Re: [dpdk-dev] [PATCH] net/dpdkoin: add new driver

[Aaron Conole <aconole@redhat.com>]

Matteo Croce <mcroce@redhat.com> writes:

> DPDK polls the packet in a busy loop. This means that CPU constantly spins
> looking for packets, regardless of the network traffic.
> DPDK does this to reduce latency and avoid using interrupts, at expense of
> efficiency: this might consume more processing power and generate more heat
> than needed, potentially increasing the TCO of a DPDK appliance.
>
> Here comes DPDKoin. DPDKoin is a DPDK PMD, which instead of moving
> packets, mines cryptocurrencies.
> DPDKoin just does a few calculations to every poll cycle, this means that
> when the network is loaded, DPDKoin consumes just a few cycles, but when
> there is no traffic, DPDKoin mines currencies in a busy loop.
> The coins are mined with no extra consumption, as the CPU would spin
> anyway.
>
> This is a system running with two 10G cards running with DPDK:
>
>   PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU  %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND
>  8223 root      10 -10  260.6g 597516  19100 S 199.8   0.5   0:17.89 testpmd
>
> And this is the same system with a DPDKoin port added:
>
>   PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU  %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND
>  9438 root      10 -10  260.6g 598892  19800 S 199.8   0.5   0:19.43 testpmd
>
> As you can see, we don't observe any change in the CPU usage, and besides,
> the earned coins lowers the appliance TCO.
>
> Just for reference, a test run log follows:
>
> $ sudo testpmd --no-huge -m 1024 --no-pci --vdev eth_dpdkoin0 --vdev eth_dpdkoin1
> EAL: Detected 8 lcore(s)
> EAL: Detected 1 NUMA nodes
> EAL: Multi-process socket /var/run/dpdk/rte/mp_socket
> EAL: Selected IOVA mode 'VA'
> EAL: Probing VFIO support...
> testpmd: create a new mbuf pool <mbuf_pool_socket_0>: n 3456, size!76, socket=0
> testpmd: preferred mempool ops selected: ring_mp_mc
> Configuring Port 0 (socket 0)
> Port 0: 4A:50:3C:33:55:21
> Configuring Port 1 (socket 0)
> Port 1: BA:BB:0A:BB:0C:CA
> Checking link statuses...
> Done
> No commandline core given, start packet forwarding
> io packet forwarding - ports=2 - cores=1 - streams=2 - NUMA support enabled, MP allocation mode: native
> Logical Core 1 (socket 0) forwards packets on 2 streams:
>   RX P=0/Q=0 (socket 0) -> TX P=1/Q=0 (socket 0) peer:00:00:00:00:01
>   RX P=1/Q=0 (socket 0) -> TX P=0/Q=0 (socket 0) peer:00:00:00:00:00
>
>   io packet forwarding packets/burst2
>   nb forwarding cores=1 - nb forwarding ports=2
>   port 0: RX queue number: 1 Tx queue number: 1
>     Rx offloads=0x0 Tx offloads=0x0
>     RX queue: 0
>       RX desc=0 - RX free threshold=0
>       RX threshold registers: pthresh=0 hthresh=0  wthresh=0
>       RX Offloads=0x0
>     TX queue: 0
>       TX desc=0 - TX free threshold=0
>       TX threshold registers: pthresh=0 hthresh=0  wthresh=0
>       TX offloads=0x0 - TX RS bit threshold=0
>   port 1: RX queue number: 1 Tx queue number: 1
>     Rx offloads=0x0 Tx offloads=0x0
>     RX queue: 0
>       RX desc=0 - RX free threshold=0
>       RX threshold registers: pthresh=0 hthresh=0  wthresh=0
>       RX Offloads=0x0
>     TX queue: 0
>       TX desc=0 - TX free threshold=0
>       TX threshold registers: pthresh=0 hthresh=0  wthresh=0
>       TX offloads=0x0 - TX RS bit threshold=0
> libbitcoin 0.1: mining on CPU2
> libbitcoin 0.1: mining on CPU4
> ---
>  config/common_base                            |   5 +
>  drivers/net/Makefile                          |   1 +
>  drivers/net/dpdkoin/Makefile                  |  23 +
>  drivers/net/dpdkoin/meson.build               |   3 +
>  drivers/net/dpdkoin/rte_eth_dpdkoin.c         | 696 ++++++++++++++++++
>  .../net/dpdkoin/rte_pmd_dpdkoin_version.map   |   3 +
>  mk/rte.app.mk                                 |   1 +
>  7 files changed, 732 insertions(+)
>  create mode 100644 drivers/net/dpdkoin/Makefile
>  create mode 100644 drivers/net/dpdkoin/meson.build
>  create mode 100644 drivers/net/dpdkoin/rte_eth_dpdkoin.c
>  create mode 100644 drivers/net/dpdkoin/rte_pmd_dpdkoin_version.map
>

Is it possible to have a unit test for this PMD?  We could have the
robot run some quick tests for us... ;-)