[PATCH v3 1/2] doc: add note about CPU 0

Stephen Hemminger stephen at networkplumber.org
Tue Jul 15 23:56:28 CEST 2025


On Linux (and probably BSD), CPU 0 can not be fully isolated
because it receives timer interrupts and is used for other
kernel related functions. The DPDK documentation should
be updated to tell users to avoid polling on that CPU.

Signed-off-by: Stephen Hemminger <stephen at networkplumber.org>
---
 doc/guides/linux_gsg/enable_func.rst | 5 +++++
 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+)

diff --git a/doc/guides/linux_gsg/enable_func.rst b/doc/guides/linux_gsg/enable_func.rst
index 5511640cb8..a551ddebec 100644
--- a/doc/guides/linux_gsg/enable_func.rst
+++ b/doc/guides/linux_gsg/enable_func.rst
@@ -131,6 +131,11 @@ from running on those cores, it is possible to use
 the Linux kernel parameters ``isolcpus``, ``nohz_full``, ``irqaffinity``
 to isolate them from the general Linux scheduler tasks.
 
+.. note::
+
+   It is not recommended to use CPU core 0 for DPDK polling applications
+   because it can not be truly isolated from other system and kernel activity.
+
 For example, if a given CPU has 0-7 cores
 and DPDK applications are to run on logical cores 2, 4 and 6,
 the following should be added to the kernel parameter list:
-- 
2.47.2



More information about the dev mailing list