doc: add description of the offload API

[dpdk.git] / doc / guides / prog_guide / poll_mode_drv.rst

diff --git a/doc/guides/prog_guide/poll_mode_drv.rst b/doc/guides/prog_guide/poll_mode_drv.rst
index b8b2d1a..8780ba3 100644 (file)
--- a/doc/guides/prog_guide/poll_mode_drv.rst
+++ b/doc/guides/prog_guide/poll_mode_drv.rst
@@ -198,15 +198,7 @@ the Intel® 82599 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller controllers in the testpmd appl
 Other features such as the L3/L4 5-Tuple packet filtering feature of a port can be configured in the same way.
 Ethernet* flow control (pause frame) can be configured on the individual port.
 Refer to the testpmd source code for details.
 Other features such as the L3/L4 5-Tuple packet filtering feature of a port can be configured in the same way.
 Ethernet* flow control (pause frame) can be configured on the individual port.
 Refer to the testpmd source code for details.

-Also, L4 (UDP/TCP/ SCTP) checksum offload by the NIC can be enabled for an individual packet as long as the packet mbuf is set up correctly.
-In terms of UDP tunneling packet, the PKT_TX_UDP_TUNNEL_PKT flag must be set to enable tunneling packet TX checksum offload for both outer layer and inner layer.
-Refer to the testpmd source code (specifically the csumonly.c file) for details.
-
-That being said, the support of some offload features implies the addition of dedicated status bit(s) and value field(s) into the rte_mbuf
-data structure, along with their appropriate handling by the receive/transmit functions exported by each PMD.
-
-For instance, this is the case for the IEEE1588 packet timestamp mechanism, the VLAN tagging and the IP checksum computation, as described in
-the Section 7.6 "Meta Information".
+Also, L4 (UDP/TCP/ SCTP) checksum offload by the NIC can be enabled for an individual packet as long as the packet mbuf is set up correctly. See `Hardware Offload`_ for details.

 
 Configuration of Transmit and Receive Queues
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
 Configuration of Transmit and Receive Queues
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


@@ -257,6 +249,20 @@ One descriptor in the TX ring is used as a sentinel to avoid a hardware race con
 
     When configuring for DCB operation, at port initialization, both the number of transmit queues and the number of receive queues must be set to 128.
 
 
     When configuring for DCB operation, at port initialization, both the number of transmit queues and the number of receive queues must be set to 128.
 

+Hardware Offload
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Depending on driver capabilities advertised by
+``rte_eth_dev_info_get()``, the PMD may support hardware offloading
+feature like checksumming, TCP segmentation or VLAN insertion.
+
+The support of these offload features implies the addition of dedicated
+status bit(s) and value field(s) into the rte_mbuf data structure, along
+with their appropriate handling by the receive/transmit functions
+exported by each PMD. The list of flags and their precise meaning is
+described in the mbuf API documentation and in the in :ref:`Mbuf Library
+<Mbuf_Library>`, section "Meta Information".
+

 Poll Mode Driver API
 --------------------
 
 Poll Mode Driver API
 --------------------