guides/eventdevs/dlb.rst

..  SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause
    Copyright(c) 2020 Intel Corporation.

Driver for the Intel® Dynamic Load Balancer (DLB)
=================================================

The DPDK dlb poll mode driver supports the Intel® Dynamic Load Balancer.

Prerequisites
-------------

Follow the DPDK :ref:`Getting Started Guide for Linux <linux_gsg>` to setup
the basic DPDK environment.

Configuration
-------------

The DLB PF PMD is a user-space PMD that uses VFIO to gain direct
device access. To use this operation mode, the PCIe PF device must be bound
to a DPDK-compatible VFIO driver, such as vfio-pci.

Eventdev API Notes
------------------

The DLB provides the functions of a DPDK event device; specifically, it
supports atomic, ordered, and parallel scheduling events from queues to ports.
However, the DLB hardware is not a perfect match to the eventdev API. Some DLB
features are abstracted by the PMD (e.g. directed ports), some are only
accessible as vdev command-line parameters, and certain eventdev features are
not supported (e.g. the event flow ID is not maintained during scheduling).

In general the dlb PMD is designed for ease-of-use and does not require a
detailed understanding of the hardware, but these details are important when
writing high-performance code. This section describes the places where the
eventdev API and DLB misalign.

Scheduling Domain Configuration
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There are 32 scheduling domainis the DLB.
When one is configured, it allocates load-balanced and
directed queues, ports, credits, and other hardware resources. Some
resource allocations are user-controlled -- the number of queues, for example
-- and others, like credit pools (one directed and one load-balanced pool per
scheduling domain), are not.

The DLB is a closed system eventdev, and as such the ``nb_events_limit`` device
setup argument and the per-port ``new_event_threshold`` argument apply as
defined in the eventdev header file. The limit is applied to all enqueues,
regardless of whether it will consume a directed or load-balanced credit.

Reconfiguration
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Eventdev API allows one to reconfigure a device, its ports, and its queues
by first stopping the device, calling the configuration function(s), then
restarting the device. The DLB does not support configuring an individual queue
or port without first reconfiguring the entire device, however, so there are
certain reconfiguration sequences that are valid in the eventdev API but not
supported by the PMD.

Specifically, the PMD supports the following configuration sequence:
1. Configure and start the device
2. Stop the device
3. (Optional) Reconfigure the device
4. (Optional) If step 3 is run:

   a. Setup queue(s). The reconfigured queue(s) lose their previous port links.
   b. The reconfigured port(s) lose their previous queue links.

5. (Optional, only if steps 4a and 4b are run) Link port(s) to queue(s)
6. Restart the device. If the device is reconfigured in step 3 but one or more
   of its ports or queues are not, the PMD will apply their previous
   configuration (including port->queue links) at this time.

The PMD does not support the following configuration sequences:
1. Configure and start the device
2. Stop the device
3. Setup queue or setup port
4. Start the device

This sequence is not supported because the event device must be reconfigured
before its ports or queues can be.

Load-Balanced Queues
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A load-balanced queue can support atomic and ordered scheduling, or atomic and
unordered scheduling, but not atomic and unordered and ordered scheduling. A
queue's scheduling types are controlled by the event queue configuration.

If the user sets the ``RTE_EVENT_QUEUE_CFG_ALL_TYPES`` flag, the
``nb_atomic_order_sequences`` determines the supported scheduling types.
With non-zero ``nb_atomic_order_sequences``, the queue is configured for atomic
and ordered scheduling. In this case, ``RTE_SCHED_TYPE_PARALLEL`` scheduling is
supported by scheduling those events as ordered events.  Note that when the
event is dequeued, its sched_type will be ``RTE_SCHED_TYPE_ORDERED``. Else if
``nb_atomic_order_sequences`` is zero, the queue is configured for atomic and
unordered scheduling. In this case, ``RTE_SCHED_TYPE_ORDERED`` is unsupported.

If the ``RTE_EVENT_QUEUE_CFG_ALL_TYPES`` flag is not set, schedule_type
dictates the queue's scheduling type.

The ``nb_atomic_order_sequences`` queue configuration field sets the ordered
queue's reorder buffer size.  DLB has 4 groups of ordered queues, where each
group is configured to contain either 1 queue with 1024 reorder entries, 2
queues with 512 reorder entries, and so on down to 32 queues with 32 entries.

When a load-balanced queue is created, the PMD will configure a new sequence
number group on-demand if num_sequence_numbers does not match a pre-existing
group with available reorder buffer entries. If all sequence number groups are
in use, no new group will be created and queue configuration will fail. (Note
that when the PMD is used with a virtual DLB device, it cannot change the
sequence number configuration.)

The queue's ``nb_atomic_flows`` parameter is ignored by the DLB PMD, because
the DLB does not limit the number of flows a queue can track. In the DLB, all
load-balanced queues can use the full 16-bit flow ID range.

Load-balanced and Directed Ports
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DLB ports come in two flavors: load-balanced and directed. The eventdev API
does not have the same concept, but it has a similar one: ports and queues that
are singly-linked (i.e. linked to a single queue or port, respectively).

The ``rte_event_dev_info_get()`` function reports the number of available
event ports and queues (among other things). For the DLB PMD, max_event_ports
and max_event_queues report the number of available load-balanced ports and
queues, and max_single_link_event_port_queue_pairs reports the number of
available directed ports and queues.

When a scheduling domain is created in ``rte_event_dev_configure()``, the user
specifies ``nb_event_ports`` and ``nb_single_link_event_port_queues``, which
control the total number of ports (load-balanced and directed) and the number
of directed ports. Hence, the number of requested load-balanced ports is
``nb_event_ports - nb_single_link_event_ports``. The ``nb_event_queues`` field
specifies the total number of queues (load-balanced and directed). The number
of directed queues comes from ``nb_single_link_event_port_queues``, since
directed ports and queues come in pairs.

When a port is setup, the ``RTE_EVENT_PORT_CFG_SINGLE_LINK`` flag determines
whether it should be configured as a directed (the flag is set) or a
load-balanced (the flag is unset) port. Similarly, the
``RTE_EVENT_QUEUE_CFG_SINGLE_LINK`` queue configuration flag controls
whether it is a directed or load-balanced queue.

Load-balanced ports can only be linked to load-balanced queues, and directed
ports can only be linked to directed queues. Furthermore, directed ports can
only be linked to a single directed queue (and vice versa), and that link
cannot change after the eventdev is started.

The eventdev API does not have a directed scheduling type. To support directed
traffic, the dlb PMD detects when an event is being sent to a directed queue
and overrides its scheduling type. Note that the originally selected scheduling
type (atomic, ordered, or parallel) is not preserved, and an event's sched_type
will be set to ``RTE_SCHED_TYPE_ATOMIC`` when it is dequeued from a directed
port.

Flow ID
~~~~~~~

The flow ID field is not preserved in the event when it is scheduled in the
DLB, because the DLB hardware control word format does not have sufficient
space to preserve every event field. As a result, the flow ID specified with
the enqueued event will not be in the dequeued event. If this field is
required, the application should pass it through an out-of-band path (for
example in the mbuf's udata64 field, if the event points to an mbuf) or
reconstruct the flow ID after receiving the event.

Also, the DLB hardware control word supports a 16-bit flow ID. Since struct
rte_event's flow_id field is 20 bits, the DLB PMD drops the most significant
four bits from the event's flow ID.

Hardware Credits
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DLB uses a hardware credit scheme to prevent software from overflowing hardware
event storage, with each unit of storage represented by a credit. A port spends
a credit to enqueue an event, and hardware refills the ports with credits as the
events are scheduled to ports. Refills come from credit pools, and each port is
a member of a load-balanced credit pool and a directed credit pool. The
load-balanced credits are used to enqueue to load-balanced queues, and directed
credits are used for directed queues.

A DLB eventdev contains one load-balanced and one directed credit pool. These
pools' sizes are controlled by the nb_events_limit field in struct
rte_event_dev_config. The load-balanced pool is sized to contain
nb_events_limit credits, and the directed pool is sized to contain
nb_events_limit/4 credits. The directed pool size can be overridden with the
num_dir_credits vdev argument, like so:

    .. code-block:: console

       --vdev=dlb1_event,num_dir_credits=<value>

This can be used if the default allocation is too low or too high for the
specific application needs. The PMD also supports a vdev arg that limits the
max_num_events reported by rte_event_dev_info_get():

    .. code-block:: console

       --vdev=dlb1_event,max_num_events=<value>

By default, max_num_events is reported as the total available load-balanced
credits. If multiple DLB-based applications are being used, it may be desirable
to control how many load-balanced credits each application uses, particularly
when application(s) are written to configure nb_events_limit equal to the
reported max_num_events.

Each port is a member of both credit pools. A port's credit allocation is
defined by its low watermark, high watermark, and refill quanta. These three
parameters are calculated by the dlb PMD like so:

- The load-balanced high watermark is set to the port's enqueue_depth.
  The directed high watermark is set to the minimum of the enqueue_depth and
  the directed pool size divided by the total number of ports.
- The refill quanta is set to half the high watermark.
- The low watermark is set to the minimum of 16 and the refill quanta.

When the eventdev is started, each port is pre-allocated a high watermark's
worth of credits. For example, if an eventdev contains four ports with enqueue
depths of 32 and a load-balanced credit pool size of 4096, each port will start
with 32 load-balanced credits, and there will be 3968 credits available to
replenish the ports. Thus, a single port is not capable of enqueueing up to the
nb_events_limit (without any events being dequeued), since the other ports are
retaining their initial credit allocation; in short, all ports must enqueue in
order to reach the limit.

If a port attempts to enqueue and has no credits available, the enqueue
operation will fail and the application must retry the enqueue. Credits are
replenished asynchronously by the DLB hardware.

Software Credits
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The DLB is a "closed system" event dev, and the DLB PMD layers a software
credit scheme on top of the hardware credit scheme in order to comply with
the per-port backpressure described in the eventdev API.

The DLB's hardware scheme is local to a queue/pipeline stage: a port spends a
credit when it enqueues to a queue, and credits are later replenished after the
events are dequeued and released.

In the software credit scheme, a credit is consumed when a new (.op =
RTE_EVENT_OP_NEW) event is injected into the system, and the credit is
replenished when the event is released from the system (either explicitly with
RTE_EVENT_OP_RELEASE or implicitly in dequeue_burst()).

In this model, an event is "in the system" from its first enqueue into eventdev
until it is last dequeued. If the event goes through multiple event queues, it
is still considered "in the system" while a worker thread is processing it.

A port will fail to enqueue if the number of events in the system exceeds its
``new_event_threshold`` (specified at port setup time). A port will also fail
to enqueue if it lacks enough hardware credits to enqueue; load-balanced
credits are used to enqueue to a load-balanced queue, and directed credits are
used to enqueue to a directed queue.

The out-of-credit situations are typically transient, and an eventdev
application using the DLB ought to retry its enqueues if they fail.
If enqueue fails, DLB PMD sets rte_errno as follows:

- -ENOSPC: Credit exhaustion (either hardware or software)
- -EINVAL: Invalid argument, such as port ID, queue ID, or sched_type.

Depending on the pipeline the application has constructed, it's possible to
enter a credit deadlock scenario wherein the worker thread lacks the credit
to enqueue an event, and it must dequeue an event before it can recover the
credit. If the worker thread retries its enqueue indefinitely, it will not
make forward progress. Such deadlock is possible if the application has event
"loops", in which an event in dequeued from queue A and later enqueued back to
queue A.

Due to this, workers should stop retrying after a time, release the events it
is attempting to enqueue, and dequeue more events. It is important that the
worker release the events and don't simply set them aside to retry the enqueue
again later, because the port has limited history list size (by default, twice
the port's dequeue_depth).

Priority
~~~~~~~~

The DLB supports event priority and per-port queue service priority, as
described in the eventdev header file. The DLB does not support 'global' event
queue priority established at queue creation time.

DLB supports 8 event and queue service priority levels. For both priority
types, the PMD uses the upper three bits of the priority field to determine the
DLB priority, discarding the 5 least significant bits. The 5 least significant
event priority bits are not preserved when an event is enqueued.

Atomic Inflights Allocation
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the last stage prior to scheduling an atomic event to a CQ, DLB holds the
inflight event in a temporary buffer that is divided among load-balanced
queues. If a queue's atomic buffer storage fills up, this can result in
head-of-line-blocking. For example:

- An LDB queue allocated N atomic buffer entries
- All N entries are filled with events from flow X, which is pinned to CQ 0.

Until CQ 0 releases 1+ events, no other atomic flows for that LDB queue can be
scheduled. The likelihood of this case depends on the eventdev configuration,
traffic behavior, event processing latency, potential for a worker to be
interrupted or otherwise delayed, etc.

By default, the PMD allocates 16 buffer entries for each load-balanced queue,
which provides an even division across all 128 queues but potentially wastes
buffer space (e.g. if not all queues are used, or aren't used for atomic
scheduling).

The PMD provides a dev arg to override the default per-queue allocation. To
increase a vdev's per-queue atomic-inflight allocation to (for example) 64:

    .. code-block:: console

       --vdev=dlb1_event,atm_inflights=64

Deferred Scheduling
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The DLB PMD's default behavior for managing a CQ is to "pop" the CQ once per
dequeued event before returning from rte_event_dequeue_burst(). This frees the
corresponding entries in the CQ, which enables the DLB to schedule more events
to it.

To support applications seeking finer-grained scheduling control -- for example
deferring scheduling to get the best possible priority scheduling and
load-balancing -- the PMD supports a deferred scheduling mode. In this mode,
the CQ entry is not popped until the *subsequent* rte_event_dequeue_burst()
call. This mode only applies to load-balanced event ports with dequeue depth of
1.

To enable deferred scheduling, use the defer_sched vdev argument like so:

    .. code-block:: console

       --vdev=dlb1_event,defer_sched=on