Actually I found the problem with above I have to run as -- -i to get rid of the no commandline core given and -- --port-topology=chained. However now, I am wondering what does it mean to have a paired and chained port-topology? Also even though the 82598 specs say its dual-ported, I only get one port, so is it that each NIC card = one port or is there a way to get two ports out of a NIC?

On Thu, Jun 20, 2013 at 12:44 PM, Peter Chen <peter.feifan.chen@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi, I am trying to run testpmd app under dpdk. I have Ubuntu Server 12.04 running on a Dell R510 with two quad Xeon 5506 and one Intel 82598EB 10G NIC. However when I run it, I get the following error:

     No commandline core given, start packet forwarding

     Warning! Cannot handle an odd number of ports with the current port topology. Configuration must be changed to have an even number of ports, or relaunch application with --port-topology=chained

     io packet forwarding - CRC stripping disabled - packets/burst = 16
     nb forwarding cores=1 - nb forwarding ports = 1
     RX queues = 1 - RX desc = 128 - RX free threshold = 0
     RX threshold registers: pthresh = 8 hthresh = 8 wthresh = 4
     TX queues = 1 - TX desc = 512 - TX free threshold = 0
     TX threshold registers: pthread=36 hthresh = 0 wthresh = 0
     TX RS bit threshold = 0

     Press enter to exit

I am wondering how I can see the port topology and what this is exactly. Also how would I go about changing that as the --port-topology usage for running dpdk doesn't seem to exist when I try "sudo ./testpmd -c ff -n 4 -r 2 --port-topology= (something)". Thanks.

Peter