xref: /dpdk/doc/guides/sample_app_ug/intro.rst (revision 7eb115c0e7e5a2b00099d0de7477752ebb921cfc)
1..  SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause
2    Copyright(c) 2010-2017 Intel Corporation.
3
4Introduction to the DPDK Sample Applications
5============================================
6
7The DPDK Sample Applications are small standalone applications which
8demonstrate various features of DPDK. They can be considered as a cookbook of
9DPDK features.  Users interested in getting started with DPDK can take the
10applications, try out the features, and then extend them to fit their needs.
11
12
13Running Sample Applications
14---------------------------
15
16Some sample applications may have their own command-line parameters described in
17their respective guides, however all of them also share the same EAL parameters.
18Please refer to  :doc:`../linux_gsg/linux_eal_parameters` or
19:doc:`../freebsd_gsg/freebsd_eal_parameters` for a list of available EAL
20command-line options.
21
22
23The DPDK Sample Applications
24----------------------------
25
26There are many sample applications available in the examples directory of DPDK.
27These examples range from simple to reasonably complex but most are designed
28to demonstrate one particular feature of DPDK. Some of the more interesting
29examples are highlighted below.
30
31
32* :doc:`Hello World<hello_world>`: As with most introductions to a
33  programming framework a good place to start is with the Hello World
34  application. The Hello World example sets up the DPDK Environment Abstraction
35  Layer (EAL), and prints a simple "Hello World" message to each of the DPDK
36  enabled cores. This application doesn't do any packet forwarding but it is a
37  good way to test if the DPDK environment is compiled and set up properly.
38
39* :doc:`Basic Forwarding/Skeleton Application<skeleton>`: The Basic
40  Forwarding/Skeleton contains the minimum amount of code required to enable
41  basic packet forwarding with DPDK. This allows you to test if your network
42  interfaces are working with DPDK.
43
44* :doc:`Network Layer 2 forwarding<l2_forward_real_virtual>`: The Network Layer 2
45  forwarding, or ``l2fwd`` application does forwarding based on Ethernet MAC
46  addresses like a simple switch.
47
48* :doc:`Network Layer 3 forwarding<l3_forward>`: The Network Layer3
49  forwarding, or ``l3fwd`` application does forwarding based on Internet
50  Protocol, IPv4 or IPv6 like a simple router.
51
52* :doc:`Packet Distributor<dist_app>`: The Packet Distributor
53  demonstrates how to distribute packets arriving on an Rx port to different
54  cores for processing and transmission.
55
56* :doc:`Multi-Process Application<multi_process>`: The
57  multi-process application shows how two DPDK processes can work together using
58  queues and memory pools to share information.
59
60* :doc:`RX/TX callbacks Application<rxtx_callbacks>`: The RX/TX
61  callbacks sample application is a packet forwarding application that
62  demonstrates the use of user defined callbacks on received and transmitted
63  packets. The application calculates the latency of a packet between RX
64  (packet arrival) and TX (packet transmission) by adding callbacks to the RX
65  and TX packet processing functions.
66
67* :doc:`IPsec Security Gateway<ipsec_secgw>`: The IPsec Security
68  Gateway application is minimal example of something closer to a real world
69  example. This is also a good example of an application using the DPDK
70  Cryptodev framework.
71
72* :doc:`Precision Time Protocol (PTP) client<ptpclient>`: The PTP
73  client is another minimal implementation of a real world application.
74  In this case the application is a PTP client that communicates with a PTP
75  master clock to synchronize time on a Network Interface Card (NIC) using the
76  IEEE1588 protocol.
77
78* :doc:`Quality of Service (QoS) Scheduler<qos_scheduler>`: The QoS
79  Scheduler application demonstrates the use of DPDK to provide QoS scheduling.
80
81There are many more examples shown in the following chapters. Each of the
82documented sample applications show how to compile, configure and run the
83application as well as explaining the main functionality of the code.
84