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diff --git a/Documentation/networking/multiqueue.txt b/Documentation/networking/multiqueue.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000..4caa0e314 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/networking/multiqueue.txt @@ -0,0 +1,79 @@ + + HOWTO for multiqueue network device support + =========================================== + +Section 1: Base driver requirements for implementing multiqueue support + +Intro: Kernel support for multiqueue devices +--------------------------------------------------------- + +Kernel support for multiqueue devices is always present. + +Section 1: Base driver requirements for implementing multiqueue support +----------------------------------------------------------------------- + +Base drivers are required to use the new alloc_etherdev_mq() or +alloc_netdev_mq() functions to allocate the subqueues for the device. The +underlying kernel API will take care of the allocation and deallocation of +the subqueue memory, as well as netdev configuration of where the queues +exist in memory. + +The base driver will also need to manage the queues as it does the global +netdev->queue_lock today. Therefore base drivers should use the +netif_{start|stop|wake}_subqueue() functions to manage each queue while the +device is still operational. netdev->queue_lock is still used when the device +comes online or when it's completely shut down (unregister_netdev(), etc.). + + +Section 2: Qdisc support for multiqueue devices + +----------------------------------------------- + +Currently two qdiscs are optimized for multiqueue devices. The first is the +default pfifo_fast qdisc. This qdisc supports one qdisc per hardware queue. +A new round-robin qdisc, sch_multiq also supports multiple hardware queues. The +qdisc is responsible for classifying the skb's and then directing the skb's to +bands and queues based on the value in skb->queue_mapping. Use this field in +the base driver to determine which queue to send the skb to. + +sch_multiq has been added for hardware that wishes to avoid head-of-line +blocking. It will cycle though the bands and verify that the hardware queue +associated with the band is not stopped prior to dequeuing a packet. + +On qdisc load, the number of bands is based on the number of queues on the +hardware. Once the association is made, any skb with skb->queue_mapping set, +will be queued to the band associated with the hardware queue. + + +Section 3: Brief howto using MULTIQ for multiqueue devices +--------------------------------------------------------------- + +The userspace command 'tc,' part of the iproute2 package, is used to configure +qdiscs. To add the MULTIQ qdisc to your network device, assuming the device +is called eth0, run the following command: + +# tc qdisc add dev eth0 root handle 1: multiq + +The qdisc will allocate the number of bands to equal the number of queues that +the device reports, and bring the qdisc online. Assuming eth0 has 4 Tx +queues, the band mapping would look like: + +band 0 => queue 0 +band 1 => queue 1 +band 2 => queue 2 +band 3 => queue 3 + +Traffic will begin flowing through each queue based on either the simple_tx_hash +function or based on netdev->select_queue() if you have it defined. + +The behavior of tc filters remains the same. However a new tc action, +skbedit, has been added. Assuming you wanted to route all traffic to a +specific host, for example 192.168.0.3, through a specific queue you could use +this action and establish a filter such as: + +tc filter add dev eth0 parent 1: protocol ip prio 1 u32 \ + match ip dst 192.168.0.3 \ + action skbedit queue_mapping 3 + +Author: Alexander Duyck <alexander.h.duyck@intel.com> +Original Author: Peter P. Waskiewicz Jr. <peter.p.waskiewicz.jr@intel.com> |