Hi,

Thank you for your reply. I was able to resolve this.

1) I do indeed open one FD per NIC
2) I no longer specify nr_arg1, nr_arg2 nor nr_arg3. Instead I just verify that all NICs return with identical nr_arg2 so that the memory is shared between them. 3) I properly initialized my memory, my failure to do so was causing me a lot of confusion,

The resulting memory space is large enough for all the NICs, and everything works perfectly with zero-copy forwarding, great!

The only thing I am still having trouble with is the ability to simultaneously trigger a TX and an RX sync on all NICs. I have tried select, poll, and epoll, and in all cases, RX rings are updated but TX rings are not and TX packets are not pushed out (this occurs using both native and emulated netmap modes). I notice the documentation says "Note that on epoll and kqueue, NETMAP_NO_TX_POLL and NETMAP_DO_RX_POLL only have an effect when some event is posted for the file descriptor.", but the behaviour seems the same on poll and select as well as epoll, perhaps this is a linux-specific implementation detail?

I have also found that all of these mechanisms seem to incur a very high cost in terms of CPU time (making them no more efficient than busy waiting at 1Mpps+). My current approach is as follows, but I feel like there should be a better option:

    for(int n=0; n<NIC_COUNT; n++) {
      // usleep(10); // More CPU time seems to be saved with a careful sleep than with select/poll/epoll
      ioctl(fds[n], NIOCTXSYNC);
      ioctl(fds[n], NIOCRXSYNC);
      rxring = rxrings[n];
      while (!nm_ring_empty(rxring)) {
        // Forward any packets waiting in this NIC's RX ring to the appropriate TX ring
      }
    }

Thanks again,

Charlie


On 01/01/18 15:40, Vincenzo Maffione wrote:
Hi,
  If you have 32 NICs you should open 32 netmap file descriptors, (and you should not specify 64 in nr_arg1 or 256 in nr_arg3, this is for different usecases). Also, since you want to do zercopy you must not specify a separate memory area (nr_arg2), but use the same one. You may want to use the high level API nm_open() https://github.com/luigirizzo/netmap/blob/master/sys/net/netmap_user.h#L307

You may also want to look at the netmap tutorial to get a better idea of how the API works (https://github.com/vmaffione/netmap-tutorial).

Cheers,
  Vincenzo

2017-12-28 18:34 GMT+01:00 Charlie Smurthwaite <charlie@atech.media <mailto:charlie@atech.media>>:

    Hi,

    I'm just starting to use netmap and it is my intention to do zero-copy
    forwarding of frames between a large number of NICs. I am using Intel
    i350 (igb) on Linux. I therefore require a large memory area for rings
    and buffers.

    My calculation:
    32 NICs * 2 rings (TX+RX) * 256 frames * 2048 bytes = 32MB

    I am currently having a problem (or perhaps just a misunderstanding)
    regarding allocation of this memory. I am attempting to use the
    following code:

    void thread_main(int thread_id) {
      struct nmreq req; // A struct for the netmap request
      int fd;           // File descriptor for netmap socket
      void * mem;       // Pointer to allocated memory area

      fd = open("/dev/netmap", 0);     // Open a generic netmap socket
      strcpy(req.nr_name, "enp8s0f0"); // Copy NIC name into request
      req.nr_version = NETMAP_API;     // Set version number
      req.nr_flags = NR_REG_ONE_NIC;   // We will be using a single hw
    ring

      // Select ring 0, disable TX on poll
      req.nr_ringid = NETMAP_NO_TX_POLL | NETMAP_HW_RING | 0;

      // Ask for 64 additional rings to be allocated (32 * (TX+RX))
      req.nr_arg1 = 64;

      // Allocate a separate memory area for each thread
      req.nr_arg2 = 10 + thread_id;

      // Ask for additional buffers (256 per ring)
      req.nr_arg3 = 64*256;

      // Initialize port
      ioctl(fd, NIOCREGIF, &req);

      // Check the allocated memory size
      printf("memsize: %u\n", req.nr_memsize);
      // Check the allocated memory area
      printf("nr_arg2: %u\n", req.nr_arg2);
    }

    The output is as follows:

    memsize: 4206859
    nr_arg2: 10

    This is far short of the amount of memory I am hoping to be allocated.
    Am I doing something wrong, or is this simply an indication that the
    driver is unwilling to allocate more than 4MB?

    A secondary (related) problem is that if I don't set arg1,arg2,arg3 in
    my code (ie they will be zero), then I get varying output (it varies
    between each of the following):

    memsize: 4206843
    nr_arg2: 0

    memsize: 343019520
    nr_arg2: 1

    Any pointers would be appreciated. Thanks!

    Charlie


    Charlie Smurthwaite
    Technical Director

    tel.  email. charlie@atech.media<mailto:charlie@atech.media
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Vincenzo Maffione

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