net/enic: enable link check interrupt

[dpdk.git] / doc / guides / nics / ixgbe.rst

diff --git a/doc/guides/nics/ixgbe.rst b/doc/guides/nics/ixgbe.rst
index 8cae299..3dc6b00 100644 (file)
--- a/doc/guides/nics/ixgbe.rst
+++ b/doc/guides/nics/ixgbe.rst
@@ -178,3 +178,49 @@ load_balancer
 
 As in the case of l3fwd, set configure port_conf.rxmode.hw_ip_checksum=0 to enable vPMD.
 In addition, for improved performance, use -bsz "(32,32),(64,64),(32,32)" in load_balancer to avoid using the default burst size of 144.
+
+
+Malicious Driver Detection not Supported
+----------------------------------------
+
+The Intel x550 series NICs support a feature called MDD (Malicious
+Driver Detection) which checks the behavior of the VF driver.
+If this feature is enabled, the VF must use the advanced context descriptor
+correctly and set the CC (Check Context) bit.
+DPDK PF doesn't support MDD, but kernel PF does. We may hit problem in this
+scenario kernel PF + DPDK VF. If user enables MDD in kernel PF, DPDK VF will
+not work. Because kernel PF thinks the VF is malicious. But actually it's not.
+The only reason is the VF doesn't act as MDD required.
+There's significant performance impact to support MDD. DPDK should check if
+the advanced context descriptor should be set and set it. And DPDK has to ask
+the info about the header length from the upper layer, because parsing the
+packet itself is not acceptable. So, it's too expensive to support MDD.
+When using kernel PF + DPDK VF on x550, please make sure using the kernel
+driver that disables MDD or can disable MDD. (Some kernel driver can use
+this CLI 'insmod ixgbe.ko MDD=0,0' to disable MDD. Some kernel driver disables
+it by default.)
+
+
+Statistics
+----------
+
+The statistics of ixgbe hardware must be polled regularly in order for it to
+remain consistent. Running a DPDK application without polling the statistics will
+cause registers on hardware to count to the maximum value, and "stick" at
+that value.
+
+In order to avoid statistic registers every reaching the maximum value,
+read the statistics from the hardware using ``rte_eth_stats_get()`` or
+``rte_eth_xstats_get()``.
+
+The maximum time between statistics polls that ensures consistent results can
+be calculated as follows:
+
+.. code-block:: c
+
+  max_read_interval = UINT_MAX / max_packets_per_second
+  max_read_interval = 4294967295 / 14880952
+  max_read_interval = 288.6218096127183 (seconds)
+  max_read_interval = ~4 mins 48 sec.
+
+In order to ensure valid results, it is recommended to poll every 4 minutes.