[dpdk-users] access to different ports on the same NIC by 2 DPDK applications

[Sudharshan Krishnakumar <sudhar.ckrishna@gmail.com>]

Hi All,

Have a Qs related to-> access to different ports on the same NIC by 2 DPDK
applications.



Setup: 4-Port 10 Gig NIC card with ports bound for DPDK usage.



With intel’s igb_uio kernel driver (used for binding NIC’s ports) using
dpdk-setup.sh, at the /dev level, I see 4 device paths created,

/dev/uio0, /dev/uio1, /dev/ui02, /dev/uio3



And I was able to run 2 DPDK applications concurrently(by blacklisting the
ports in EAL parameters), and they were able to take ownership of different
ports on the same NIC.

For example DPDK_APP1 can take access of ports->0,1 and DPDK_APP2 can take
access of ports->2,3.



Currently, I am using another DPDK app that relies on binding to VFIO
driver.



So I am trying to switch to binding NIC’s 4 ports to VFIO driver.



Enabled VTIO in BIOS and added intel_iommu=on in kernel boot-param in GRUB.



After binding all 4 ports to VFIO driver, using dpdk-setup,sh, at the /dev
level, I only see these 2 device paths created-> /dev/vfio/vfio(control
channel)

and /dev/vfio/1(essentially just 1 path).



I am able to run one DPDK application, for example-> PacketGen tool.

But not able to run 2 DPDK applications concurrently accessing different
ports on the same NIC, due to DPDK application not being able to get access
to the ports.

For example, if I launch DPDK_APP1 first, it can get access to the ports,
but DPDK_APP2 is NOT able to get access, and vice-versa.

Note that both apps are trying to access different ports on the same NIC,
and also ports have been black-listed as part of EAL params to the DPDK
apps.

I know this is possible with igb_uio driver.



Please let me know, if it is possible to do this when ports are bound to
VFIO driver.

Thanks,

Sudha