[dpdk-users] filtering IPv6 packets in hardware

[dpdk-users] filtering IPv6 packets in hardware

[Cody Doucette]

I'm trying to filter IPv6 packets to different queues in hardware using
ixgbe. It looks like the ntuple filter does not support IPv6 source and
destination addresses, and the flow director only accepts one packet mask
across all rules.

However, sometimes I need to filter packets based on just the destination,
and sometimes I need to filter packets based on the source *and* the
destination. I also need to be able to add rules of different prefix
lengths for both the source and destination addresses.

Has anyone encountered this problem before? Any tips on how I could make
this work -- or even suggestions for better hardware?

Thanks!
Cody

Re: [dpdk-users] filtering IPv6 packets in hardware

[Matthew Hall]

On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 12:06:25PM -0400, Cody Doucette wrote:
> Has anyone encountered this problem before? Any tips on how I could make
> this work -- or even suggestions for better hardware?

In general these problems are very commonplace among the community members. We 
have had many painful discussions on these topics since you only get 9.6 
nanoseconds and only so many opcodes to handle each new frame.

>From the software side the distributor framework could help.

>From the hardware side you have to read all of the data sheets for the chips 
supported by each PMD to find the chip with the right features for your use 
case.

> Thanks!
> Cody

Matthew.

Re: [dpdk-users] filtering IPv6 packets in hardware

[Mcnamara, John]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: users [mailto:users-bounces@dpdk.org] On Behalf Of Cody Doucette
> Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2016 5:06 PM
> To: users@dpdk.org
> Subject: [dpdk-users] filtering IPv6 packets in hardware
> 
> ... and the flow director only accepts one packet mask
> across all rules.

Are you sure about that? What NIC are you using?

John

Re: [dpdk-users] filtering IPv6 packets in hardware

[Cody Doucette]

John,


> Are you sure about that? What NIC are you using?


I'm using the Intel 82599. I saw this in the datasheet regarding Flow
Director:

"The 82599 supports masking / range for the previously described fields.
These masks are defined globally for all filters in the FDIR…M register."

Additionally, on the DPDK side, you can only specify the bit masks for Flow
Director once, when invoking rte_eth_dev_configure(). When adding an
individual filter via struct rte_eth_fdir_filter, there is no option to
apply a mask.

If this understanding is wrong, please let me know. (I hope it is!)

Matthew,

Thanks for the information -- I will look through those painful discussions
and the techniques you suggested.

Cody