numam-dpdk/doc/guides/nics/sfc_efx.rst

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Solarflare libefx-based Poll Mode Driver
========================================

The SFC EFX PMD (**librte_pmd_sfc_efx**) provides poll mode driver support
for **Solarflare SFN7xxx and SFN8xxx** family of 10/40 Gbps adapters.
SFC EFX PMD has support for the latest Linux and FreeBSD operating systems.

More information can be found at `Solarflare Communications website
<http://solarflare.com>`_.


Features
--------

SFC EFX PMD has support for:

- Multiple transmit and receive queues

- Link state information including link status change interrupt

- IPv4/IPv6 TCP/UDP transmit checksum offload

- Port hardware statistics

- Extended statistics (see Solarflare Server Adapter User's Guide for
  the statistics description)

- Basic flow control

- MTU update

- Jumbo frames up to 9K

- Promiscuous mode

- Allmulticast mode


Non-supported Features
----------------------

The features not yet supported include:

- Receive queue interupts

- Priority-based flow control

- Loopback

- Configurable RX CRC stripping (always stripped)

- Header split on receive

- VLAN filtering

- VLAN stripping

- Scattered receive

- LRO


Limitations
-----------

Due to requirements on receive buffer alignment and usage of the receive
buffer for the auxiliary packet information provided by the NIC up to
extra 269 (14 bytes prefix plus up to 255 bytes for end padding) bytes may be
required in the receive buffer.
It should be taken into account when mbuf pool for receive is created.


Supported NICs
--------------

- Solarflare Flareon [Ultra] Server Adapters:

   - Solarflare SFN8522 Dual Port SFP+ Server Adapter

   - Solarflare SFN8542 Dual Port QSFP+ Server Adapter

   - Solarflare SFN7002F Dual Port SFP+ Server Adapter

   - Solarflare SFN7004F Quad Port SFP+ Server Adapter

   - Solarflare SFN7042Q Dual Port QSFP+ Server Adapter

   - Solarflare SFN7122F Dual Port SFP+ Server Adapter

   - Solarflare SFN7124F Quad Port SFP+ Server Adapter

   - Solarflare SFN7142Q Dual Port QSFP+ Server Adapter

   - Solarflare SFN7322F Precision Time Synchronization Server Adapter


Prerequisites
-------------

- Requires firmware version:

   - SFN7xxx: **4.7.1.1001** or higher

   - SFN8xxx: **6.0.2.1004** or higher

Visit `Solarflare Support Downloads <https://support.solarflare.com>`_ to get
Solarflare Utilities (either Linux or FreeBSD) with the latest firmware.
Follow instructions from Solarflare Server Adapter User's Guide to
update firmware and configure the adapter.


Pre-Installation Configuration
------------------------------


Config File Options
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The following options can be modified in the ``.config`` file.
Please note that enabling debugging options may affect system performance.

- ``CONFIG_RTE_LIBRTE_SFC_EFX_PMD`` (default **y**)

  Enable compilation of Solarflare libefx-based poll-mode driver.

- ``CONFIG_RTE_LIBRTE_SFC_EFX_DEBUG`` (default **n**)

  Enable compilation of the extra run-time consistency checks.


Per-Device Parameters
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The following per-device parameters can be passed via EAL PCI device
whitelist option like "-w 02:00.0,arg1=value1,...".

Case-insensitive 1/y/yes/on or 0/n/no/off may be used to specify
boolean parameters value.

- ``perf_profile`` [auto|throughput|low-latency] (default **throughput**)

  Choose hardware tunning to be optimized for either throughput or
  low-latency.
  **auto** allows NIC firmware to make a choice based on
  installed licences and firmware variant configured using **sfboot**.

- ``debug_init`` [bool] (default **n**)

  Enable extra logging during device intialization and startup.

- ``mcdi_logging`` [bool] (default **n**)

  Enable extra logging of the communication with the NIC's management CPU.
  The logging is done using RTE_LOG() with INFO level and PMD type.
  The format is consumed by the Solarflare netlogdecode cross-platform tool.