rte_flow: transfer and sample, is it possible?

[Tony Hart <Tony.Hart@corero.com>]

I’m trying to configure a simple variation on the Switch Example (14.7. Switching Examples) in the Programmer’s Guide.  What I’d like to do is forward packets from the physical port to the VF1 and vice versa as described in the example, in addition I’d also like to send a 1:N sample of the traffic received from the physical port to the “hypervisor application”, i.e. the DPDK app.

I have not found a way to achieve this, this is what I’ve tried...

Note my DPDK ports are 0 (physical) and 1 (VF1 representer) rather than the 3 and 4 in the Programmer’s Guide example and I’m using DPDK-stable-22.11.1 with ConnectX-6 version  22.30.100 (configured in switchdev mode).


Setting up the example works as expected, traffic is forwarded between physical and VF1 and nothing goes to DPDK app.  I used these testpmd commands...

flow create 0 transfer pattern represented_port ethdev_port_id is 0 / end actions represented_port ethdev_port_id 1 / end
flow create 0 transfer pattern represented_port ethdev_port_id is 1 / end actions represented_port ethdev_port_id 0 / end 


However I haven’t been able to setup the sampling. First I tried (leaving out the VF1 to PHY setup for now)...

set sample_actions 0 queue index 0 / end
flow create 0 transfer pattern represented_port ethdev_port_id is 0 / end actions sample ratio 10 index 0 / represented_port ethdev_port_id 1 / end

>port_flow_complain(): Caught PMD error type 16 (specific action): E-Switch doesn't support any optional action for sampling: Operation not supported


Next tried sampling after the forwarding (use priority to avoid ambiguity), I need to have a fate action on the sample line otherwise I get "no fate action is found:” error…

set sample_actions 0 queue index 0 / end
flow create 0 transfer priority 2 pattern represented_port ethdev_port_id is 0 / end actions represented_port ethdev_port_id 1 / end
flow create 0 ingress pattern end actions sample ratio 10 index 0 / jump group 1 / end

>port_flow_complain(): Caught PMD error type 1 (cause unspecified): hardware refuses to create flow: Operation not supported


I have not been able to use sampling in group 0, but seems to work in non-0 group, So…

set sample_actions 0 queue index 0 / end
flow create 0 ingress pattern end actions jump group 1 /  end
flow create 0 ingress group 1 pattern end actions sample ratio 10 index 0 / count / jump group 2 / end
flow create 0 transfer group 2 pattern represented_port ethdev_port_id is 0 / end actions count / represented_port ethdev_port_id 1 / end
flow create 0 ingress group 2 priority 2 pattern end actions count / jump group 3 / end


No errors! And samples show up in DPDK in the 1:10 ratio expected.  However there’s no forwarding between physical and VF1.  The counter for the transfer rule confirms this, its 0, however the counter for the last rule shows hits (and the traffic is blocked).

testpmd> flow query 0 2 count
COUNT:
 hits_set: 1
 bytes_set: 1
 hits: 0
 bytes: 0
testpmd> flow query 0 3 count
COUNT:
 hits_set: 1
 bytes_set: 1
 hits: 117
 bytes: 7488



Thanks for any help,
Tony


Tony Hart | Chief Architect
Tony.Hart@corero.com <mailto:Tony.Hart@corero.com> 
 
 293 Boston Post Road West Suite 310, Marlborough, MA 01752 


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