[dpdk-users] Error attaching dpdk ports to ovs

[Sidhant Hasija <shasija@tssg.org>]

Hello dpdk-users,

I am very much new to dpdk usage and development, and is eager to dive 
deep into it.

My laptop has a Realtek NIC (RTL8101/2/6E), which going by the list of 
supported hardware pages is unsupported as also confirmed by the 
following error while starting ethtool application. Prior to starting 
the application, my ethernet card was successfully bound to vfio-pci 
module, and I also tested with binding to igb-uio module.

EAL: Detected 4 lcore(s)
EAL: No free hugepages reported in hugepages-1048576kB
EAL: Probing VFIO support...
EAL: VFIO support initialized
Number of NICs: 0
EAL: Error - exiting with code: 1
   Cause: No available NIC ports!

Unable to move ahead due to NIC not being supported, I tried to setup 
ovs with dpdk. However, while attaching a port to ovs netdev bridge as 
written in the getting started guide, I get the following error.

$ ovs-vsctl add-br br0 -- set bridge br0 datapath_type=netdev
$ ovs-vsctl add-port br0 brp1 -- set Interface  brp1 type=dpdk 
options:dpdk-devargs=0000:06:00.0

2018-08-08T10:09:33.136Z|00062|dpdk|ERR|EAL: Driver cannot attach the 
device (0000:06:00.0)
2018-08-08T10:09:33.136Z|00063|dpdk|ERR|EAL: No port found for device 
(0000:06:00.0)
2018-08-08T10:09:33.136Z|00064|netdev_dpdk|WARN|Error attaching device 
'0000:06:00.0' to DPDK
2018-08-08T10:09:33.136Z|00065|netdev|WARN|brp1: could not set 
configuration (Invalid argument)

I tried with 2.9.2 and dpdk 17.11.0, as well with dpdk 18 and ovs master 
(2.10).

I think the problem here is that I am trying to attach a physical 
interface to ovs bridge using its PCI address which is either not 
present or unsupported.

It will be really helpful if you can please provide inputs on how to use 
dpdk without a physical interface and the direction to troubleshoot 
above ovs error. I dont have any specific use-case as yet, but just want 
to dive deep into dpdk and start learning.

Many Thanks,
Sidhant Hasija