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31 .. _Environment_Abstraction_Layer:
33 Environment Abstraction Layer
34 =============================
36 The Environment Abstraction Layer (EAL) is responsible for gaining access to low-level resources such as hardware and memory space.
37 It provides a generic interface that hides the environment specifics from the applications and libraries.
38 It is the responsibility of the initialization routine to decide how to allocate these resources
39 (that is, memory space, PCI devices, timers, consoles, and so on).
41 Typical services expected from the EAL are:
43 * DPDK Loading and Launching:
44 The DPDK and its application are linked as a single application and must be loaded by some means.
46 * Core Affinity/Assignment Procedures:
47 The EAL provides mechanisms for assigning execution units to specific cores as well as creating execution instances.
49 * System Memory Reservation:
50 The EAL facilitates the reservation of different memory zones, for example, physical memory areas for device interactions.
52 * PCI Address Abstraction: The EAL provides an interface to access PCI address space.
54 * Trace and Debug Functions: Logs, dump_stack, panic and so on.
56 * Utility Functions: Spinlocks and atomic counters that are not provided in libc.
58 * CPU Feature Identification: Determine at runtime if a particular feature, for example, IntelĀ® AVX is supported.
59 Determine if the current CPU supports the feature set that the binary was compiled for.
61 * Interrupt Handling: Interfaces to register/unregister callbacks to specific interrupt sources.
63 * Alarm Functions: Interfaces to set/remove callbacks to be run at a specific time.
65 EAL in a Linux-userland Execution Environment
66 ---------------------------------------------
68 In a Linux user space environment, the DPDK application runs as a user-space application using the pthread library.
69 PCI information about devices and address space is discovered through the /sys kernel interface and through kernel modules such as uio_pci_generic, or igb_uio.
70 Refer to the UIO: User-space drivers documentation in the Linux kernel. This memory is mmap'd in the application.
72 The EAL performs physical memory allocation using mmap() in hugetlbfs (using huge page sizes to increase performance).
73 This memory is exposed to DPDK service layers such as the :ref:`Mempool Library <Mempool_Library>`.
75 At this point, the DPDK services layer will be initialized, then through pthread setaffinity calls,
76 each execution unit will be assigned to a specific logical core to run as a user-level thread.
78 The time reference is provided by the CPU Time-Stamp Counter (TSC) or by the HPET kernel API through a mmap() call.
80 Initialization and Core Launching
81 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
83 Part of the initialization is done by the start function of glibc.
84 A check is also performed at initialization time to ensure that the micro architecture type chosen in the config file is supported by the CPU.
85 Then, the main() function is called. The core initialization and launch is done in rte_eal_init() (see the API documentation).
86 It consist of calls to the pthread library (more specifically, pthread_self(), pthread_create(), and pthread_setaffinity_np()).
88 .. _figure_linuxapp_launch:
90 .. figure:: img/linuxapp_launch.*
92 EAL Initialization in a Linux Application Environment
97 Initialization of objects, such as memory zones, rings, memory pools, lpm tables and hash tables,
98 should be done as part of the overall application initialization on the master lcore.
99 The creation and initialization functions for these objects are not multi-thread safe.
100 However, once initialized, the objects themselves can safely be used in multiple threads simultaneously.
102 Multi-process Support
103 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
105 The Linuxapp EAL allows a multi-process as well as a multi-threaded (pthread) deployment model.
107 :ref:`Multi-process Support <Multi-process_Support>` for more details.
109 Memory Mapping Discovery and Memory Reservation
110 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
112 The allocation of large contiguous physical memory is done using the hugetlbfs kernel filesystem.
113 The EAL provides an API to reserve named memory zones in this contiguous memory.
114 The physical address of the reserved memory for that memory zone is also returned to the user by the memory zone reservation API.
118 Memory reservations done using the APIs provided by the rte_malloc library are also backed by pages from the hugetlbfs filesystem.
119 However, physical address information is not available for the blocks of memory allocated in this way.
121 Xen Dom0 support without hugetbls
122 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
124 The existing memory management implementation is based on the Linux kernel hugepage mechanism.
125 However, Xen Dom0 does not support hugepages, so a new Linux kernel module rte_dom0_mm is added to workaround this limitation.
127 The EAL uses IOCTL interface to notify the Linux kernel module rte_dom0_mm to allocate memory of specified size,
128 and get all memory segments information from the module,
129 and the EAL uses MMAP interface to map the allocated memory.
130 For each memory segment, the physical addresses are contiguous within it but actual hardware addresses are contiguous within 2MB.
135 The EAL uses the /sys/bus/pci utilities provided by the kernel to scan the content on the PCI bus.
136 To access PCI memory, a kernel module called uio_pci_generic provides a /dev/uioX device file
137 and resource files in /sys
138 that can be mmap'd to obtain access to PCI address space from the application.
139 The DPDK-specific igb_uio module can also be used for this. Both drivers use the uio kernel feature (userland driver).
141 Per-lcore and Shared Variables
142 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
146 lcore refers to a logical execution unit of the processor, sometimes called a hardware *thread*.
148 Shared variables are the default behavior.
149 Per-lcore variables are implemented using *Thread Local Storage* (TLS) to provide per-thread local storage.
154 A logging API is provided by EAL.
155 By default, in a Linux application, logs are sent to syslog and also to the console.
156 However, the log function can be overridden by the user to use a different logging mechanism.
158 Trace and Debug Functions
159 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
161 There are some debug functions to dump the stack in glibc.
162 The rte_panic() function can voluntarily provoke a SIG_ABORT,
163 which can trigger the generation of a core file, readable by gdb.
165 CPU Feature Identification
166 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
168 The EAL can query the CPU at runtime (using the rte_cpu_get_feature() function) to determine which CPU features are available.
170 User Space Interrupt and Alarm Handling
171 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
173 The EAL creates a host thread to poll the UIO device file descriptors to detect the interrupts.
174 Callbacks can be registered or unregistered by the EAL functions for a specific interrupt event
175 and are called in the host thread asynchronously.
176 The EAL also allows timed callbacks to be used in the same way as for NIC interrupts.
180 The only interrupts supported by the DPDK Poll-Mode Drivers are those for link status change,
181 i.e. link up and link down notification.
186 The EAL PCI device blacklist functionality can be used to mark certain NIC ports as blacklisted,
187 so they are ignored by the DPDK.
188 The ports to be blacklisted are identified using the PCIe* description (Domain:Bus:Device.Function).
193 Locks and atomic operations are per-architecture (i686 and x86_64).
195 Memory Segments and Memory Zones (memzone)
196 ------------------------------------------
198 The mapping of physical memory is provided by this feature in the EAL.
199 As physical memory can have gaps, the memory is described in a table of descriptors,
200 and each descriptor (called rte_memseg ) describes a contiguous portion of memory.
202 On top of this, the memzone allocator's role is to reserve contiguous portions of physical memory.
203 These zones are identified by a unique name when the memory is reserved.
205 The rte_memzone descriptors are also located in the configuration structure.
206 This structure is accessed using rte_eal_get_configuration().
207 The lookup (by name) of a memory zone returns a descriptor containing the physical address of the memory zone.
209 Memory zones can be reserved with specific start address alignment by supplying the align parameter
210 (by default, they are aligned to cache line size).
211 The alignment value should be a power of two and not less than the cache line size (64 bytes).
212 Memory zones can also be reserved from either 2 MB or 1 GB hugepages, provided that both are available on the system.
218 DPDK usually pins one pthread per core to avoid the overhead of task switching.
219 This allows for significant performance gains, but lacks flexibility and is not always efficient.
221 Power management helps to improve the CPU efficiency by limiting the CPU runtime frequency.
222 However, alternately it is possible to utilize the idle cycles available to take advantage of
223 the full capability of the CPU.
225 By taking advantage of cgroup, the CPU utilization quota can be simply assigned.
226 This gives another way to improve the CPU efficiency, however, there is a prerequisite;
227 DPDK must handle the context switching between multiple pthreads per core.
229 For further flexibility, it is useful to set pthread affinity not only to a CPU but to a CPU set.
231 EAL pthread and lcore Affinity
232 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
234 The term "lcore" refers to an EAL thread, which is really a Linux/FreeBSD pthread.
235 "EAL pthreads" are created and managed by EAL and execute the tasks issued by *remote_launch*.
236 In each EAL pthread, there is a TLS (Thread Local Storage) called *_lcore_id* for unique identification.
237 As EAL pthreads usually bind 1:1 to the physical CPU, the *_lcore_id* is typically equal to the CPU ID.
239 When using multiple pthreads, however, the binding is no longer always 1:1 between an EAL pthread and a specified physical CPU.
240 The EAL pthread may have affinity to a CPU set, and as such the *_lcore_id* will not be the same as the CPU ID.
241 For this reason, there is an EAL long option '--lcores' defined to assign the CPU affinity of lcores.
242 For a specified lcore ID or ID group, the option allows setting the CPU set for that EAL pthread.
245 --lcores='<lcore_set>[@cpu_set][,<lcore_set>[@cpu_set],...]'
247 'lcore_set' and 'cpu_set' can be a single number, range or a group.
249 A number is a "digit([0-9]+)"; a range is "<number>-<number>"; a group is "(<number|range>[,<number|range>,...])".
251 If a '\@cpu_set' value is not supplied, the value of 'cpu_set' will default to the value of 'lcore_set'.
255 For example, "--lcores='1,2@(5-7),(3-5)@(0,2),(0,6),7-8'" which means start 9 EAL thread;
256 lcore 0 runs on cpuset 0x41 (cpu 0,6);
257 lcore 1 runs on cpuset 0x2 (cpu 1);
258 lcore 2 runs on cpuset 0xe0 (cpu 5,6,7);
259 lcore 3,4,5 runs on cpuset 0x5 (cpu 0,2);
260 lcore 6 runs on cpuset 0x41 (cpu 0,6);
261 lcore 7 runs on cpuset 0x80 (cpu 7);
262 lcore 8 runs on cpuset 0x100 (cpu 8).
264 Using this option, for each given lcore ID, the associated CPUs can be assigned.
265 It's also compatible with the pattern of corelist('-l') option.
267 non-EAL pthread support
268 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
270 It is possible to use the DPDK execution context with any user pthread (aka. Non-EAL pthreads).
271 In a non-EAL pthread, the *_lcore_id* is always LCORE_ID_ANY which identifies that it is not an EAL thread with a valid, unique, *_lcore_id*.
272 Some libraries will use an alternative unique ID (e.g. TID), some will not be impacted at all, and some will work but with limitations (e.g. timer and mempool libraries).
274 All these impacts are mentioned in :ref:`known_issue_label` section.
279 There are two public APIs ``rte_thread_set_affinity()`` and ``rte_pthread_get_affinity()`` introduced for threads.
280 When they're used in any pthread context, the Thread Local Storage(TLS) will be set/get.
282 Those TLS include *_cpuset* and *_socket_id*:
284 * *_cpuset* stores the CPUs bitmap to which the pthread is affinitized.
286 * *_socket_id* stores the NUMA node of the CPU set. If the CPUs in CPU set belong to different NUMA node, the *_socket_id* will be set to SOCKET_ID_ANY.
289 .. _known_issue_label:
296 The rte_mempool uses a per-lcore cache inside the mempool.
297 For non-EAL pthreads, ``rte_lcore_id()`` will not return a valid number.
298 So for now, when rte_mempool is used with non-EAL pthreads, the put/get operations will bypass the mempool cache and there is a performance penalty because of this bypass.
299 Support for non-EAL mempool cache is currently being enabled.
303 rte_ring supports multi-producer enqueue and multi-consumer dequeue.
304 However, it is non-preemptive, this has a knock on effect of making rte_mempool non-preemptable.
308 The "non-preemptive" constraint means:
310 - a pthread doing multi-producers enqueues on a given ring must not
311 be preempted by another pthread doing a multi-producer enqueue on
313 - a pthread doing multi-consumers dequeues on a given ring must not
314 be preempted by another pthread doing a multi-consumer dequeue on
317 Bypassing this constraint it may cause the 2nd pthread to spin until the 1st one is scheduled again.
318 Moreover, if the 1st pthread is preempted by a context that has an higher priority, it may even cause a dead lock.
320 This does not mean it cannot be used, simply, there is a need to narrow down the situation when it is used by multi-pthread on the same core.
322 1. It CAN be used for any single-producer or single-consumer situation.
324 2. It MAY be used by multi-producer/consumer pthread whose scheduling policy are all SCHED_OTHER(cfs). User SHOULD be aware of the performance penalty before using it.
326 3. It MUST not be used by multi-producer/consumer pthreads, whose scheduling policies are SCHED_FIFO or SCHED_RR.
328 ``RTE_RING_PAUSE_REP_COUNT`` is defined for rte_ring to reduce contention. It's mainly for case 2, a yield is issued after number of times pause repeat.
330 It adds a sched_yield() syscall if the thread spins for too long while waiting on the other thread to finish its operations on the ring.
331 This gives the preempted thread a chance to proceed and finish with the ring enqueue/dequeue operation.
335 Running ``rte_timer_manager()`` on a non-EAL pthread is not allowed. However, resetting/stopping the timer from a non-EAL pthread is allowed.
339 In non-EAL pthreads, there is no per thread loglevel and logtype, global loglevels are used.
343 The debug statistics of rte_ring, rte_mempool and rte_timer are not supported in a non-EAL pthread.
348 The following is a simple example of cgroup control usage, there are two pthreads(t0 and t1) doing packet I/O on the same core ($CPU).
349 We expect only 50% of CPU spend on packet IO.
351 .. code-block:: console
353 mkdir /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu/pkt_io
354 mkdir /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset/pkt_io
356 echo $cpu > /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset/cpuset.cpus
358 echo $t0 > /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu/pkt_io/tasks
359 echo $t0 > /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset/pkt_io/tasks
361 echo $t1 > /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu/pkt_io/tasks
362 echo $t1 > /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset/pkt_io/tasks
364 cd /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu/pkt_io
365 echo 100000 > pkt_io/cpu.cfs_period_us
366 echo 50000 > pkt_io/cpu.cfs_quota_us