[dpdk-dev] [PATCH 00/16] Support externally allocated memory in DPDK

[Anatoly Burakov]

This is a proposal to enable using externally allocated memory
in DPDK.

In a nutshell, here is what is being done here:

- Index internal malloc heaps by NUMA node index, rather than NUMA
  node itself (external heaps will have ID's in order of creation)
- Add identifier string to malloc heap, to uniquely identify it
  - Each new heap will receive a unique socket ID that will be used by
    allocator to decide from which heap (internal or external) to
    allocate requested amount of memory
- Allow creating named heaps and add/remove memory to/from those heaps
- Allocate memseg lists at runtime, to keep track of IOVA addresses
  of externally allocated memory
  - If IOVA addresses aren't provided, use RTE_BAD_IOVA
- Allow malloc and memzones to allocate from external heaps
- Allow other data structures to allocate from externall heaps

The responsibility to ensure memory is accessible before using it is
on the shoulders of the user - there is no checking done with regards
to validity of the memory (nor could there be...).

The general approach is to create heap and add memory into it. For any
other process wishing to use the same memory, said memory must first
be attached (otherwise some things will not work).

A design decision was made to make multiprocess synchronization a
manual process. Due to underlying issues with attaching to fbarrays in
secondary processes, this design was deemed to be better because we
don't want to fail to create external heap in the primary because
something in the secondary has failed when in fact we may not eve have
wanted this memory to be accessible in the secondary in the first
place.

Using external memory in multiprocess is *hard*, because not only
memory space needs to be preallocated, but it also needs to be attached
in each process to allow other processes to access the page table. The
attach API call may or may not succeed, depending on memory layout, for
reasons similar to other multiprocess failures. This is treated as a
"known issue" for this release.

RFC -> v1 changes:
- Removed the "named heaps" API, allocate using fake socket ID instead
- Added multiprocess support
- Everything is now thread-safe
- Numerous bugfixes and API improvements

Anatoly Burakov (16):
  mem: add length to memseg list
  mem: allow memseg lists to be marked as external
  malloc: index heaps using heap ID rather than NUMA node
  mem: do not check for invalid socket ID
  flow_classify: do not check for invalid socket ID
  pipeline: do not check for invalid socket ID
  sched: do not check for invalid socket ID
  malloc: add name to malloc heaps
  malloc: add function to query socket ID of named heap
  malloc: allow creating malloc heaps
  malloc: allow destroying heaps
  malloc: allow adding memory to named heaps
  malloc: allow removing memory from named heaps
  malloc: allow attaching to external memory chunks
  malloc: allow detaching from external memory
  test: add unit tests for external memory support

 config/common_base                            |   1 +
 config/rte_config.h                           |   1 +
 drivers/bus/fslmc/fslmc_vfio.c                |   7 +-
 drivers/bus/pci/linux/pci.c                   |   2 +-
 drivers/net/mlx4/mlx4_mr.c                    |   3 +
 drivers/net/mlx5/mlx5.c                       |   5 +-
 drivers/net/mlx5/mlx5_mr.c                    |   3 +
 drivers/net/virtio/virtio_user/vhost_kernel.c |   5 +-
 lib/librte_eal/bsdapp/eal/eal.c               |   3 +
 lib/librte_eal/bsdapp/eal/eal_memory.c        |   9 +-
 lib/librte_eal/common/eal_common_memory.c     |   9 +-
 lib/librte_eal/common/eal_common_memzone.c    |   8 +-
 .../common/include/rte_eal_memconfig.h        |   6 +-
 lib/librte_eal/common/include/rte_malloc.h    | 181 +++++++++
 .../common/include/rte_malloc_heap.h          |   3 +
 lib/librte_eal/common/include/rte_memory.h    |   9 +
 lib/librte_eal/common/malloc_heap.c           | 287 +++++++++++--
 lib/librte_eal/common/malloc_heap.h           |  17 +
 lib/librte_eal/common/rte_malloc.c            | 383 ++++++++++++++++-
 lib/librte_eal/linuxapp/eal/eal.c             |   3 +
 lib/librte_eal/linuxapp/eal/eal_memalloc.c    |  12 +-
 lib/librte_eal/linuxapp/eal/eal_memory.c      |   4 +-
 lib/librte_eal/linuxapp/eal/eal_vfio.c        |  17 +-
 lib/librte_eal/rte_eal_version.map            |   7 +
 lib/librte_flow_classify/rte_flow_classify.c  |   3 +-
 lib/librte_mempool/rte_mempool.c              |  31 +-
 lib/librte_pipeline/rte_pipeline.c            |   3 +-
 lib/librte_sched/rte_sched.c                  |   2 +-
 test/test/Makefile                            |   1 +
 test/test/autotest_data.py                    |  14 +-
 test/test/meson.build                         |   1 +
 test/test/test_external_mem.c                 | 384 ++++++++++++++++++
 test/test/test_malloc.c                       |   3 +
 test/test/test_memzone.c                      |   3 +
 34 files changed, 1346 insertions(+), 84 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 test/test/test_external_mem.c

-- 
2.17.1