xref: /dpdk/doc/guides/nics/ice.rst (revision 089e5ed727a15da2729cfee9b63533dd120bd04c)
1..  SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause
2    Copyright(c) 2018 Intel Corporation.
3
4ICE Poll Mode Driver
5======================
6
7The ice PMD (librte_pmd_ice) provides poll mode driver support for
810/25 Gbps Intel® Ethernet 810 Series Network Adapters based on
9the Intel Ethernet Controller E810.
10
11
12Prerequisites
13-------------
14
15- Identifying your adapter using `Intel Support
16  <http://www.intel.com/support>`_ and get the latest NVM/FW images.
17
18- Follow the DPDK :ref:`Getting Started Guide for Linux <linux_gsg>` to setup the basic DPDK environment.
19
20- To get better performance on Intel platforms, please follow the "How to get best performance with NICs on Intel platforms"
21  section of the :ref:`Getting Started Guide for Linux <linux_gsg>`.
22
23
24Pre-Installation Configuration
25------------------------------
26
27Config File Options
28~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
29
30The following options can be modified in the ``config`` file.
31Please note that enabling debugging options may affect system performance.
32
33- ``CONFIG_RTE_LIBRTE_ICE_PMD`` (default ``y``)
34
35  Toggle compilation of the ``librte_pmd_ice`` driver.
36
37- ``CONFIG_RTE_LIBRTE_ICE_DEBUG_*`` (default ``n``)
38
39  Toggle display of generic debugging messages.
40
41- ``CONFIG_RTE_LIBRTE_ICE_RX_ALLOW_BULK_ALLOC`` (default ``y``)
42
43  Toggle bulk allocation for RX.
44
45- ``CONFIG_RTE_LIBRTE_ICE_16BYTE_RX_DESC`` (default ``n``)
46
47  Toggle to use a 16-byte RX descriptor, by default the RX descriptor is 32 byte.
48
49Runtime Config Options
50~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
51
52- ``Safe Mode Support`` (default ``0``)
53
54  If driver failed to load OS package, by default driver's initialization failed.
55  But if user intend to use the device without OS package, user can take ``devargs``
56  parameter ``safe-mode-support``, for example::
57
58    -w 80:00.0,safe-mode-support=1
59
60  Then the driver will be initialized successfully and the device will enter Safe Mode.
61  NOTE: In Safe mode, only very limited features are available, features like RSS,
62  checksum, fdir, tunneling ... are all disabled.
63
64Driver compilation and testing
65------------------------------
66
67Refer to the document :ref:`compiling and testing a PMD for a NIC <pmd_build_and_test>`
68for details.
69
70Features
71--------
72
73Vector PMD
74~~~~~~~~~~
75
76Vector PMD for RX and TX path are selected automatically. The paths
77are chosen based on 2 conditions.
78
79- ``CPU``
80  On the X86 platform, the driver checks if the CPU supports AVX2.
81  If it's supported, AVX2 paths will be chosen. If not, SSE is chosen.
82
83- ``Offload features``
84  The supported HW offload features are described in the document ice_vec.ini.
85  If any not supported features are used, ICE vector PMD is disabled and the
86  normal paths are chosen.
87
88Malicious driver detection (MDD)
89~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
90
91It's not appropriate to send a packet, if this packet's destination MAC address
92is just this port's MAC address. If SW tries to send such packets, HW will
93report a MDD event and drop the packets.
94
95The APPs based on DPDK should avoid providing such packets.
96
97Sample Application Notes
98------------------------
99
100Vlan filter
101~~~~~~~~~~~
102
103Vlan filter only works when Promiscuous mode is off.
104
105To start ``testpmd``, and add vlan 10 to port 0:
106
107.. code-block:: console
108
109    ./app/testpmd -l 0-15 -n 4 -- -i
110    ...
111
112    testpmd> rx_vlan add 10 0
113
114Limitations or Known issues
115---------------------------
116
117The Intel E810 requires a programmable pipeline package be downloaded
118by the driver to support normal operations. The E810 has a limited
119functionality built in to allow PXE boot and other use cases, but the
120driver must download a package file during the driver initialization
121stage. The file must be in the /lib/firmware/intel/ice/ddp directory
122and it must be named ice.pkg. A symbolic link to this file is also ok.
123The same package file is used by both the kernel driver and the DPDK PMD.
124
125
12619.02 limitation
127~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
128
129Ice code released in 19.02 is for evaluation only.
130