1 .. SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause
2 Copyright(c) 2018 Intel Corporation.
7 This document contains a list of all EAL parameters. These parameters can be
8 used by any DPDK application running on Linux.
13 The following EAL parameters are common to all platforms supported by DPDK.
15 .. include:: eal_args.include.rst
17 Linux-specific EAL parameters
18 -----------------------------
20 In addition to common EAL parameters, there are also Linux-specific EAL
23 Device-related options
24 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
26 * ``--create-uio-dev``
28 Create ``/dev/uioX`` files for devices bound to igb_uio kernel driver
29 (usually done by the igb_uio driver itself).
31 * ``--vmware-tsc-map``
33 Use VMware TSC map instead of native RDTSC.
37 Do not use the HPET timer.
39 * ``--vfio-intr <legacy|msi|msix>``
41 Use specified interrupt mode for devices bound to VFIO kernel driver.
43 * ``--vfio-vf-token <uuid>``
45 Use specified VF token for devices bound to VFIO kernel driver.
47 Multiprocessing-related options
48 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
50 * ``--file-prefix <prefix name>``
52 Use a different shared data file prefix for a DPDK process. This option
53 allows running multiple independent DPDK primary/secondary processes under
56 Memory-related options
57 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
61 Use legacy DPDK memory allocation mode.
63 * ``--socket-mem <amounts of memory per socket>``
65 Preallocate specified amounts of memory per socket. The parameter is a
66 comma-separated list of values. For example::
68 --socket-mem 1024,2048
70 This will allocate 1 gigabyte of memory on socket 0, and 2048 megabytes of
73 * ``--socket-limit <amounts of memory per socket>``
75 Place a per-socket upper limit on memory use (non-legacy memory mode only).
76 0 will disable the limit for a particular socket.
78 * ``--single-file-segments``
80 Create fewer files in hugetlbfs (non-legacy mode only).
82 * ``--huge-dir <path to hugetlbfs directory>``
84 Use specified hugetlbfs directory instead of autodetected ones. This can be
85 a sub-directory within a hugetlbfs mountpoint.
87 * ``--huge-unlink[=existing|always|never]``
89 No ``--huge-unlink`` option or ``--huge-unlink=existing`` is the default:
90 existing hugepage files are removed and re-created
91 to ensure the kernel clears the memory and prevents any data leaks.
93 With ``--huge-unlink`` (no value) or ``--huge-unlink=always``,
94 hugepage files are also removed before mapping them,
95 so that the application leaves no files in hugetlbfs.
96 This mode implies no multi-process support.
98 When ``--huge-unlink=never`` is specified, existing hugepage files
99 are never removed, but are remapped instead, allowing hugepage reuse.
100 This makes restart faster by saving time to clear memory at initialization,
101 but it may slow down zeroed allocations later.
102 Reused hugepages can contain data from previous processes that used them,
103 which may be a security concern.
104 Hugepage files created in this mode are also not removed
105 when all the hugepages mapped from them are freed,
106 which allows to reuse these files after a restart.
108 * ``--match-allocations``
110 Free hugepages back to system exactly as they were originally allocated.
115 * ``--syslog <syslog facility>``
117 Set syslog facility. Valid syslog facilities are::