guides/rel_notes/release_17_02.rst

DPDK Release 17.02
==================

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New Features
------------

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     * Enhanced feature bar to do something else.

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     =========================================================

* **Added generic flow API (rte_flow).**

  This API provides a generic means to configure hardware to match specific
  ingress or egress traffic, alter its fate and query related counters
  according to any number of user-defined rules.

  It is slightly higher-level than the legacy filtering framework which it
  encompasses and supersedes (including all functions and filter types) in
  order to expose a single interface with an unambiguous behavior that is
  common to all poll-mode drivers (PMDs).

  See the :ref:`Generic flow API <Generic_flow_API>` documentation for more
  information.

* **Added firmware version get API.**

  Added a new function ``rte_eth_dev_fw_version_get()`` to fetch firmware
  version by a given device.

* **Added APIs for MACsec offload support to the ixgbe PMD.**

  Six new APIs have been added to the ixgbe PMD for MACsec offload support.
  The declarations for the APIs can be found in ``rte_pmd_ixgbe.h``.

* **Added I219 NICs support.**

  Added support for I219 Intel 1GbE NICs.

* **Added VF Daemon (VFD) on i40e. - EXPERIMENTAL**

  This's an EXPERIMENTAL feature to enhance the capability of DPDK PF as many
  VF management features are not supported by kernel PF driver.
  Some new private APIs are implemented in PMD without abstrction layer.
  They can be used directly by some users who have the need.

  The new APIs to control VFs directly from PF include,
  1) set VF MAC anti-spoofing
  2) set VF VLAN anti-spoofing
  3) set TX loopback
  4) set VF unicast promiscuous mode
  5) set VF multicast promiscuous mode
  6) set VF MTU
  7) get/reset VF stats
  8) set VF MAC address
  9) set VF VLAN stripping
  10) VF VLAN insertion
  12) set VF broadcast mode
  13) set VF VLAN tag
  14) set VF VLAN filter
  VFD also includes VF to PF mailbox message management by APP.
  When PF receives mailbox messages from VF, PF should call the callback
  provided by APP to know if they're permitted to be processed.

  As an EXPERIMENTAL feature, please aware it can be changed or even
  removed without prior notice.

* **Updated the i40e base driver.**

  updated the i40e base driver, including the following changes:

  * replace existing legacy memcpy() calls with i40e_memcpy() calls.
  * use BIT() macro instead of bit fields
  * add clear all WoL filters implementation
  * add broadcast promiscuous control per VLAN
  * remove unused X722_SUPPORT and I40E_NDIS_SUPPORT MARCOs

* **Added Solarflare libefx-based network PMD.**

  A new network PMD which supports Solarflare SFN7xxx and SFN8xxx family
  of 10/40 Gbps adapters has been added.

* **Added support for Mellanox ConnectX-5 adapters (mlx5).**

  Support for Mellanox ConnectX-5 family of 10/25/40/50/100 Gbps adapters
  has been added to the existing mlx5 PMD.

* **virtio-user with vhost-kernel as another exceptional path.**

  Previously, we upstreamed a virtual device, virtio-user with vhost-user
  as the backend, as a way for IPC (Inter-Process Communication) and user
  space container networking.

  Virtio-user with vhost-kernel as the backend is a solution for exceptional
  path, such as KNI, which exchanges packets with kernel networking stack.
  This solution is very promising in:

  * maintenance: vhost and vhost-net (kernel) is upstreamed and extensively
    used kernel module.
  * features: vhost-net is born to be a networking solution, which has
    lots of networking related features, like multi-queue, TSO, multi-seg
    mbuf, etc.
  * performance: similar to KNI, this solution would use one or more
    kthreads to send/receive packets from user space DPDK applications,
    which has little impact on user space polling thread (except that
    it might enter into kernel space to wake up those kthreads if
    necessary).

* **Added virtio Rx interrupt suppprt.**

  This feature enables Rx interrupt mode for virtio pci net devices as
  binded to VFIO (noiommu mode) and drived by virtio PMD.

  With this feature, virtio PMD can switch between polling mode and
  interrupt mode, to achieve best performance, and at the same time save
  power. It can work on both legacy and modern virtio devices. At this mode,
  each rxq is mapped with an exluded MSIx interrupt.

  See the :ref:`Virtio Interrupt Mode <virtio_interrupt_mode>` documentation
  for more information.

* **Updated the QAT PMD.**

  The QAT PMD was updated with additional support for:

  * DES algorithm.
  * Scatter-gather list (SGL) support.

* **Updated the AESNI MB PMD.**

  * The Intel(R) Multi Buffer Crypto for IPsec library used in
    AESNI MB PMD has been moved to a new repository, in GitHub.

* **Added Elastic Flow Distributor library (rte_efd).**

  This new library uses perfect hashing to determine a target/value for a
  given incoming flow key.

  It does not store the key itself for lookup operations, and therefore,
  lookup performance is not dependent on the key size. Also, the target/value
  can be any arbitrary value (8 bits by default). Finally, the storage requirement
  is much smaller than a hash-based flow table and therefore, it can better fit for
  CPU cache, being able to scale to millions of flow keys.

  See the :ref:`Elastic Flow Distributor Library <Efd_Library>` documentation in
  the Programmers Guide document, for more information.


Resolved Issues
---------------

.. This section should contain bug fixes added to the relevant sections. Sample format:

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   =========================================================


EAL
~~~


Drivers
~~~~~~~

* **net/virtio: Fixed multiple process support.**

  Fixed few regressions introduced in recent releases that break the virtio
  multiple process support.


Libraries
~~~~~~~~~


Examples
~~~~~~~~

* **examples/ethtool: Fixed crash with non-PCI devices.**

  Querying a non-PCI device was dereferencing non-existent PCI data
  resulting in a segmentation fault.


Other
~~~~~


Known Issues
------------

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   =========================================================


API Changes
-----------

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     quotes for ``rte_function_names`` or ``rte_struct_names``. Use the past tense.

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   =========================================================

* **Moved five APIs for VF management from the ethdev to the ixgbe PMD.**

  The following five APIs for VF management from the PF have been removed from the ethdev,
  renamed and added to the ixgbe PMD::

    rte_eth_dev_set_vf_rate_limit
    rte_eth_dev_set_vf_rx
    rte_eth_dev_set_vf_rxmode
    rte_eth_dev_set_vf_tx
    rte_eth_dev_set_vf_vlan_filter

  The API's have been renamed to the following::

    rte_pmd_ixgbe_set_vf_rate_limit
    rte_pmd_ixgbe_set_vf_rx
    rte_pmd_ixgbe_set_vf_rxmode
    rte_pmd_ixgbe_set_vf_tx
    rte_pmd_ixgbe_set_vf_vlan_filter

  The declarations for the API’s can be found in ``rte_pmd_ixgbe.h``.

ABI Changes
-----------

.. This section should contain ABI changes. Sample format:

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     the previous releases and made in this release. Use fixed width quotes for
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   =========================================================


Shared Library Versions
-----------------------

.. Update any library version updated in this release and prepend with a ``+``
   sign, like this:

     librte_acl.so.2
   + librte_cfgfile.so.2
     librte_cmdline.so.2

   This section is a comment. do not overwrite or remove it.
   =========================================================


The libraries prepended with a plus sign were incremented in this version.

.. code-block:: diff

     librte_acl.so.2
     librte_cfgfile.so.2
     librte_cmdline.so.2
     librte_cryptodev.so.2
     librte_distributor.so.1
     librte_eal.so.3
   + librte_ethdev.so.6
     librte_hash.so.2
     librte_ip_frag.so.1
     librte_jobstats.so.1
     librte_kni.so.2
     librte_kvargs.so.1
     librte_lpm.so.2
     librte_mbuf.so.2
     librte_mempool.so.2
     librte_meter.so.1
     librte_net.so.1
     librte_pdump.so.1
     librte_pipeline.so.3
     librte_pmd_bond.so.1
     librte_pmd_ring.so.2
     librte_port.so.3
     librte_power.so.1
     librte_reorder.so.1
     librte_ring.so.1
     librte_sched.so.1
     librte_table.so.2
     librte_timer.so.1
     librte_vhost.so.3


Tested Platforms
----------------

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   The format is:

   #. Platform name.

      * Platform details.
      * Platform details.

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   =========================================================


Tested NICs
-----------

.. This section should contain a list of NICs that were tested with this release.

   The format is:

   #. NIC name.

      * NIC details.
      * NIC details.

   This section is a comment. do not overwrite or remove it.
   Also, make sure to start the actual text at the margin.
   =========================================================


Tested OSes
-----------

.. This section should contain a list of OSes that were tested with this release.
   The format is as follows, in alphabetical order:

   * CentOS 7.0
   * Fedora 23
   * Fedora 24
   * FreeBSD 10.3
   * Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2
   * SUSE Enterprise Linux 12
   * Ubuntu 15.10
   * Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
   * Wind River Linux 8

   This section is a comment. do not overwrite or remove it.
   Also, make sure to start the actual text at the margin.
   =========================================================