1 .. SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause
2 Copyright (c) 2016-2019 Solarflare Communications Inc.
5 This software was jointly developed between OKTET Labs (under contract
6 for Solarflare) and Solarflare Communications, Inc.
8 Solarflare libefx-based Poll Mode Driver
9 ========================================
11 The SFC EFX PMD (**librte_pmd_sfc_efx**) provides poll mode driver support
12 for **Solarflare SFN7xxx and SFN8xxx** family of 10/40 Gbps adapters and
13 **Solarflare XtremeScale X2xxx** family of 10/25/40/50/100 Gbps adapters.
14 SFC EFX PMD has support for the latest Linux and FreeBSD operating systems.
16 More information can be found at `Solarflare Communications website
17 <http://solarflare.com>`_.
23 SFC EFX PMD has support for:
25 - Multiple transmit and receive queues
27 - Link state information including link status change interrupt
29 - IPv4/IPv6 TCP/UDP transmit checksum offload
31 - Inner IPv4/IPv6 TCP/UDP transmit checksum offload
33 - Port hardware statistics
35 - Extended statistics (see Solarflare Server Adapter User's Guide for
36 the statistics description)
42 - Jumbo frames up to 9K
48 - TCP segmentation offload (TSO) including VXLAN and GENEVE encapsulated
50 - Multicast MAC filter
52 - IPv4/IPv6 TCP/UDP receive checksum offload
54 - Inner IPv4/IPv6 TCP/UDP receive checksum offload
56 - Received packet type information
58 - Receive side scaling (RSS)
62 - Scattered Rx DMA for packet that are larger that a single Rx descriptor
64 - Receive queue interrupts
66 - Deferred receive and transmit queue start
68 - Transmit VLAN insertion (if running firmware variant supports it)
75 Non-supported Features
76 ----------------------
78 The features not yet supported include:
80 - Priority-based flow control
82 - Configurable RX CRC stripping (always stripped)
84 - Header split on receive
96 Due to requirements on receive buffer alignment and usage of the receive
97 buffer for the auxiliary packet information provided by the NIC up to
98 extra 269 (14 bytes prefix plus up to 255 bytes for end padding) bytes may be
99 required in the receive buffer.
100 It should be taken into account when mbuf pool for receive is created.
103 Equal stride super-buffer mode
104 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
106 When the receive queue uses equal stride super-buffer DMA mode, one HW Rx
107 descriptor carries many Rx buffers which contiguously follow each other
108 with some stride (equal to total size of rte_mbuf as mempool object).
109 Each Rx buffer is an independent rte_mbuf.
110 However dedicated mempool manager must be used when mempool for the Rx
111 queue is created. The manager must support dequeue of the contiguous
112 block of objects and provide mempool info API to get the block size.
114 Another limitation of a equal stride super-buffer mode, imposed by the
115 firmware, is that it allows for a single RSS context.
121 NVGRE, VXLAN and GENEVE tunnels are supported on SFN8xxx and X2xxx family
122 adapters with full-feature firmware variant running.
123 **sfboot** should be used to configure NIC to run full-feature firmware variant.
124 See Solarflare Server Adapter User's Guide for details.
126 SFN8xxx and X2xxx family adapters provide either inner or outer packet classes.
127 If adapter firmware advertises support for tunnels then the PMD
128 configures the hardware to report inner classes, and outer classes are
129 not reported in received packets.
130 However, for VXLAN and GENEVE tunnels the PMD does report UDP as the
131 outer layer 4 packet type.
133 SFN8xxx and X2xxx family adapters report GENEVE packets as VXLAN.
134 If UDP ports are configured for only one tunnel type then it is safe to
135 treat VXLAN packet type indication as the corresponding UDP tunnel type.
141 Supported attributes:
145 Supported pattern items:
149 - ETH (exact match of source/destination addresses, individual/group match
150 of destination address, EtherType in the outer frame and exact match of
151 destination addresses, individual/group match of destination address in
154 - VLAN (exact match of VID, double-tagging is supported)
156 - IPV4 (exact match of source/destination addresses,
157 IP transport protocol)
159 - IPV6 (exact match of source/destination addresses,
160 IP transport protocol)
162 - TCP (exact match of source/destination ports)
164 - UDP (exact match of source/destination ports)
166 - VXLAN (exact match of VXLAN network identifier)
168 - GENEVE (exact match of virtual network identifier, only Ethernet (0x6558)
169 protocol type is supported)
171 - NVGRE (exact match of virtual subnet ID)
183 - FLAG (supported only with ef10_essb Rx datapath)
185 - MARK (supported only with ef10_essb Rx datapath)
187 Validating flow rules depends on the firmware variant.
189 The :ref:`flow_isolated_mode` is supported.
191 Ethernet destination individual/group match
192 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
194 Ethernet item supports I/G matching, if only the corresponding bit is set
195 in the mask of destination address. If destination address in the spec is
196 multicast, it matches all multicast (and broadcast) packets, otherwise it
197 matches unicast packets that are not filtered by other flow rules.
199 Exceptions to flow rules
200 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
202 There is a list of exceptional flow rule patterns which will not be
203 accepted by the PMD. A pattern will be rejected if at least one of the
206 - Filtering by IPv4 or IPv6 EtherType without pattern items of internet
209 - The last item is IPV4 or IPV6, and it's empty.
211 - Filtering by TCP or UDP IP transport protocol without pattern items of
212 transport layer and above.
214 - The last item is TCP or UDP, and it's empty.
220 - Solarflare XtremeScale Adapters:
222 - Solarflare X2522 Dual Port SFP28 10/25GbE Adapter
224 - Solarflare X2541 Single Port QSFP28 10/25G/100G Adapter
226 - Solarflare X2542 Dual Port QSFP28 10/25G/100G Adapter
228 - Solarflare Flareon [Ultra] Server Adapters:
230 - Solarflare SFN8522 Dual Port SFP+ Server Adapter
232 - Solarflare SFN8522M Dual Port SFP+ Server Adapter
234 - Solarflare SFN8042 Dual Port QSFP+ Server Adapter
236 - Solarflare SFN8542 Dual Port QSFP+ Server Adapter
238 - Solarflare SFN8722 Dual Port SFP+ OCP Server Adapter
240 - Solarflare SFN7002F Dual Port SFP+ Server Adapter
242 - Solarflare SFN7004F Quad Port SFP+ Server Adapter
244 - Solarflare SFN7042Q Dual Port QSFP+ Server Adapter
246 - Solarflare SFN7122F Dual Port SFP+ Server Adapter
248 - Solarflare SFN7124F Quad Port SFP+ Server Adapter
250 - Solarflare SFN7142Q Dual Port QSFP+ Server Adapter
252 - Solarflare SFN7322F Precision Time Synchronization Server Adapter
258 - Requires firmware version:
260 - SFN7xxx: **4.7.1.1001** or higher
262 - SFN8xxx: **6.0.2.1004** or higher
264 Visit `Solarflare Support Downloads <https://support.solarflare.com>`_ to get
265 Solarflare Utilities (either Linux or FreeBSD) with the latest firmware.
266 Follow instructions from Solarflare Server Adapter User's Guide to
267 update firmware and configure the adapter.
270 Pre-Installation Configuration
271 ------------------------------
277 The following options can be modified in the ``.config`` file.
278 Please note that enabling debugging options may affect system performance.
280 - ``CONFIG_RTE_LIBRTE_SFC_EFX_PMD`` (default **y**)
282 Enable compilation of Solarflare libefx-based poll-mode driver.
284 - ``CONFIG_RTE_LIBRTE_SFC_EFX_DEBUG`` (default **n**)
286 Enable compilation of the extra run-time consistency checks.
289 Per-Device Parameters
290 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
292 The following per-device parameters can be passed via EAL PCI device
293 whitelist option like "-w 02:00.0,arg1=value1,...".
295 Case-insensitive 1/y/yes/on or 0/n/no/off may be used to specify
296 boolean parameters value.
298 - ``rx_datapath`` [auto|efx|ef10|ef10_esps] (default **auto**)
300 Choose receive datapath implementation.
301 **auto** allows the driver itself to make a choice based on firmware
302 features available and required by the datapath implementation.
303 **efx** chooses libefx-based datapath which supports Rx scatter.
304 **ef10** chooses EF10 (SFN7xxx, SFN8xxx, X2xxx) native datapath which is
305 more efficient than libefx-based and provides richer packet type
307 **ef10_esps** chooses SFNX2xxx equal stride packed stream datapath
308 which may be used on DPDK firmware variant only
309 (see notes about its limitations above).
311 - ``tx_datapath`` [auto|efx|ef10|ef10_simple] (default **auto**)
313 Choose transmit datapath implementation.
314 **auto** allows the driver itself to make a choice based on firmware
315 features available and required by the datapath implementation.
316 **efx** chooses libefx-based datapath which supports VLAN insertion
317 (full-feature firmware variant only), TSO and multi-segment mbufs.
318 Mbuf segments may come from different mempools, and mbuf reference
319 counters are treated responsibly.
320 **ef10** chooses EF10 (SFN7xxx, SFN8xxx, X2xxx) native datapath which is
321 more efficient than libefx-based but has no VLAN insertion support yet.
322 Mbuf segments may come from different mempools, and mbuf reference
323 counters are treated responsibly.
324 **ef10_simple** chooses EF10 (SFN7xxx, SFN8xxx, X2xxx) native datapath which
325 is even more faster then **ef10** but does not support multi-segment
326 mbufs, disallows multiple mempools and neglects mbuf reference counters.
328 - ``perf_profile`` [auto|throughput|low-latency] (default **throughput**)
330 Choose hardware tuning to be optimized for either throughput or
332 **auto** allows NIC firmware to make a choice based on
333 installed licenses and firmware variant configured using **sfboot**.
335 - ``stats_update_period_ms`` [long] (default **1000**)
337 Adjust period in milliseconds to update port hardware statistics.
338 The accepted range is 0 to 65535. The value of **0** may be used
339 to disable periodic statistics update. One should note that it's
340 only possible to set an arbitrary value on SFN8xxx and X2xxx provided that
341 firmware version is 6.2.1.1033 or higher, otherwise any positive
342 value will select a fixed update period of **1000** milliseconds
344 - ``fw_variant`` [dont-care|full-feature|ultra-low-latency|
345 capture-packed-stream|dpdk] (default **dont-care**)
347 Choose the preferred firmware variant to use. In order for the selected
348 option to have an effect, the **sfboot** utility must be configured with the
349 **auto** firmware-variant option. The preferred firmware variant applies to
350 all ports on the NIC.
351 **dont-care** ensures that the driver can attach to an unprivileged function.
352 The datapath firmware type to use is controlled by the **sfboot**
354 **full-feature** chooses full featured firmware.
355 **ultra-low-latency** chooses firmware with fewer features but lower latency.
356 **capture-packed-stream** chooses firmware for SolarCapture packed stream
358 **dpdk** chooses DPDK firmware with equal stride super-buffer Rx mode
359 for higher Rx packet rate and packet marks support and firmware subvariant
360 without checksumming on transmit for higher Tx packet rate if
361 checksumming is not required.
363 - ``rxd_wait_timeout_ns`` [long] (default **200 us**)
365 Adjust timeout in nanoseconds to head-of-line block to wait for
367 The accepted range is 0 to 400 ms.
368 Flow control should be enabled to make it work.
369 The value of **0** disables it and packets are dropped immediately.
370 When a packet is dropped because of no Rx descriptors,
371 ``rx_nodesc_drop_cnt`` counter grows.
372 The feature is supported only by the DPDK firmware variant when equal
373 stride super-buffer Rx mode is used.
376 Dynamic Logging Parameters
377 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
379 One may leverage EAL option "--log-level" to change default levels
380 for the log types supported by the driver. The option is used with
381 an argument typically consisting of two parts separated by a colon.
383 Level value is the last part which takes a symbolic name (or integer).
384 Log type is the former part which may shell match syntax.
385 Depending on the choice of the expression, the given log level may
386 be used either for some specific log type or for a subset of types.
388 SFC EFX PMD provides the following log types available for control:
390 - ``pmd.net.sfc.driver`` (default level is **notice**)
392 Affects driver-wide messages unrelated to any particular devices.
394 - ``pmd.net.sfc.main`` (default level is **notice**)
396 Matches a subset of per-port log types registered during runtime.
397 A full name for a particular type may be obtained by appending a
398 dot and a PCI device identifier (``XXXX:XX:XX.X``) to the prefix.
400 - ``pmd.net.sfc.mcdi`` (default level is **notice**)
402 Extra logging of the communication with the NIC's management CPU.
403 The format of the log is consumed by the Solarflare netlogdecode
404 cross-platform tool. May be managed per-port, as explained above.