[dpdk-users] access to different ports on the same NIC by 2 DPDK applications

[Stephen Hemminger]

On Thu, 20 May 2021 14:19:13 -0700
Sudharshan Krishnakumar <sudhar.ckrishna at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for your inputs. So, does this mean, when ports are bound to VFIO
> driver(which uses IOMMU), we can
> run 2 DPDK apps concurrently, only if the 2 apps are accessing ports on 2
> different Network cards.
> In other words, when ports are bound to VFIO driver, if 2 DPDK apps are
> running concurrently on the same system,
> then we need 2 Network cards installed on that system.
> So, I am guessing with 2 Network cards, under /dev, they would enumerate as
> 2 distinct paths, for example-> /dev/vfio/1 and /dev/vfio/2.
> Is this a correct understanding, please let me know.

Groups are explained here.

https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/vfio.txt

The VFIO is about isolation and if two processes are trying to
use the same group they are not isolated.