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+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause
+ Copyright(c) 2010-2014 Intel Corporation.
+
+.. _multi_process_app:
+
+Multi-process Sample Application
+================================
+
+This chapter describes the example applications for multi-processing that are included in the DPDK.
+
+Example Applications
+--------------------
+
+Building the Sample Applications
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+The multi-process example applications are built in the same way as other sample applications,
+and as documented in the *DPDK Getting Started Guide*.
+
+
+To compile the sample application see :doc:`compiling`.
+
+The applications are located in the ``multi_process`` sub-directory.
+
+.. note::
+
+ If just a specific multi-process application needs to be built,
+ the final make command can be run just in that application's directory,
+ rather than at the top-level multi-process directory.
+
+Basic Multi-process Example
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+The examples/simple_mp folder in the DPDK release contains a basic example application to demonstrate how
+two DPDK processes can work together using queues and memory pools to share information.
+
+Running the Application
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+To run the application, start one copy of the simple_mp binary in one terminal,
+passing at least two cores in the coremask/corelist, as follows:
+
+.. code-block:: console
+
+ ./build/simple_mp -l 0-1 -n 4 --proc-type=primary
+
+For the first DPDK process run, the proc-type flag can be omitted or set to auto,
+since all DPDK processes will default to being a primary instance,
+meaning they have control over the hugepage shared memory regions.
+The process should start successfully and display a command prompt as follows:
+
+.. code-block:: console
+
+ $ ./build/simple_mp -l 0-1 -n 4 --proc-type=primary
+ EAL: coremask set to 3
+ EAL: Detected lcore 0 on socket 0
+ EAL: Detected lcore 1 on socket 0
+ EAL: Detected lcore 2 on socket 0
+ EAL: Detected lcore 3 on socket 0
+ ...
+
+ EAL: Requesting 2 pages of size 1073741824
+ EAL: Requesting 768 pages of size 2097152
+ EAL: Ask a virtual area of 0x40000000 bytes
+ EAL: Virtual area found at 0x7ff200000000 (size = 0x40000000)
+ ...
+
+ EAL: check igb_uio module
+ EAL: check module finished
+ EAL: Master core 0 is ready (tid=54e41820)
+ EAL: Core 1 is ready (tid=53b32700)
+
+ Starting core 1
+
+ simple_mp >
+
+To run the secondary process to communicate with the primary process,
+again run the same binary setting at least two cores in the coremask/corelist:
+
+.. code-block:: console
+
+ ./build/simple_mp -l 2-3 -n 4 --proc-type=secondary
+
+When running a secondary process such as that shown above, the proc-type parameter can again be specified as auto.
+However, omitting the parameter altogether will cause the process to try and start as a primary rather than secondary process.
+
+Once the process type is specified correctly,
+the process starts up, displaying largely similar status messages to the primary instance as it initializes.
+Once again, you will be presented with a command prompt.
+
+Once both processes are running, messages can be sent between them using the send command.
+At any stage, either process can be terminated using the quit command.
+
+.. code-block:: console
+
+ EAL: Master core 10 is ready (tid=b5f89820) EAL: Master core 8 is ready (tid=864a3820)
+ EAL: Core 11 is ready (tid=84ffe700) EAL: Core 9 is ready (tid=85995700)
+ Starting core 11 Starting core 9
+ simple_mp > send hello_secondary simple_mp > core 9: Received 'hello_secondary'
+ simple_mp > core 11: Received 'hello_primary' simple_mp > send hello_primary
+ simple_mp > quit simple_mp > quit
+
+.. note::
+
+ If the primary instance is terminated, the secondary instance must also be shut-down and restarted after the primary.
+ This is necessary because the primary instance will clear and reset the shared memory regions on startup,
+ invalidating the secondary process's pointers.
+ The secondary process can be stopped and restarted without affecting the primary process.
+
+How the Application Works
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+The core of this example application is based on using two queues and a single memory pool in shared memory.
+These three objects are created at startup by the primary process,
+since the secondary process cannot create objects in memory as it cannot reserve memory zones,
+and the secondary process then uses lookup functions to attach to these objects as it starts up.
+
+.. code-block:: c
+
+ if (rte_eal_process_type() == RTE_PROC_PRIMARY){
+ send_ring = rte_ring_create(_PRI_2_SEC, ring_size, SOCKET0, flags);
+ recv_ring = rte_ring_create(_SEC_2_PRI, ring_size, SOCKET0, flags);
+ message_pool = rte_mempool_create(_MSG_POOL, pool_size, string_size, pool_cache, priv_data_sz, NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL, SOCKET0, flags);
+ } else {
+ recv_ring = rte_ring_lookup(_PRI_2_SEC);
+ send_ring = rte_ring_lookup(_SEC_2_PRI);
+ message_pool = rte_mempool_lookup(_MSG_POOL);
+ }
+
+Note, however, that the named ring structure used as send_ring in the primary process is the recv_ring in the secondary process.
+
+Once the rings and memory pools are all available in both the primary and secondary processes,
+the application simply dedicates two threads to sending and receiving messages respectively.
+The receive thread simply dequeues any messages on the receive ring, prints them,
+and frees the buffer space used by the messages back to the memory pool.
+The send thread makes use of the command-prompt library to interactively request user input for messages to send.
+Once a send command is issued by the user, a buffer is allocated from the memory pool, filled in with the message contents,
+then enqueued on the appropriate rte_ring.
+
+Symmetric Multi-process Example
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+The second example of DPDK multi-process support demonstrates how a set of processes can run in parallel,
+with each process performing the same set of packet- processing operations.
+(Since each process is identical in functionality to the others,
+we refer to this as symmetric multi-processing, to differentiate it from asymmetric multi- processing -
+such as a client-server mode of operation seen in the next example,
+where different processes perform different tasks, yet co-operate to form a packet-processing system.)
+The following diagram shows the data-flow through the application, using two processes.
+
+.. _figure_sym_multi_proc_app:
+
+.. figure:: img/sym_multi_proc_app.*
+
+ Example Data Flow in a Symmetric Multi-process Application
+
+
+As the diagram shows, each process reads packets from each of the network ports in use.
+RSS is used to distribute incoming packets on each port to different hardware RX queues.
+Each process reads a different RX queue on each port and so does not contend with any other process for that queue access.
+Similarly, each process writes outgoing packets to a different TX queue on each port.
+
+Running the Application
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+As with the simple_mp example, the first instance of the symmetric_mp process must be run as the primary instance,
+though with a number of other application- specific parameters also provided after the EAL arguments.
+These additional parameters are:
+
+* -p <portmask>, where portmask is a hexadecimal bitmask of what ports on the system are to be used.
+ For example: -p 3 to use ports 0 and 1 only.
+
+* --num-procs <N>, where N is the total number of symmetric_mp instances that will be run side-by-side to perform packet processing.
+ This parameter is used to configure the appropriate number of receive queues on each network port.
+
+* --proc-id <n>, where n is a numeric value in the range 0 <= n < N (number of processes, specified above).
+ This identifies which symmetric_mp instance is being run, so that each process can read a unique receive queue on each network port.
+
+The secondary symmetric_mp instances must also have these parameters specified,
+and the first two must be the same as those passed to the primary instance, or errors result.
+
+For example, to run a set of four symmetric_mp instances, running on lcores 1-4,
+all performing level-2 forwarding of packets between ports 0 and 1,
+the following commands can be used (assuming run as root):
+
+.. code-block:: console
+
+ # ./build/symmetric_mp -l 1 -n 4 --proc-type=auto -- -p 3 --num-procs=4 --proc-id=0
+ # ./build/symmetric_mp -l 2 -n 4 --proc-type=auto -- -p 3 --num-procs=4 --proc-id=1
+ # ./build/symmetric_mp -l 3 -n 4 --proc-type=auto -- -p 3 --num-procs=4 --proc-id=2
+ # ./build/symmetric_mp -l 4 -n 4 --proc-type=auto -- -p 3 --num-procs=4 --proc-id=3
+
+.. note::
+
+ In the above example, the process type can be explicitly specified as primary or secondary, rather than auto.
+ When using auto, the first process run creates all the memory structures needed for all processes -
+ irrespective of whether it has a proc-id of 0, 1, 2 or 3.
+
+.. note::
+
+ For the symmetric multi-process example, since all processes work in the same manner,
+ once the hugepage shared memory and the network ports are initialized,
+ it is not necessary to restart all processes if the primary instance dies.
+ Instead, that process can be restarted as a secondary,
+ by explicitly setting the proc-type to secondary on the command line.
+ (All subsequent instances launched will also need this explicitly specified,
+ as auto-detection will detect no primary processes running and therefore attempt to re-initialize shared memory.)
+
+How the Application Works
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+The initialization calls in both the primary and secondary instances are the same for the most part,
+calling the rte_eal_init(), 1 G and 10 G driver initialization and then probing devices.
+Thereafter, the initialization done depends on whether the process is configured as a primary or secondary instance.
+
+In the primary instance, a memory pool is created for the packet mbufs and the network ports to be used are initialized -
+the number of RX and TX queues per port being determined by the num-procs parameter passed on the command-line.
+The structures for the initialized network ports are stored in shared memory and
+therefore will be accessible by the secondary process as it initializes.
+
+.. code-block:: c
+
+ if (num_ports & 1)
+ rte_exit(EXIT_FAILURE, "Application must use an even number of ports\n");
+
+ for(i = 0; i < num_ports; i++){
+ if(proc_type == RTE_PROC_PRIMARY)
+ if (smp_port_init(ports[i], mp, (uint16_t)num_procs) < 0)
+ rte_exit(EXIT_FAILURE, "Error initializing ports\n");
+ }
+
+In the secondary instance, rather than initializing the network ports, the port information exported by the primary process is used,
+giving the secondary process access to the hardware and software rings for each network port.
+Similarly, the memory pool of mbufs is accessed by doing a lookup for it by name:
+
+.. code-block:: c
+
+ mp = (proc_type == RTE_PROC_SECONDARY) ? rte_mempool_lookup(_SMP_MBUF_POOL) : rte_mempool_create(_SMP_MBUF_POOL, NB_MBUFS, MBUF_SIZE, ... )
+
+Once this initialization is complete, the main loop of each process, both primary and secondary,
+is exactly the same - each process reads from each port using the queue corresponding to its proc-id parameter,
+and writes to the corresponding transmit queue on the output port.
+
+Client-Server Multi-process Example
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+The third example multi-process application included with the DPDK shows how one can
+use a client-server type multi-process design to do packet processing.
+In this example, a single server process performs the packet reception from the ports being used and
+distributes these packets using round-robin ordering among a set of client processes,
+which perform the actual packet processing.
+In this case, the client applications just perform level-2 forwarding of packets by sending each packet out on a different network port.
+
+The following diagram shows the data-flow through the application, using two client processes.
+
+.. _figure_client_svr_sym_multi_proc_app:
+
+.. figure:: img/client_svr_sym_multi_proc_app.*
+
+ Example Data Flow in a Client-Server Symmetric Multi-process Application
+
+
+Running the Application
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+The server process must be run initially as the primary process to set up all memory structures for use by the clients.
+In addition to the EAL parameters, the application- specific parameters are:
+
+* -p <portmask >, where portmask is a hexadecimal bitmask of what ports on the system are to be used.
+ For example: -p 3 to use ports 0 and 1 only.
+
+* -n <num-clients>, where the num-clients parameter is the number of client processes that will process the packets received
+ by the server application.
+
+.. note::
+
+ In the server process, a single thread, the master thread, that is, the lowest numbered lcore in the coremask/corelist, performs all packet I/O.
+ If a coremask/corelist is specified with more than a single lcore bit set in it,
+ an additional lcore will be used for a thread to periodically print packet count statistics.
+
+Since the server application stores configuration data in shared memory, including the network ports to be used,
+the only application parameter needed by a client process is its client instance ID.
+Therefore, to run a server application on lcore 1 (with lcore 2 printing statistics) along with two client processes running on lcores 3 and 4,
+the following commands could be used:
+
+.. code-block:: console
+
+ # ./mp_server/build/mp_server -l 1-2 -n 4 -- -p 3 -n 2
+ # ./mp_client/build/mp_client -l 3 -n 4 --proc-type=auto -- -n 0
+ # ./mp_client/build/mp_client -l 4 -n 4 --proc-type=auto -- -n 1
+
+.. note::
+
+ If the server application dies and needs to be restarted, all client applications also need to be restarted,
+ as there is no support in the server application for it to run as a secondary process.
+ Any client processes that need restarting can be restarted without affecting the server process.
+
+How the Application Works
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+The server process performs the network port and data structure initialization much as the symmetric multi-process application does when run as primary.
+One additional enhancement in this sample application is that the server process stores its port configuration data in a memory zone in hugepage shared memory.
+This eliminates the need for the client processes to have the portmask parameter passed into them on the command line,
+as is done for the symmetric multi-process application, and therefore eliminates mismatched parameters as a potential source of errors.
+
+In the same way that the server process is designed to be run as a primary process instance only,
+the client processes are designed to be run as secondary instances only.
+They have no code to attempt to create shared memory objects.
+Instead, handles to all needed rings and memory pools are obtained via calls to rte_ring_lookup() and rte_mempool_lookup().
+The network ports for use by the processes are obtained by loading the network port drivers and probing the PCI bus,
+which will, as in the symmetric multi-process example,
+automatically get access to the network ports using the settings already configured by the primary/server process.
+
+Once all applications are initialized, the server operates by reading packets from each network port in turn and
+distributing those packets to the client queues (software rings, one for each client process) in round-robin order.
+On the client side, the packets are read from the rings in as big of bursts as possible, then routed out to a different network port.
+The routing used is very simple. All packets received on the first NIC port are transmitted back out on the second port and vice versa.
+Similarly, packets are routed between the 3rd and 4th network ports and so on.
+The sending of packets is done by writing the packets directly to the network ports; they are not transferred back via the server process.
+
+In both the server and the client processes, outgoing packets are buffered before being sent,
+so as to allow the sending of multiple packets in a single burst to improve efficiency.
+For example, the client process will buffer packets to send,
+until either the buffer is full or until we receive no further packets from the server.