Passing EAL parameters via grout command line or conf file

[Robin Jarry]

Hi Adel,

Adel Belkhiri, Nov 14, 2024 at 19:45:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I would like to take a moment to thank you for this great project. I've
> been experimenting with grout and exploring its features, and I have a
> couple of questions:

Thanks for your message.

> 1. Does grout support virtual network interfaces? In DPDK applications,
> these are typically specified using arguments like:
> --vdev="net_vhost0,iface=/tmp/vhost-user1".

Yes, it should work via port devargs, like physical NICs. E.g.:

grcli add interface port vhu0 devargs net_vhost0,iface=/tmp/vhost-user1

> 2. How can I pass EAL parameters to grout, such as --socket, --trace, etc.?

EAL arguments are hard coded by grout during startup and everything is 
then done dynamically at runtime. Some parameters can be influenced 
based on grout startup flags.

-v, --verbose
 Will increase the verbosity. If specified 3 times, it will also enable 
 debugging logs for all DPDK libraries.

https://github.com/DPDK/grout/blob/da5e879f85c3/main/dpdk.c#L88

-t, --test-mode
 Will add --no-shconf --no-huge -m 2048 to rte_eal_init() arguments. 
 This is used to run grout with net_null ports with a non-privileged 
 user for development testing.

https://github.com/DPDK/grout/blob/da5e879f85c3/main/dpdk.c#L164-L167

The --socket argument should not be needed. Memory will be allocated on 
the proper socket based on the detected PCI device socket and/or pinned 
CPU. We will probably need some additional work to force allocation of 
memory on a specific socket for virtual devices.

If you think there are some missing features, please provide some 
feedback. Grout is still in its infancy and there are many things to 
improve.

Cheers,
Robin