2 Copyright (c) 2016 Solarflare Communications Inc.
5 This software was jointly developed between OKTET Labs (under contract
6 for Solarflare) and Solarflare Communications, Inc.
8 Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
9 modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
11 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,
12 this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
13 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
14 this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
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17 THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS"
18 AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
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29 Solarflare libefx-based Poll Mode Driver
30 ========================================
32 The SFC EFX PMD (**librte_pmd_sfc_efx**) provides poll mode driver support
33 for **Solarflare SFN7xxx and SFN8xxx** family of 10/40 Gbps adapters and
34 **Solarflare XtremeScale X2xxx** family of 10/25/40/50/100 Gbps adapters.
35 SFC EFX PMD has support for the latest Linux and FreeBSD operating systems.
37 More information can be found at `Solarflare Communications website
38 <http://solarflare.com>`_.
44 SFC EFX PMD has support for:
46 - Multiple transmit and receive queues
48 - Link state information including link status change interrupt
50 - IPv4/IPv6 TCP/UDP transmit checksum offload
52 - Inner IPv4/IPv6 TCP/UDP transmit checksum offload
54 - Port hardware statistics
56 - Extended statistics (see Solarflare Server Adapter User's Guide for
57 the statistics description)
63 - Jumbo frames up to 9K
69 - TCP segmentation offload (TSO)
71 - Multicast MAC filter
73 - IPv4/IPv6 TCP/UDP receive checksum offload
75 - Inner IPv4/IPv6 TCP/UDP receive checksum offload
77 - Received packet type information
79 - Receive side scaling (RSS)
83 - Scattered Rx DMA for packet that are larger that a single Rx descriptor
85 - Deferred receive and transmit queue start
87 - Transmit VLAN insertion (if running firmware variant supports it)
94 Non-supported Features
95 ----------------------
97 The features not yet supported include:
99 - Receive queue interupts
101 - Priority-based flow control
103 - Configurable RX CRC stripping (always stripped)
105 - Header split on receive
117 Due to requirements on receive buffer alignment and usage of the receive
118 buffer for the auxiliary packet information provided by the NIC up to
119 extra 269 (14 bytes prefix plus up to 255 bytes for end padding) bytes may be
120 required in the receive buffer.
121 It should be taken into account when mbuf pool for receive is created.
124 Equal stride super-buffer mode
125 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
127 When the receive queue uses equal stride super-buffer DMA mode, one HW Rx
128 descriptor carries many Rx buffers which contiguously follow each other
129 with some stride (equal to total size of rte_mbuf as mempool object).
130 Each Rx buffer is an independent rte_mbuf.
131 However dedicated mempool manager must be used when mempool for the Rx
132 queue is created. The manager must support dequeue of the contiguous
133 block of objects and provide mempool info API to get the block size.
135 Another limitation of a equal stride super-buffer mode, imposed by the
136 firmware, is that it allows for a single RSS context.
142 NVGRE, VXLAN and GENEVE tunnels are supported on SFN8xxx and X2xxx family
143 adapters with full-feature firmware variant running.
144 **sfboot** should be used to configure NIC to run full-feature firmware variant.
145 See Solarflare Server Adapter User's Guide for details.
147 SFN8xxx and X2xxx family adapters provide either inner or outer packet classes.
148 If adapter firmware advertises support for tunnels then the PMD
149 configures the hardware to report inner classes, and outer classes are
150 not reported in received packets.
151 However, for VXLAN and GENEVE tunnels the PMD does report UDP as the
152 outer layer 4 packet type.
154 SFN8xxx and X2xxx family adapters report GENEVE packets as VXLAN.
155 If UDP ports are configured for only one tunnel type then it is safe to
156 treat VXLAN packet type indication as the corresponding UDP tunnel type.
162 Supported attributes:
166 Supported pattern items:
170 - ETH (exact match of source/destination addresses, individual/group match
171 of destination address, EtherType in the outer frame and exact match of
172 destination addresses, individual/group match of destination address in
175 - VLAN (exact match of VID, double-tagging is supported)
177 - IPV4 (exact match of source/destination addresses,
178 IP transport protocol)
180 - IPV6 (exact match of source/destination addresses,
181 IP transport protocol)
183 - TCP (exact match of source/destination ports)
185 - UDP (exact match of source/destination ports)
187 - VXLAN (exact match of VXLAN network identifier)
189 - GENEVE (exact match of virtual network identifier, only Ethernet (0x6558)
190 protocol type is supported)
192 - NVGRE (exact match of virtual subnet ID)
204 - FLAG (supported only with ef10_essb Rx datapath)
206 - MARK (supported only with ef10_essb Rx datapath)
208 Validating flow rules depends on the firmware variant.
210 Ethernet destinaton individual/group match
211 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
213 Ethernet item supports I/G matching, if only the corresponding bit is set
214 in the mask of destination address. If destinaton address in the spec is
215 multicast, it matches all multicast (and broadcast) packets, oherwise it
216 matches unicast packets that are not filtered by other flow rules.
218 Exceptions to flow rules
219 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
221 There is a list of exceptional flow rule patterns which will not be
222 accepted by the PMD. A pattern will be rejected if at least one of the
225 - Filtering by IPv4 or IPv6 EtherType without pattern items of internet
228 - The last item is IPV4 or IPV6, and it's empty.
230 - Filtering by TCP or UDP IP transport protocol without pattern items of
231 transport layer and above.
233 - The last item is TCP or UDP, and it's empty.
239 - Solarflare XtremeScale Adapters:
241 - Solarflare X2522 Dual Port SFP28 10/25GbE Adapter
243 - Solarflare Flareon [Ultra] Server Adapters:
245 - Solarflare SFN8522 Dual Port SFP+ Server Adapter
247 - Solarflare SFN8522M Dual Port SFP+ Server Adapter
249 - Solarflare SFN8042 Dual Port QSFP+ Server Adapter
251 - Solarflare SFN8542 Dual Port QSFP+ Server Adapter
253 - Solarflare SFN8722 Dual Port SFP+ OCP Server Adapter
255 - Solarflare SFN7002F Dual Port SFP+ Server Adapter
257 - Solarflare SFN7004F Quad Port SFP+ Server Adapter
259 - Solarflare SFN7042Q Dual Port QSFP+ Server Adapter
261 - Solarflare SFN7122F Dual Port SFP+ Server Adapter
263 - Solarflare SFN7124F Quad Port SFP+ Server Adapter
265 - Solarflare SFN7142Q Dual Port QSFP+ Server Adapter
267 - Solarflare SFN7322F Precision Time Synchronization Server Adapter
273 - Requires firmware version:
275 - SFN7xxx: **4.7.1.1001** or higher
277 - SFN8xxx: **6.0.2.1004** or higher
279 Visit `Solarflare Support Downloads <https://support.solarflare.com>`_ to get
280 Solarflare Utilities (either Linux or FreeBSD) with the latest firmware.
281 Follow instructions from Solarflare Server Adapter User's Guide to
282 update firmware and configure the adapter.
285 Pre-Installation Configuration
286 ------------------------------
292 The following options can be modified in the ``.config`` file.
293 Please note that enabling debugging options may affect system performance.
295 - ``CONFIG_RTE_LIBRTE_SFC_EFX_PMD`` (default **y**)
297 Enable compilation of Solarflare libefx-based poll-mode driver.
299 - ``CONFIG_RTE_LIBRTE_SFC_EFX_DEBUG`` (default **n**)
301 Enable compilation of the extra run-time consistency checks.
304 Per-Device Parameters
305 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
307 The following per-device parameters can be passed via EAL PCI device
308 whitelist option like "-w 02:00.0,arg1=value1,...".
310 Case-insensitive 1/y/yes/on or 0/n/no/off may be used to specify
311 boolean parameters value.
313 - ``rx_datapath`` [auto|efx|ef10|ef10_esps] (default **auto**)
315 Choose receive datapath implementation.
316 **auto** allows the driver itself to make a choice based on firmware
317 features available and required by the datapath implementation.
318 **efx** chooses libefx-based datapath which supports Rx scatter.
319 **ef10** chooses EF10 (SFN7xxx, SFN8xxx, X2xxx) native datapath which is
320 more efficient than libefx-based and provides richer packet type
321 classification, but lacks Rx scatter support.
322 **ef10_esps** chooses SFNX2xxx equal stride packed stream datapath
323 which may be used on DPDK firmware variant only
324 (see notes about its limitations above).
326 - ``tx_datapath`` [auto|efx|ef10|ef10_simple] (default **auto**)
328 Choose transmit datapath implementation.
329 **auto** allows the driver itself to make a choice based on firmware
330 features available and required by the datapath implementation.
331 **efx** chooses libefx-based datapath which supports VLAN insertion
332 (full-feature firmware variant only), TSO and multi-segment mbufs.
333 Mbuf segments may come from different mempools, and mbuf reference
334 counters are treated responsibly.
335 **ef10** chooses EF10 (SFN7xxx, SFN8xxx, X2xxx) native datapath which is
336 more efficient than libefx-based but has no VLAN insertion and TSO
338 Mbuf segments may come from different mempools, and mbuf reference
339 counters are treated responsibly.
340 **ef10_simple** chooses EF10 (SFN7xxx, SFN8xxx, X2xxx) native datapath which
341 is even more faster then **ef10** but does not support multi-segment
342 mbufs, disallows multiple mempools and neglects mbuf reference counters.
344 - ``perf_profile`` [auto|throughput|low-latency] (default **throughput**)
346 Choose hardware tunning to be optimized for either throughput or
348 **auto** allows NIC firmware to make a choice based on
349 installed licences and firmware variant configured using **sfboot**.
351 - ``stats_update_period_ms`` [long] (default **1000**)
353 Adjust period in milliseconds to update port hardware statistics.
354 The accepted range is 0 to 65535. The value of **0** may be used
355 to disable periodic statistics update. One should note that it's
356 only possible to set an arbitrary value on SFN8xxx and X2xxx provided that
357 firmware version is 6.2.1.1033 or higher, otherwise any positive
358 value will select a fixed update period of **1000** milliseconds
360 - ``fw_variant`` [dont-care|full-feature|ultra-low-latency|
361 capture-packed-stream|dpdk] (default **dont-care**)
363 Choose the preferred firmware variant to use. In order for the selected
364 option to have an effect, the **sfboot** utility must be configured with the
365 **auto** firmware-variant option. The preferred firmware variant applies to
366 all ports on the NIC.
367 **dont-care** ensures that the driver can attach to an unprivileged function.
368 The datapath firmware type to use is controlled by the **sfboot**
370 **full-feature** chooses full featured firmware.
371 **ultra-low-latency** chooses firmware with fewer features but lower latency.
372 **capture-packed-stream** chooses firmware for SolarCapture packed stream
374 **dpdk** chooses DPDK firmware with equal stride super-buffer Rx mode
375 for higher Rx packet rate and packet marks support and firmware subvariant
376 without checksumming on transmit for higher Tx packet rate if
377 checksumming is not required.
379 - ``rxd_wait_timeout_ns`` [long] (default **200 us**)
381 Adjust timeout in nanoseconds to head-of-line block to wait for
383 The accepted range is 0 to 400 ms.
384 Flow control should be enabled to make it work.
385 The value of **0** disables it and packets are dropped immediately.
386 When a packet is dropped because of no Rx descriptors,
387 ``rx_nodesc_drop_cnt`` counter grows.
388 The feature is supported only by the DPDK firmware variant when equal
389 stride super-buffer Rx mode is used.
392 Dynamic Logging Parameters
393 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
395 One may leverage EAL option "--log-level" to change default levels
396 for the log types supported by the driver. The option is used with
397 an argument typically consisting of two parts separated by a colon.
399 Level value is the last part which takes a symbolic name (or integer).
400 Log type is the former part which may shell match syntax.
401 Depending on the choice of the expression, the given log level may
402 be used either for some specific log type or for a subset of types.
404 SFC EFX PMD provides the following log types available for control:
406 - ``pmd.net.sfc.driver`` (default level is **notice**)
408 Affects driver-wide messages unrelated to any particular devices.
410 - ``pmd.net.sfc.main`` (default level is **notice**)
412 Matches a subset of per-port log types registered during runtime.
413 A full name for a particular type may be obtained by appending a
414 dot and a PCI device identifier (``XXXX:XX:XX.X``) to the prefix.
416 - ``pmd.net.sfc.mcdi`` (default level is **notice**)
418 Extra logging of the communication with the NIC's management CPU.
419 The format of the log is consumed by the Solarflare netlogdecode
420 cross-platform tool. May be managed per-port, as explained above.