27. DPDK Release 16.07

27.1. New Features

Removed the mempool cache memory if caching is not being used.

The size of the mempool structure is reduced if the per-lcore cache is disabled.
Added mempool external cache for non-EAL thread.

Added new functions to create, free or flush a user-owned mempool cache for non-EAL threads. Previously the caching was always disabled on these threads.
Changed the memory allocation scheme in the mempool library.
- Added the ability to allocate a large mempool in fragmented virtual memory.
- Added new APIs to populate a mempool with memory.
- Added an API to free a mempool.
- Modified the API of the rte_mempool_obj_iter() function.
- Dropped the specific Xen Dom0 code.
- Dropped the specific anonymous mempool code in testpmd.
Added a new driver for Broadcom NetXtreme-C devices.

Added the new bnxt driver for Broadcom NetXtreme-C devices. See the “Network Interface Controller Drivers” document for more details on this new driver.
Added a new driver for ThunderX nicvf devices.

Added the new thunderx net driver for ThunderX nicvf devices. See the “Network Interface Controller Drivers” document for more details on this new driver.
Added mailbox interrupt support for ixgbe and igb VFs.

When the physical NIC link comes up or down, the PF driver will send a mailbox message to notify each VF. To handle this link up/down event, support have been added for a mailbox interrupt to receive the message and allow the application to register a callback for it.
Updated the ixgbe base driver.

The ixgbe base driver was updated with changes including the following:
- Added sgmii link for X550.
- Added MAC link setup for X550a SFP and SFP+.
- Added KR support for X550em_a.
- Added new PHY definitions for M88E1500.
- Added support for the VLVF to be bypassed when adding/removing a VFTA entry.
- Added X550a flow control auto negotiation support.
Updated the i40e base driver.

Updated the i40e base driver including support for new devices IDs.
Updated the enic driver.

The enic driver was updated with changes including the following:
- Optimized the Tx function.
- Added Scattered Rx capability.
- Improved packet type identification.
- Added MTU update in non Scattered Rx mode and enabled MTU of up to 9208 with UCS Software release 2.2 on 1300 series VICs.
Updated the mlx5 driver.

The mlx5 driver was updated with changes including the following:
- Data path was refactored to bypass Verbs to improve RX and TX performance.
- Removed compilation parameters for inline send, MLX5_MAX_INLINE, and added command line parameter instead, txq_inline.
- Improved TX scatter gather support: Removed compilation parameter MLX5_PMD_SGE_WR_N. Scatter-gather elements is set to the maximum value the NIC supports. Removed linearization logic, this decreases the memory consumption of the PMD.
- Improved jumbo frames support, by dynamically setting RX scatter gather elements according to the MTU and mbuf size, no need for compilation parameter MLX5_PMD_SGE_WR_N
Added support for virtio on IBM POWER8.

The ioports are mapped in memory when using Linux UIO.
Added support for Virtio in containers.

Add a new virtual device, named virtio_user, to support virtio for containers.

Known limitations:
- Control queue and multi-queue are not supported yet.
- Doesn’t work with --huge-unlink.
- Doesn’t work with --no-huge.
- Doesn’t work when there are more than VHOST_MEMORY_MAX_NREGIONS(8) hugepages.
- Root privilege is required for sorting hugepages by physical address.
- Can only be used with the vhost user backend.
Added vhost-user client mode.

DPDK vhost-user now supports client mode as well as server mode. Client mode is enabled when the RTE_VHOST_USER_CLIENT flag is set while calling rte_vhost_driver_register.

When DPDK vhost-user restarts from an normal or abnormal exit (such as a crash), the client mode allows DPDK to establish the connection again. Note that QEMU version v2.7 or above is required for this feature.

DPDK vhost-user will also try to reconnect by default when:
- The first connect fails (for example when QEMU is not started yet).
- The connection is broken (for example when QEMU restarts).
It can be turned off by setting the RTE_VHOST_USER_NO_RECONNECT flag.
Added NSH packet recognition in i40e.
Added AES-CTR support to AESNI MB PMD.

Now AESNI MB PMD supports 128/192/256-bit counter mode AES encryption and decryption.
Added AES counter mode support for Intel QuickAssist devices.

Enabled support for the AES CTR algorithm for Intel QuickAssist devices. Provided support for algorithm-chaining operations.
Added KASUMI SW PMD.

A new Crypto PMD has been added, which provides KASUMI F8 (UEA1) ciphering and KASUMI F9 (UIA1) hashing.
Added multi-writer support for RTE Hash with Intel TSX.

The following features/modifications have been added to rte_hash library:
- Enabled application developers to use an extra flag for rte_hash creation to specify default behavior (multi-thread safe/unsafe) with the rte_hash_add_key function.
- Changed the Cuckoo Hash Search algorithm to breadth first search for multi-writer routines and split Cuckoo Hash Search and Move operations in order to reduce transactional code region and improve TSX performance.
- Added a hash multi-writer test case to the test app.
Improved IP Pipeline Application.

The following features have been added to the ip_pipeline application:
- Configure the MAC address in the routing pipeline and automatic route updates with change in link state.
- Enable RSS per network interface through the configuration file.
- Streamline the CLI code.
Added keepalive enhancements.

Added support for reporting of core states other than “dead” to monitoring applications, enabling the support of broader liveness reporting to external processes.
Added packet capture framework.
- A new library librte_pdump is added to provide a packet capture API.
- A new app/pdump tool is added to demonstrate capture packets in DPDK.
Added floating VEB support for i40e PF driver.

A “floating VEB” is a special Virtual Ethernet Bridge (VEB) which does not have an upload port, but instead is used for switching traffic between virtual functions (VFs) on a port.

For information on this feature, please see the “I40E Poll Mode Driver” section of the “Network Interface Controller Drivers” document.
Added support for live migration of a VM with SRIOV VF.

Live migration of a VM with Virtio and VF PMD’s using the bonding PMD.

27.2. Resolved Issues

27.2.1. EAL

igb_uio: Fixed possible mmap failure for Linux >= 4.5.

The mmapping of the iomem range of the PCI device fails for kernels that enabled the CONFIG_IO_STRICT_DEVMEM option. The error seen by the user is as similar to the following:
```
EAL: pci_map_resource():

    cannot mmap(39, 0x7f1c51800000, 0x100000, 0x0):
    Invalid argument (0xffffffffffffffff)
```
The CONFIG_IO_STRICT_DEVMEM kernel option was introduced in Linux v4.5.

The issues was resolve by updating igb_uio to stop reserving PCI memory resources. From the kernel point of view the iomem region looks like idle and mmap works again. This matches the uio_pci_generic usage.

27.2.2. Drivers

i40e: Fixed vlan stripping from inner header.

Previously, for tunnel packets, such as VXLAN/NVGRE, the vlan tags of the inner header will be stripped without putting vlan info to descriptor. Now this issue is fixed by disabling vlan stripping from inner header.
i40e: Fixed the type issue of a single VLAN type.

Currently, if a single VLAN header is added in a packet, it’s treated as inner VLAN. But generally, a single VLAN header is treated as the outer VLAN header. This issue is fixed by changing corresponding register for single VLAN.
enic: Fixed several issues when stopping then restarting ports and queues.

Fixed several crashes related to stopping then restarting ports and queues. Fixed possible crash when re-configuring the number of Rx queue descriptors.
enic: Fixed Rx data mis-alignment if mbuf data offset modified.

Fixed possible Rx corruption when mbufs were returned to a pool with data offset other than RTE_PKTMBUF_HEADROOM.
enic: Fixed Tx IP/UDP/TCP checksum offload and VLAN insertion.
enic: Fixed Rx error and missed counters.

27.2.3. Libraries

mbuf: Fixed refcnt update when detaching.

Fix the rte_pktmbuf_detach() function to decrement the direct mbuf’s reference counter. The previous behavior was not to affect the reference counter. This lead to a memory leak of the direct mbuf.

27.3. API Changes

The following counters are removed from the rte_eth_stats structure:
- ibadcrc
- ibadlen
- imcasts
- fdirmatch
- fdirmiss
- tx_pause_xon
- rx_pause_xon
- tx_pause_xoff
- rx_pause_xoff
The extended statistics are fetched by ids with rte_eth_xstats_get after a lookup by name rte_eth_xstats_get_names.
The function rte_eth_dev_info_get fill the new fields nb_rx_queues and nb_tx_queues in the structure rte_eth_dev_info.
The vhost function rte_vring_available_entries is renamed to rte_vhost_avail_entries.
All existing vhost APIs and callbacks with virtio_net struct pointer as the parameter have been changed due to the ABI refactoring described below. It is replaced by int vid.
The function rte_vhost_enqueue_burst no longer supports concurrent enqueuing packets to the same queue.
The function rte_eth_dev_set_mtu adds a new return value -EBUSY, which indicates the operation is forbidden because the port is running.
The script dpdk_nic_bind.py is renamed to dpdk-devbind.py. And the script setup.sh is renamed to dpdk-setup.sh.

27.4. ABI Changes

The rte_port_source_params structure has new fields to support PCAP files. It was already in release 16.04 with RTE_NEXT_ABI flag.
The rte_eth_dev_info structure has new fields nb_rx_queues and nb_tx_queues to support the number of queues configured by software.
A Vhost ABI refactoring has been made: the virtio_net structure is no longer exported directly to the application. Instead, a handle, vid, has been used to represent this structure internally.

27.5. Shared Library Versions

The libraries prepended with a plus sign were incremented in this version.

+ libethdev.so.4
  librte_acl.so.2
  librte_cfgfile.so.2
  librte_cmdline.so.2
  librte_cryptodev.so.1
  librte_distributor.so.1
  librte_eal.so.2
  librte_hash.so.2
  librte_ip_frag.so.1
  librte_ivshmem.so.1
  librte_jobstats.so.1
  librte_kni.so.2
  librte_kvargs.so.1
  librte_lpm.so.2
  librte_mbuf.so.2
+ librte_mempool.so.2
  librte_meter.so.1
  librte_pdump.so.1
  librte_pipeline.so.3
  librte_pmd_bond.so.1
  librte_pmd_ring.so.2
+ librte_port.so.3
  librte_power.so.1
  librte_reorder.so.1
  librte_ring.so.1
  librte_sched.so.1
  librte_table.so.2
  librte_timer.so.1
+ librte_vhost.so.3

27.6. Tested Platforms

SuperMicro 1U
- BIOS: 1.0c
- Processor: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU C2758 @ 2.40GHz
SuperMicro 1U
- BIOS: 1.0a
- Processor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU D-1540 @ 2.00GHz
- Onboard NIC: Intel(R) X552/X557-AT (2x10G)
  - Firmware-version: 0x800001cf
  - Device ID (PF/VF): 8086:15ad /8086:15a8
- kernel driver version: 4.2.5 (ixgbe)
SuperMicro 2U
- BIOS: 1.0a
- Processor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-4667 v3 @ 2.00GHz
Intel(R) Server board S2600GZ
- BIOS: SE5C600.86B.02.02.0002.122320131210
- Processor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2680 v2 @ 2.80GHz
Intel(R) Server board W2600CR
- BIOS: SE5C600.86B.02.01.0002.082220131453
- Processor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2680 v2 @ 2.80GHz
Intel(R) Server board S2600CWT
- BIOS: SE5C610.86B.01.01.0009.060120151350
- Processor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2699 v3 @ 2.30GHz
Intel(R) Server board S2600WTT
- BIOS: SE5C610.86B.01.01.0005.101720141054
- Processor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2699 v3 @ 2.30GHz
Intel(R) Server board S2600WTT
- BIOS: SE5C610.86B.11.01.0044.090120151156
- Processor: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2695 v4 @ 2.10GHz

27.7. Tested NICs

Intel(R) Ethernet Controller X540-AT2
- Firmware version: 0x80000389
- Device id (pf): 8086:1528
- Driver version: 3.23.2 (ixgbe)
Intel(R) 82599ES 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller
- Firmware version: 0x61bf0001
- Device id (pf/vf): 8086:10fb / 8086:10ed
- Driver version: 4.0.1-k (ixgbe)
Intel(R) Corporation Ethernet Connection X552/X557-AT 10GBASE-T
- Firmware version: 0x800001cf
- Device id (pf/vf): 8086:15ad / 8086:15a8
- Driver version: 4.2.5 (ixgbe)
Intel(R) Ethernet Converged Network Adapter X710-DA4 (4x10G)
- Firmware version: 5.04
- Device id (pf/vf): 8086:1572 / 8086:154c
- Driver version: 1.4.26 (i40e)
Intel(R) Ethernet Converged Network Adapter X710-DA2 (2x10G)
- Firmware version: 5.04
- Device id (pf/vf): 8086:1572 / 8086:154c
- Driver version: 1.4.25 (i40e)
Intel(R) Ethernet Converged Network Adapter XL710-QDA1 (1x40G)
- Firmware version: 5.04
- Device id (pf/vf): 8086:1584 / 8086:154c
- Driver version: 1.4.25 (i40e)
Intel(R) Ethernet Converged Network Adapter XL710-QDA2 (2X40G)
- Firmware version: 5.04
- Device id (pf/vf): 8086:1583 / 8086:154c
- Driver version: 1.4.25 (i40e)
Intel(R) Corporation I350 Gigabit Network Connection
- Firmware version: 1.48, 0x800006e7
- Device id (pf/vf): 8086:1521 / 8086:1520
- Driver version: 5.2.13-k (igb)
Intel(R) Ethernet Multi-host Controller FM10000
- Firmware version: N/A
- Device id (pf/vf): 8086:15d0
- Driver version: 0.17.0.9 (fm10k)

27.8. Tested OSes

CentOS 7.0
Fedora 23
Fedora 24
FreeBSD 10.3
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2
SUSE Enterprise Linux 12
Ubuntu 15.10
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
Wind River Linux 8