubuntu 19.04