[dpdk-users] Hard Crash with X710 and Pktgen

[James Bensley]

Hi All,

I have Pktgen working on this box now.

So for the sake of this list archives:

In addition to the 2x10G Intel X710 NIC there is a 2x1G Intel I350 NIC
in this box. Trying with the igb_uio or vfio-pci driver for the 1G NIC
had the same results as with the 10G NIC; hard lock-up when using
igb_uio and DPDK is reporting no free ports available when using
vfio-pci.

However with vfio-pci the following syslog message was logged:

"Device is ineligible for IOMMU domain attach due to platform RMRR
requirement.  Contact your platform vendor."

After some searching this seems to be an issue with Kernels newer than
3.16 on HPE boxes (e.g.
https://forums.lime-technology.com/topic/53049-solved-device-is-ineligible-for-iommu-domain-attach-due-to-platform-rmrr/).
Looks like a BIOS setting can solve this issue
(https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-c04781229&sp4ts.oid=5249566).
I have multiple Kernels compiled on this box. I was using 4.13 for
some other testing, so I booted into 3.10, recompiled DPDK+Pktgen and
both the 10G and 1G NICs are working using the igb_uio driver.

I'd like to be a 4.10 kernel as I was testing some features in there
separate to DPDK so I will try disabling that BIOS setting and see if
this works with the newer Kernel version. The box is remote so I can't
do that right away!

Many thanks all for your time and help it is greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
James.