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README.rst

FreeBSD kernel driver for Elastic Network Adapter (ENA) family

Version

2.8.0

Supported FreeBSD Versions

amd64

  • FreeBSD 12 - starting from rS3091111
  • FreeBSD 13
  • FreeBSD 14
  • FreeBSD 15

aarch64

  • FreeBSD stable/12 - starting from r345872
  • FreeBSD 13 - starting from r345371
  • FreeBSD 14
  • FreeBSD 15

Overview

ENA is a networking interface designed to make good use of modern CPU features and system architectures.

The ENA device exposes a lightweight management interface with a minimal set of memory mapped registers and extendable command set through an Admin Queue.

The driver supports a range of ENA devices, is link-speed independent (i.e., the same driver is used for 10GbE, 25GbE, 40GbE, etc.), and has a negotiated and extendable feature set.

Some ENA devices support SR-IOV. This driver is used for both the SR-IOV Physical Function (PF) and Virtual Function (VF) devices.

ENA devices enable high speed and low overhead network traffic processing by providing multiple Tx/Rx queue pairs (the maximum number is advertised by the device via the Admin Queue), a dedicated MSI-X interrupt vector per Tx/Rx queue pair, and CPU cacheline optimized data placement.

When RSS is enabled, each Tx/Rx queue pair is bound to a corresponding CPU core and its NUMA domain. The order of those bindings is based on the RSS bucket mapping. For builds with RSS support disabled, the CPU and NUMA management is left to the kernel. CPU and NUMA management are only supported on FreeBSD 12 or newer. Receive-side scaling (RSS) is supported for multi-core scaling.

The ENA driver and its corresponding devices implement health monitoring mechanisms such as watchdog, enabling the device and driver to recover in a manner transparent to the application, as well as debug logs.

Some of the ENA devices support a working mode called Low-latency Queue (LLQ), which saves several more microseconds.

Driver compilation

Prerequisites

In order to build and run standalone driver system, the OS sources corresponding to currently installed OS version are required.

Depending on user configuration the sources retrieval process may vary, however, on a fresh installation on EC2 instance, the necessary steps may look like shown below (some may require super user privileges).

When using the latest kernel, the git tool should be used instead of the subversion tool, as the svn support has been dropped by the FreeBSD project. Still, some AWS AMIs could be relying on subversion kernel, so sometimes it's more convenient to use it in order to get the right kernel. In that situation, please refer to the "Subversion - legacy" section in this file. In all other cases, please go to the "Git" section.

Git

pkg install git

# ---- Get the sources for the current installation. ----
# Getting sources may vary between system versions. The resources need
# to be adjusted accordingly. Some of the examples can be found below.

# For stable 12:
git clone https://git.FreeBSD.org/src.git /usr/src --single-branch --branch stable/12

# For release (FreeBSD 12.1)
git clone https://git.FreeBSD.org/src.git /usr/src --single-branch --branch releng/12.1

# For CURRENT (unstable)
git clone https://git.FreeBSD.org/src.git /usr/src --single-branch --branch main

# To get the version of the running kernel, the command below should be used:
uname -a
# Sample output:
#   FreeBSD <host> 14.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 14.0-CURRENT #0 main-n246975-8d5c7813061: <current_date>
# Where:
#   - 'main' stands for the branch name (this should be used as argument to
#     the '--branch' parameter in the git clone command
#   - 'n246975' stands for the sequential commit number in the branch
#   - '8d5c7813061' stands for the explicit commit ID from which the kernel
#     was built. After cloning the development branch, one should checkout to
#     this commit to be fully aligned with the running kernel.

# In this example, we need to pull kernel tree on the 'main' branch and
# checkout the commit with ID '8d5c7813061'. It can be achieved with the
# commands below:
git clone https://git.FreeBSD.org/src.git /usr/src --single-branch --branch main
cd /usr/src
git checkout 8d5c7813061

# If the command output is lacking the commit and branch information, then
# just the releng branch with the visible FreeBDS version should be used -
# like releng/13.0, releng/12.2 etc.

Subversion - legacy

pkg install subversion
mkdir /usr/src

# ---- Get sources for the current installation. ----
# This step may require accepting certificate.
# Getting sources may vary between system versions. The resources need
# to be adjusted accordingly. Some of the examples can be found below.

# For stable:
svn checkout https://svn.freebsd.org/base/stable/12/ /usr/src

# For release (FreeBSD 12.1)
svn checkout https://svn.freebsd.org/base/releng/12.1/ /usr/src

# For -CURRENT (unstable)
svn checkout https://svn.freebsd.org/base/head /usr/src

# To get the version of the running kernel, the command below should be used:
uname -a
# Sample output:
# FreeBSD <host> 12.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 12.0-CURRENT #0 r316750: <current_date>
# r316750 is indicating revision of current kernel

# In this example, we have to pull kernel tree with revision r316750 from the
# head:
svn checkout -r316750 https://svn.freebsd.org/base/head /usr/src
# r316750 must be changed to the revision number from the 'uname -a' output

Compilation

Run make in the amzn-drivers/kernel/fbsd/ena/ directory. As a result of compilation if_ena.ko kernel module file is created in the same directory.

Driver installation

Loading the driver

kldload ./if_ena.ko

Automatic driver start upon OS boot

vi /boot/loader.conf
# insert 'if_ena_load="YES"' in the above file

cp if_ena.ko /boot/modules/
sync; sleep 30;

Then restart the OS (reboot and reconnect).

Driver update - if the kernel was built with ENA

vi /boot/loader.conf
# insert 'if_ena_load="YES"' in the above file

cp if_ena.ko /boot/modules/

# remove old module
rm /boot/kernel/if_ena.ko
sync; sleep 30;

Then restart the OS (reboot and reconnect).

Driver tunables

The driver's behavior can be changed using run-time or boot-time sysctl arguments.

Boot-time arguments

The boot-time arguments can be changed in the /boot/loader.conf file (must be edited as a root). To make them go live, the system must be rebooted.

Use 9k mbufs for the Rx descriptors

Node:
hw.ena.enable_9k_mbufs
Scope:
Global for all drivers
Input values:
(0|1)
Default value:
0
Description:

If the node value is set to 1, the 9k mbufs will be used for the Rx buffers. If set to 0, the page size mbufs will be used instead.

Using 9k buffers for Rx can improve Rx throughput, but in low memory conditions it might increase allocation time, as the system has to look for 3 contiguous pages. This can further lead to OS instability, together with ENA driver reset and NVMe timeouts.

If network performance is critical and memory capacity are sufficient, the 9k mbufs can be used.

Force the driver to use large LLQ headers

Node:
hw.ena.force_large_llq_header
Scope:
Global for all drivers
Input values:
(0|1|2)
Default value:
2
Description:

If the node value is set to 0, regular LLQ header size which is 96B will be used. In some cases, the packet header can be bigger than 96 (for example - IPv6 with multiple extensions). If the node value is set to 1, large LLQ header size which is 224B will be used. If the node value is set to 2, the recommended LLQ header size will be used.

Using large LLQ header size will take effect only if the device supports both LLQ and large LLQ headers. Otherwise, it will fallback to the no LLQ mode or regular header size.

Increasing LLQ header size reduces the size of the Tx queue by half, so it may affect the number of dropped Tx packets.

Run-time arguments

The run-time arguments can be changed anytime, using the sysctl(8) command. They can only be modified by a user with the root privileges.

Controls extra logging verbosity of the driver

Node:
hw.ena.log_level
Scope:
Global for all drivers
Input values:
int
Default value:
2
Description:

The higher the logging level, the more logs will be printed out. Default value (2) reports errors, warnings and is verbose about driver operation.

Value of 0 means that only errors essential to the driver operation will be printed out.

The possible values are:

  • 0 - ENA_ERR - Enable driver error messages and ena_com error logs.
  • 1 - ENA_WARN - Enable logs for non-critical errors.
  • 2 - ENA_INFO - Make the driver more verbose about its action.
  • 3 - ENA_DBG - Enable debug logs.
NOTE:
In order to enable logging on the Tx/Rx data path, see the Compilation flags section of this document.
Example:

To enable logs for both essential and non-critical errors, the below command should be used:

sysctl hw.ena.log_level=1

Number of the currently allocated and used IO queues

Node:
dev.ena.X.io_queues_nb
Scope:
Local for the interface X (X is the interface number)
Input values:
[1, max_num_io_queues]
Default value:
max_num_io_queues
Description:

Controls the number of IO queues pairs (Tx/Rx). Currently it's impossible to have different number of Tx and Rx queues. As this call has to reallocate the queues, it will reset the interface and restart all the queues - it means that everything that was currently held in the queue will be lost, leading to potential packet drops.

This call can fail if the system isn't able to provide the driver with enough resources. In that situation, the driver will try to revert the previous number of the IO queues. If this also fails, the device reset will be triggered.

Example:

To use only 2 Tx and Rx queues for the device ena1, the below command should be used:

sysctl dev.ena.1.io_queues_nb=2

Size of the Rx queue

Node:
dev.ena.X.rx_queue_size
Scope:
Local for the interface X (X is the interface number)
Input values:
[256, max_rx_ring_size] - must be a power of 2
Default value:
1024
Description:

Controls the number of IO descriptors for each Rx queue. The user may want to increase the Rx queue size if he can observe high number of the Rx drops in the driver's statistics. For performance reasons, the Rx queue size must be a power of 2.

This call can fail if the system isn't able to provide the driver with enough resources. In that situation, the driver will try to revert the previous number of the descriptors. If this also fails, the device reset will be triggered.

Example:

To increase Rx ring size to 8K descriptors for the device ena0, the below command should be used:

sysctl dev.ena.0.rx_queue_size=8192

Size of the Tx buffer ring (drbr)

Node:
dev.ena.X.buf_ring_size
Scope:
Local for the interface X (X is the interface number)
Input values:
uint32_t - must be a power of 2
Default value:
4096
Description:

Controls the number of mbufs that can be held in the Tx buffer ring. The drbr is being used as a multiple-producer, single-consumer lockless ring for buffering extra mbufs coming from the stack in case the Tx procedure is busy sending the packets or the Tx ring is full.

Increasing size of the buffer ring may reduce the number of Tx packets being dropped in case of big Tx burst which can't be handled by the IO queue immediately.

Each Tx queue has its own drbr.

It is recommended to keep the drbr with at least the default value, but if the system lacks the resource, it can be reduced. This call can fail if the system isn't able to provide the driver with enough resources. In that situation, the driver will try to revert the previous number of the drbr and trigger the device reset.

Example:

To make the drbr half of a size for the interface ena0, the below command should be used:

sysctl dev.ena.0.buf_ring_size=2048

Interval in seconds for updating ENA metrics

Scope:
Local for the interface X (X is the interface number)
Node:
dev.ena.X.sample_interval
Input values:
[0; 3600]
Default value:
0
Description:

Determines how often (if ever) all the ENA metrics should be updated. ENA metrics are being updated asynchronously in a timer service in order to avoid admin queue overload by sysctl node reading. The value in this node controls the interval between issuing admin command to the device which will update the ENA metrics value.

If some application is periodically monitoring the different metrics, then the ENA metrics interval can be adjusted accordingly. 0 turns off the update totally. 1 is the minimum interval and is equal to 1 second. The maximum allowed update interval is 1 hour.

Example:

To update of the ENA metrics for the device ena1 every 10 seconds, the below command should be used:

sysctl dev.ena.1.stats_sample_interval=10

IO IRQ affinity

Scope:
Local for the interface X (X is the interface number)
Nodes:
dev.ena.X.irq_affinity.base_cpu dev.ena.X.irq_affinity.cpu_stride
Input values:
[0; #hw_cpus]
Default value:
0
Description:
Determines on which CPU each IO IRQ will be received. These two parameters allow spreading IO IRQs over different CPUs. base_cpu serves as the first CPU to which the first IO IRQ will be bound to. cpu_stride sets the distance between every two CPUs to which every two consecutive IO IRQs are bound.
Example:

For doing the following IO IRQs / CPU binding: IRQ idx | CPU ----------------

1 | 0 2 | 2 3 | 4 4 | 6

the below command should be used:

sysctl dev.ena.1.irq_affinity.base_cpu=0
sysctl dev.ena.1.irq_affinity.cpu_stride=2

RSS indirection table size

Scope:
Local for the interface X (X is the interface number)
Node:
dev.ena.X.rss.indir_table_size
Input values:
read only
Default value:
128
Description:
Returns the number of entries in the RSS indirection table.
Example:

To read the RSS indirection table size:

sysctl dev.ena.0.rss.indir_table_size

RSS indirection table mapping

Scope:
Local for the interface X (X is the interface number)
Node:
dev.ena.X.rss.indir_table
Input values:
string of one or more space separated key-pairs
Default value:
x:y key-pairs of indir_table_size length
Description:

Updates selected indices of the RSS indirection table. The entry string consists of one or more x:y keypairs, where x stands for the table index and y for its new value. Table indices that don't need to be updated can be omitted from the string and will retain their existing values.

If an index is entered more than once, the last value is used.

Example:

To update two selected indices in the RSS indirection table, e.g. setting index 0 to queue 5 and then index 5 to queue 0, the below command should be used:

sysctl dev.ena.0.rss.indir_table="0:5 5:0"

RSS hash key

Scope:
Local for the interface X (X is the interface number)
Node:
dev.ena.X.rss.key
Input values:
string of hexadecimal values
Default value:
40 bytes long randomly generated hash key
Description:

Controls the RSS Toeplitz hash algorithm key value.

Only available when driver compiled without the kernel side RSS support.

Example:

To change the RSS hash key value to

0x6d, 0x5a, 0x56, 0xda, 0x25, 0x5b, 0x0e, 0xc2,
0x41, 0x67, 0x25, 0x3d, 0x43, 0xa3, 0x8f, 0xb0,
0xd0, 0xca, 0x2b, 0xcb, 0xae, 0x7b, 0x30, 0xb4,
0x77, 0xcb, 0x2d, 0xa3, 0x80, 0x30, 0xf2, 0x0c,
0x6a, 0x42, 0xb7, 0x3b, 0xbe, 0xac, 0x01, 0xfa

the below command should be used:

sysctl dev.ena.0.rss.key=6d5a56da255b0ec24167253d43a38fb0d0ca2bcbae7b30b477cb2da38030f20c6a42b73bbeac01fa

Supported PCI vendor ID/device IDs

1d0f:0ec2 ENA PF
1d0f:1ec2 ENA PF RSERV0
1d0f:ec20 ENA VF
1d0f:ec21 ENA VF RSERV0

ENA Source Code Directory Structure

  • ena.[ch]
    Main FreeBSD kernel driver.
  • ena_sysctl.[ch]
    ENA sysctl nodes for ENA configuration and statistics.
  • ena_datapath.[ch]
    Implementation of the main I/O path of the driver.
  • ena_netmap.[ch]
    Main code supporting the netmap mode in the ENA.
  • ena_com/*
    • ena_com.[ch]
      Management communication layer. This layer is responsible for the handling all the management (admin) communication between the device and the driver.
    • ena_eth_com.[ch]
      Tx/Rx data path.
    • ena_admin_defs.h
      Definition of ENA management interface.
    • ena_eth_io_defs.h
      Definition of ENA data path interface.
    • ena_common_defs.h
      Common definitions for ena_com layer.
    • ena_regs_defs.h
      Definition of ENA PCI memory-mapped (MMIO) registers.
    • ena_plat.h
      Platform dependent code for FreeBSD.

Compilation flags

The supplied Makefile provides multiple optional compilation flags, allowing for customization of the driver operation.

The Makefile will automatically attempt to detect the running kernel configuration and enable appropriate build flags if needed. This behavior can be overridden by passing variables to the make command, like below:

make DEV_NETMAP=1 RSS=0

This command will force-enable DEV_NETMAP flag and force-disable RSS flag.

Description of the available arguments and their meaning can be found below.

  • DEBUG

    This option turns on the flag ENA_LOG_IO_ENABLE. The driver provides an ability to control log verbosity at runtime, through the sysctl interface. However, by default, the Tx/Rx data path logs remain compiled out, even when matching log verbosity is set. This is dictated by performance reasons.

    Also the DEBUG variable must be defined in order to use INVARIANTS, INVARIANT_SUPPORT, WITNESS and WITNESS_SKIPSPIN flags, which will be used if the kernel has been built with them or the user forces their usage by passing them as a make variable.

  • DEV_NETMAP

    The driver supports the netmap framework. If the device netmap has been enabled for the running kernel, then it will be automatically added to the driver build configuration.

    The kernel must also be built with DEV_NETMAP option in order to be able to use the driver with the netmap support, which is default for amd64, but not for aarch64.

  • RSS

    The driver is able to work with kernel side Receive Side Scaling support. This flag should only be used if option RSS is enabled in the kernel.

Management Interface

ENA management interface is exposed by means of:

  • PCIe Configuration Space
  • Device Registers
  • Admin Queue (AQ) and Admin Completion Queue (ACQ)
  • Asynchronous Event Notification Queue (AENQ)

ENA device MMIO Registers are accessed only during driver initialization and are not involved in further normal device operation.

AQ is used for submitting management commands, and the results/responses are reported asynchronously through ACQ.

ENA introduces a very small set of management commands with room for vendor-specific extensions. Most of the management operations are framed in a generic Get/Set feature command.

The following admin queue commands are supported:

  • Create I/O submission queue
  • Create I/O completion queue
  • Destroy I/O submission queue
  • Destroy I/O completion queue
  • Get feature
  • Set feature
  • Configure AENQ
  • Get statistics

Refer to the ena_admin_defs.h for the list of supported Get/Set Feature properties.

The Asynchronous Event Notification Queue (AENQ) is a uni-directional queue used by the ENA device to send to the driver events that cannot be reported using ACQ. AENQ events are subdivided into groups. Each group may have multiple syndromes, as shown below

The events are:

Group Syndrome
Link state change X
Fatal error X
Notification Suspend traffic
Notification Resume traffic
Keep-Alive X

ACQ and AENQ share the same MSI-X vector.

Keep-Alive is a special mechanism that allows monitoring of the device's health. The driver maintains a watchdog (WD) handler which, if fired, logs the current state and statistics then resets and restarts the ENA device and driver. A Keep-Alive event is delivered by the device every second. The driver re-arms the WD upon reception of a Keep-Alive event. A missed Keep-Alive event causes the WD handler to fire.

Data Path Interface

I/O operations are based on Tx and Rx Submission Queues (Tx SQ and Rx SQ correspondingly). Each SQ has a completion queue (CQ) associated with it.

The SQs and CQs are implemented as descriptor rings in contiguous physical memory.

The ENA driver supports two Queue Operation modes for Tx SQs:

  • Regular mode
    • In this mode the Tx SQs reside in the host's memory. The ENA device fetches the ENA Tx descriptors and packet data from host memory.
  • Low Latency Queue (LLQ) mode or "push-mode".
    • In this mode the driver pushes the transmit descriptors and the first few bytes of the packet (negotiable parameter) directly to the ENA device memory space. The rest of the packet payload is fetched by the device. For this operation mode, the driver uses a dedicated PCI device memory BAR, which is mapped with write-combine capability.

The Rx SQs support only the regular mode.

Note: Not all ENA devices support LLQ, and this feature is negotiated
with the device upon initialization. If the ENA device does not support LLQ mode, the driver falls back to the regular mode.

The driver supports multi-queue for both Tx and Rx. This has various benefits:

  • Reduced CPU/thread/process contention on a given Ethernet interface.
  • Cache miss rate on completion is reduced, particularly for data cache lines that hold the mbuf structures.
  • Increased process-level parallelism when handling received packets.
  • Increased data cache hit rate, by steering kernel processing of packets to the CPU, where the application thread consuming the packet is running.
  • In hardware interrupt re-direction.

Interrupt Modes

The driver assigns a single MSI-X vector per queue pair (for both Tx and Rx directions). The driver assigns an additional dedicated MSI-X vector for management (for ACQ and AENQ).

Management interrupt registration is performed when the FreeBSD kernel attaches the adapter, and it is de-registered when the adapter is removed. I/O queue interrupt registration is performed when the FreeBSD interface of the adapter is opened, and it is de-registered when the interface is closed.

The management interrupt is named:
ena-mgmnt@pci:<PCI domain:bus:slot.function>
and for each queue pair, an interrupt is named:
<interface name>-TxRx-<queue index>

The ENA device operates in auto-mask and auto-clear interrupt modes. That is, once MSI-X is delivered to the host, its Cause bit is automatically cleared and the interrupt is masked. The interrupt is unmasked by the driver after cleaning all TX and Rx packets or the cleanup routine is being called 8 times while handling single interrupt.

Statistics

The user can obtain ENA device and driver statistics using sysctl.

MTU

The driver supports an arbitrarily large MTU with a maximum that is negotiated with the device. The driver configures MTU using the SetFeature command (ENA_ADMIN_MTU property). The user can change MTU via ifconfig.

Stateless Offloads

The ENA driver supports:

  • IPv4 header checksum offload
  • TCP/UDP over IPv4/IPv6 checksum offloads

RSS

  • The ENA device supports RSS that allows flexible Rx traffic steering.
  • Toeplitz and CRC32 hash functions are supported.
  • Different combinations of L2/L3/L4 fields can be configured as inputs for hash functions.
  • The driver configures RSS settings using the AQ SetFeature command (ENA_ADMIN_RSS_HASH_FUNCTION, ENA_ADMIN_RSS_HASH_INPUT and ENA_ADMIN_RSS_REDIRECTION_TABLE_CONFIG properties).
  • The driver sets default CRC32 function and it cannot be configured manually.

DATA PATH

Tx

ena_mq_start() is called by the stack. This function does the following:

  • Assigns mbuf to proper tx queue according to hash type and flowid.

  • Puts packet in the drbr (multi-producer, {single, multi}-consumer lock-less ring buffer).

  • If drbr was empty before putting packet, tries to acquire lock for tx queue and, if succeeded, it runs ena_start_xmit() function for sending packet that was just added.

  • If lock could not be acquired, it enqueues task ena_deferred_mq_start() which will run ena_start_xmit() in different thread and it will clean all of the packets in the drbr.

  • ena_start_xmit() is doing following steps:

    • Checking if the Tx queue is still running - if not, then it puts mbuf back to drbr and exits.

    • Call ena_xmit_mbuf() function for all mbufs in the drbr or until transmission error occurs.

    • ena_xmit_mbuf() is sending mbufs to the ENA device with given steps:

      • mbufs are mapped and defragmented if necessary for the DMA transactions.

      • Allocates a new request ID from the empty req_id ring. The request ID is the index of the packet in the Tx info. This is used for out-of-order TX completions.

      • The packet is added to the proper place in the TX ring.

      • The driver is checking if the doorbell needs to be issued.

      • ena_com_prepare_tx() is called, an ENA communication layer that converts the ena_bufs to ENA descriptors (and adds meta ENA descriptors as needed).

        This function also copies the ENA descriptors and the push buffer to the Device memory space (if in push mode).

      • Stop Tx ring if it couldn't handle any more packets.

    • Write doorbells to the ENA device if needed.

    • After emptying drbr, if Tx queue was stopped due to running out of space, cleanup task is being enqueued.

When the ENA device finishes sending the packet, a completion interrupt is raised:

  • The interrupt handler cleans Rx and Tx descriptors in the loop until all descriptors are cleaned up or number of loop iteration exceeds maximum value
  • The ena_tx_cleanup() function is called. This function calls ena_tx_cleanup() which handles the completion descriptors generated by the ENA, with a single completion descriptor per completed packet.
    • req_id is retrieved from the completion descriptor. The tx_info of the packet is retrieved via the req_id. The data buffers are unmapped and req_id is returned to the empty req_id ring.
    • The function stops when the completion descriptors are completed or given budget is depleted.
    • Tx ring is being resumed if it was stopped before.
  • All interrupts are being unmasked

Rx

When a packet is received from the ENA device:

  • The interrupt handler cleans Rx and Tx descriptors in the loop until all descriptors are cleaned up or global number of loop iteration exceeds maximum value
  • The ena_rx_cleanup() function is called. This function calls ena_com_rx_pkt(), an ENA communication layer function, which returns the number of descriptors used for a new unhandled packet, and zero if no new packet is found.
  • Then it calls the ena_rx_mbuf() function: The new mbuf is updated with the necessary information (protocol, checksum hw verify result, etc.).
  • mbuf is then passed to the network stack, using the ifp->if_input function or tcp_lro_rx() if LRO is enabled and packet is of type TCP/IP with TCP checksum computed by the hardware.
  • The function stops when all packets are handled or given budget is depleted.

Unsupported features

  • RSS configuration by the user.

Known issues

  • FLOWTABLE option (per-CPU routing cache) leads to system crash on FreeBSD 12.0.