xref: /dpdk/doc/guides/sample_app_ug/keep_alive.rst (revision fd8c20aab4c2fe2c568455be4efab76db126791f)
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32Keep Alive Sample Application
33=============================
34
35The Keep Alive application is a simple example of a
36heartbeat/watchdog for packet processing cores. It demonstrates how
37to detect 'failed' DPDK cores and notify a fault management entity
38of this failure. Its purpose is to ensure the failure of the core
39does not result in a fault that is not detectable by a management
40entity.
41
42
43Overview
44--------
45
46The application demonstrates how to protect against 'silent outages'
47on packet processing cores. A Keep Alive Monitor Agent Core (master)
48monitors the state of packet processing cores (worker cores) by
49dispatching pings at a regular time interval (default is 5ms) and
50monitoring the state of the cores. Cores states are: Alive, MIA, Dead
51or Buried. MIA indicates a missed ping, and Dead indicates two missed
52pings within the specified time interval. When a core is Dead, a
53callback function is invoked to restart the packet processing core;
54A real life application might use this callback function to notify a
55higher level fault management entity of the core failure in order to
56take the appropriate corrective action.
57
58Note: Only the worker cores are monitored. A local (on the host) mechanism
59or agent to supervise the Keep Alive Monitor Agent Core DPDK core is required
60to detect its failure.
61
62Note: This application is based on the :doc:`l2_forward_real_virtual`. As
63such, the initialization and run-time paths are very similar to those
64of the L2 forwarding application.
65
66Compiling the Application
67-------------------------
68
69To compile the sample application see :doc:`compiling`.
70
71The application is located in the ``l2fwd_keep_alive`` sub-directory.
72
73Running the Application
74-----------------------
75
76The application has a number of command line options:
77
78.. code-block:: console
79
80    ./build/l2fwd-keepalive [EAL options] \
81            -- -p PORTMASK [-q NQ] [-K PERIOD] [-T PERIOD]
82
83where,
84
85* ``p PORTMASK``: A hexadecimal bitmask of the ports to configure
86
87* ``q NQ``: A number of queues (=ports) per lcore (default is 1)
88
89* ``K PERIOD``: Heartbeat check period in ms(5ms default; 86400 max)
90
91* ``T PERIOD``: statistics will be refreshed each PERIOD seconds (0 to
92  disable, 10 default, 86400 maximum).
93
94To run the application in linuxapp environment with 4 lcores, 16 ports
958 RX queues per lcore and a ping interval of 10ms, issue the command:
96
97.. code-block:: console
98
99    ./build/l2fwd-keepalive -l 0-3 -n 4 -- -q 8 -p ffff -K 10
100
101Refer to the *DPDK Getting Started Guide* for general information on
102running applications and the Environment Abstraction Layer (EAL)
103options.
104
105
106Explanation
107-----------
108
109The following sections provide some explanation of the The
110Keep-Alive/'Liveliness' conceptual scheme. As mentioned in the
111overview section, the initialization and run-time paths are very
112similar to those of the :doc:`l2_forward_real_virtual`.
113
114The Keep-Alive/'Liveliness' conceptual scheme:
115
116* A Keep- Alive Agent Runs every N Milliseconds.
117
118* DPDK Cores respond to the keep-alive agent.
119
120* If keep-alive agent detects time-outs, it notifies the
121  fault management entity through a callback function.
122
123The following sections provide some explanation of the code aspects
124that are specific to the Keep Alive sample application.
125
126The keepalive functionality is initialized with a struct
127rte_keepalive and the callback function to invoke in the
128case of a timeout.
129
130.. code-block:: c
131
132    rte_global_keepalive_info = rte_keepalive_create(&dead_core, NULL);
133    if (rte_global_keepalive_info == NULL)
134        rte_exit(EXIT_FAILURE, "keepalive_create() failed");
135
136The function that issues the pings keepalive_dispatch_pings()
137is configured to run every check_period milliseconds.
138
139.. code-block:: c
140
141    if (rte_timer_reset(&hb_timer,
142            (check_period * rte_get_timer_hz()) / 1000,
143            PERIODICAL,
144            rte_lcore_id(),
145            &rte_keepalive_dispatch_pings,
146            rte_global_keepalive_info
147            ) != 0 )
148        rte_exit(EXIT_FAILURE, "Keepalive setup failure.\n");
149
150The rest of the initialization and run-time path follows
151the same paths as the L2 forwarding application. The only
152addition to the main processing loop is the mark alive
153functionality and the example random failures.
154
155.. code-block:: c
156
157    rte_keepalive_mark_alive(&rte_global_keepalive_info);
158    cur_tsc = rte_rdtsc();
159
160    /* Die randomly within 7 secs for demo purposes.. */
161    if (cur_tsc - tsc_initial > tsc_lifetime)
162    break;
163
164The rte_keepalive_mark_alive function simply sets the core state to alive.
165
166.. code-block:: c
167
168    static inline void
169    rte_keepalive_mark_alive(struct rte_keepalive *keepcfg)
170    {
171        keepcfg->state_flags[rte_lcore_id()] = ALIVE;
172    }
173