[dpdk-dev] [PATCH v4 00/41] Pipeline alignment with the P4 language

Cristian Dumitrescu cristian.dumitrescu at intel.com
Thu Sep 10 17:26:04 CEST 2020


This patch set introduces a new pipeline type that combines the DPDK
performance with the flexibility of the P4-16 language[1]. The new API
can be used either by itself to code a complete software switch (SWX)
or data plane app, or in combination with the open-source P4 compiler
P4C [2], potentially acting as a P4C back-end, thus allowing the P4
programs to be translated to the DPDK API and run on multi-core CPUs.

Main new features:

* Nothing is hard-wired, everything is dynamically defined: The packet
  headers (i.e. protocols), the packet meta-data, the actions, the
  tables and the pipeline itself are dynamically defined instead of
  having to be selected from a pre-defined set.

* Instructions: The actions and the life of the packet through the
  pipeline are defined with instructions that manipulate the pipeline
  objects mentioned above. The pipeline is the main function of the
  packet program, with actions as subroutines triggered by the tables.

* Call external plugins: Extern objects and functions can be defined
  to call functionality that cannot be efficiently implemented with
  the existing pipeline-oriented instruction set, such as: special
  error detecting/correcting codes, crypto, meters, stats arrays,
  heuristics, etc.

* Better control plane interaction: Transaction-oriented table update
  mechanism that supports multi-table atomic updates. Multiple tables
  can be updated in a single step with only the before and after table
  sets visible to the packets. Alignment with P4Runtime [3].

* Performance: Multiple packets are in-flight within the pipeline at
  any moment. Each packet is owned by a different time-sharing thread
  in run-to-completion, with the thread pausing before memory access
  operations such as packet I/O and table lookup to allow the memory
  prefetch to complete. The instructions are verified and translated
  at initialization time with no run-time impact. The instructions are
  also optimized to detect and "fuse" frequently used patterns into
  vector-like instructions transparently to the user.

API deprecation and maturing roadmap:
* The existing pipeline stable API (rte_pipeline.h) to be deprecated
  prior to and removed as part of the DPDK 21.11 LTS release. 
* The new SWX pipeline experimental API (rte_swx_pipeline.h) to mature
  and become stable as part of the same DPDK 21.11 LTS release.

V4 changes:
* Spell check fixes.

V3 changes:
* Removed the library Makefile support to align with the latest DPDK.

V2 changes:
* Updated the title and commit messages to reflect the introduction of
  the new SWX pipeline type.
* Added the API deprecation and maturing roadmap to the cover letter.
* Added support for building the SWX pipeline based on specification
  file with syntax aligned to the P4 language. The spec file may be
  generated by the P4C compiler in the future (see patch 32). Reworked
  the examples accordingly (see patches 39, 40 and 41).
* Added support for the SWX sink port (used for packet drop or log)
  when PCAP library is disabled from the build.
* Added checks to the application CLI commands to prevent execution
  when dependencies of the current command have previously failed (see
  patch 38).
* Fixed build warning for 32-bit targets due to the printing of 64-bit
  statistics counters (see patch 38).

[1] P4-16 specification: https://p4.org/p4-spec/docs/P4-16-v1.2.1.pdf
[2] P4-16 compiler: https://github.com/p4lang/p4c
[3] P4Runtime specification:
    https://p4.org/p4runtime/spec/v1.2.0/P4Runtime-Spec.pdf

Cristian Dumitrescu (41):
  pipeline: add new SWX pipeline type
  pipeline: add SWX pipeline input port
  pipeline: add SWX pipeline output port
  pipeline: add SWX headers and meta-data
  pipeline: add SWX extern objects and funcs
  pipeline: add SWX pipeline action
  pipeline: add SWX pipeline tables
  pipeline: add SWX pipeline instructions
  pipeline: add SWX rx and extract instructions
  pipeline: add SWX tx and emit instructions
  pipeline: add header validate and invalidate SWX instructions
  pipeline: add SWX mov instruction
  pipeline: add SWX dma instruction
  pipeline: introduce SWX add instruction
  pipeline: introduce SWX sub instruction
  pipeline: introduce SWX ckadd instruction
  pipeline: introduce SWX cksub instruction
  pipeline: introduce SWX and instruction
  pipeline: introduce SWX or instruction
  pipeline: introduce SWX xor instruction
  pipeline: introduce SWX shl instruction
  pipeline: introduce SWX shr instruction
  pipeline: introduce SWX table instruction
  pipeline: introduce SWX extern instruction
  pipeline: introduce SWX jmp and return instructions
  pipeline: add SWX instruction description
  pipeline: add SWX instruction verifier
  pipeline: add SWX instruction optimizer
  pipeline: add SWX pipeline query API
  pipeline: add SWX pipeline flush
  pipeline: add SWX table update high level API
  pipeline: add SWX pipeline specification file
  port: add ethernet device SWX port
  port: add source and sink SWX ports
  table: add exact match SWX table
  examples/pipeline: add new example application
  examples/pipeline: add message passing mechanism
  examples/pipeline: add configuration commands
  examples/pipeline: add l2fwd example
  examples/pipeline: add l2fwd with MAC swap example
  examples/pipeline: add VXLAN encapsulation example

 examples/meson.build                          |    1 +
 examples/pipeline/Makefile                    |   53 +
 examples/pipeline/cli.c                       | 1400 ++++
 examples/pipeline/cli.h                       |   19 +
 examples/pipeline/conn.c                      |  331 +
 examples/pipeline/conn.h                      |   50 +
 examples/pipeline/examples/l2fwd.cli          |   25 +
 examples/pipeline/examples/l2fwd.spec         |   42 +
 examples/pipeline/examples/l2fwd_macswp.cli   |   25 +
 examples/pipeline/examples/l2fwd_macswp.spec  |   59 +
 .../pipeline/examples/l2fwd_macswp_pcap.cli   |   20 +
 examples/pipeline/examples/l2fwd_pcap.cli     |   20 +
 examples/pipeline/examples/packet.txt         |  102 +
 examples/pipeline/examples/vxlan.cli          |   27 +
 examples/pipeline/examples/vxlan.spec         |  173 +
 examples/pipeline/examples/vxlan_pcap.cli     |   22 +
 examples/pipeline/examples/vxlan_table.py     |   71 +
 examples/pipeline/examples/vxlan_table.txt    |   16 +
 examples/pipeline/main.c                      |  193 +
 examples/pipeline/meson.build                 |   18 +
 examples/pipeline/obj.c                       |  470 ++
 examples/pipeline/obj.h                       |  131 +
 examples/pipeline/thread.c                    |  549 ++
 examples/pipeline/thread.h                    |   28 +
 lib/librte_pipeline/meson.build               |   14 +-
 lib/librte_pipeline/rte_pipeline_version.map  |   44 +-
 lib/librte_pipeline/rte_swx_ctl.c             | 1552 ++++
 lib/librte_pipeline/rte_swx_ctl.h             |  568 ++
 lib/librte_pipeline/rte_swx_extern.h          |   98 +
 lib/librte_pipeline/rte_swx_pipeline.c        | 7197 +++++++++++++++++
 lib/librte_pipeline/rte_swx_pipeline.h        |  711 ++
 lib/librte_pipeline/rte_swx_pipeline_spec.c   | 1439 ++++
 lib/librte_port/meson.build                   |    9 +-
 lib/librte_port/rte_port_version.map          |    5 +-
 lib/librte_port/rte_swx_port.h                |  202 +
 lib/librte_port/rte_swx_port_ethdev.c         |  313 +
 lib/librte_port/rte_swx_port_ethdev.h         |   54 +
 lib/librte_port/rte_swx_port_source_sink.c    |  335 +
 lib/librte_port/rte_swx_port_source_sink.h    |   57 +
 lib/librte_table/meson.build                  |    7 +-
 lib/librte_table/rte_swx_table.h              |  295 +
 lib/librte_table/rte_swx_table_em.c           |  851 ++
 lib/librte_table/rte_swx_table_em.h           |   30 +
 lib/librte_table/rte_table_version.map        |    7 +
 44 files changed, 17625 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/Makefile
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/cli.c
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/cli.h
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/conn.c
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/conn.h
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/examples/l2fwd.cli
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/examples/l2fwd.spec
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/examples/l2fwd_macswp.cli
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/examples/l2fwd_macswp.spec
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/examples/l2fwd_macswp_pcap.cli
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/examples/l2fwd_pcap.cli
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/examples/packet.txt
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/examples/vxlan.cli
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/examples/vxlan.spec
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/examples/vxlan_pcap.cli
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/examples/vxlan_table.py
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/examples/vxlan_table.txt
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/main.c
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/meson.build
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/obj.c
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/obj.h
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/thread.c
 create mode 100644 examples/pipeline/thread.h
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_pipeline/rte_swx_ctl.c
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_pipeline/rte_swx_ctl.h
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_pipeline/rte_swx_extern.h
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_pipeline/rte_swx_pipeline.c
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_pipeline/rte_swx_pipeline.h
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_pipeline/rte_swx_pipeline_spec.c
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_port/rte_swx_port.h
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_port/rte_swx_port_ethdev.c
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_port/rte_swx_port_ethdev.h
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_port/rte_swx_port_source_sink.c
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_port/rte_swx_port_source_sink.h
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_table/rte_swx_table.h
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_table/rte_swx_table_em.c
 create mode 100644 lib/librte_table/rte_swx_table_em.h

-- 
2.17.1



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