xref: /dpdk/doc/guides/sample_app_ug/dist_app.rst (revision 0857b942113874c69dc3db5df11a828ee3cc9b6b)
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31Distributor Sample Application
32==============================
33
34The distributor sample application is a simple example of packet distribution
35to cores using the Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK).
36
37Overview
38--------
39
40The distributor application performs the distribution of packets that are received
41on an RX_PORT to different cores. When processed by the cores, the destination
42port of a packet is the port from the enabled port mask adjacent to the one on
43which the packet was received, that is, if the first four ports are enabled
44(port mask 0xf), ports 0 and 1 RX/TX into each other, and ports 2 and 3 RX/TX
45into each other.
46
47This application can be used to benchmark performance using the traffic
48generator as shown in the figure below.
49
50.. _figure_dist_perf:
51
52.. figure:: img/dist_perf.*
53
54   Performance Benchmarking Setup (Basic Environment)
55
56
57Compiling the Application
58-------------------------
59
60#.  Go to the sample application directory:
61
62    ..  code-block:: console
63
64        export RTE_SDK=/path/to/rte_sdk
65        cd ${RTE_SDK}/examples/distributor
66
67#.  Set the target (a default target is used if not specified). For example:
68
69    ..  code-block:: console
70
71        export RTE_TARGET=x86_64-native-linuxapp-gcc
72
73    See the DPDK Getting Started Guide for possible RTE_TARGET values.
74
75#.  Build the application:
76
77    ..  code-block:: console
78
79        make
80
81Running the Application
82-----------------------
83
84#. The application has a number of command line options:
85
86   ..  code-block:: console
87
88       ./build/distributor_app [EAL options] -- -p PORTMASK
89
90   where,
91
92   *   -p PORTMASK: Hexadecimal bitmask of ports to configure
93
94#. To run the application in linuxapp environment with 10 lcores, 4 ports,
95   issue the command:
96
97   ..  code-block:: console
98
99       $ ./build/distributor_app -l 1-9,22 -n 4 -- -p f
100
101#. Refer to the DPDK Getting Started Guide for general information on running
102   applications and the Environment Abstraction Layer (EAL) options.
103
104Explanation
105-----------
106
107The distributor application consists of four types of threads: a receive
108thread (``lcore_rx()``), a distributor thread (``lcore_dist()``), a set of
109worker threads (``lcore_worker()``), and a transmit thread(``lcore_tx()``).
110How these threads work together is shown in :numref:`figure_dist_app` below.
111The ``main()`` function launches  threads of these four types.  Each thread
112has a while loop which will be doing processing and which is terminated
113only upon SIGINT or ctrl+C.
114
115The receive thread receives the packets using ``rte_eth_rx_burst()`` and will
116enqueue them to an rte_ring. The distributor thread will dequeue the packets
117from the ring and assign them to workers (using ``rte_distributor_process()`` API).
118This assignment is based on the tag (or flow ID) of the packet - indicated by
119the hash field in the mbuf. For IP traffic, this field is automatically filled
120by the NIC with the "usr" hash value for the packet, which works as a per-flow
121tag.  The distributor thread communicates with the worker threads using a
122cache-line swapping mechanism, passing up to 8 mbuf pointers at a time
123(one cache line) to each worker.
124
125More than one worker thread can exist as part of the application, and these
126worker threads do simple packet processing by requesting packets from
127the distributor, doing a simple XOR operation on the input port mbuf field
128(to indicate the output port which will be used later for packet transmission)
129and then finally returning the packets back to the distributor thread.
130
131The distributor thread will then call the distributor api
132``rte_distributor_returned_pkts()`` to get the processed packets, and will enqueue
133them to another rte_ring for transfer to the TX thread for transmission on the
134output port. The transmit thread will dequeue the packets from the ring and
135transmit them on the output port specified in packet mbuf.
136
137Users who wish to terminate the running of the application have to press ctrl+C
138(or send SIGINT to the app). Upon this signal, a signal handler provided
139in the application will terminate all running threads gracefully and print
140final statistics to the user.
141
142.. _figure_dist_app:
143
144.. figure:: img/dist_app.*
145
146   Distributor Sample Application Layout
147
148
149Debug Logging Support
150---------------------
151
152Debug logging is provided as part of the application; the user needs to uncomment
153the line "#define DEBUG" defined in start of the application in main.c to enable debug logs.
154
155Statistics
156----------
157
158The main function will print statistics on the console every second. These
159statistics include the number of packets enqueued and dequeued at each stage
160in the application, and also key statistics per worker, including how many
161packets of each burst size (1-8) were sent to each worker thread.
162
163Application Initialization
164--------------------------
165
166Command line parsing is done in the same way as it is done in the L2 Forwarding Sample
167Application. See :ref:`l2_fwd_app_cmd_arguments`.
168
169Mbuf pool initialization is done in the same way as it is done in the L2 Forwarding
170Sample Application. See :ref:`l2_fwd_app_mbuf_init`.
171
172Driver Initialization is done in same way as it is done in the L2 Forwarding Sample
173Application. See :ref:`l2_fwd_app_dvr_init`.
174
175RX queue initialization is done in the same way as it is done in the L2 Forwarding
176Sample Application. See :ref:`l2_fwd_app_rx_init`.
177
178TX queue initialization is done in the same way as it is done in the L2 Forwarding
179Sample Application. See :ref:`l2_fwd_app_tx_init`.
180