path: root/doc/guides/rel_notes/release_16_07.rst

DPDK Release 16.07
==================

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New Features
------------

.. This section should contain new features added in this release. Sample format:

   * **Add a title in the past tense with a full stop.**

     Add a short 1-2 sentence description in the past tense. The description
     should be enough to allow someone scanning the release notes to understand
     the new feature.

     If the feature adds a lot of sub-features you can use a bullet list like this.

     * Added feature foo to do something.
     * Enhanced feature bar to do something else.

     Refer to the previous release notes for examples.

* **Removed mempool cache if not needed.**

  The size of the mempool structure is reduced if the per-lcore cache is disabled.

* **Added mempool external cache for non-EAL thread.**

  Added new functions to create, free or flush a user-owned mempool
  cache for non-EAL threads. Previously the cache was always disabled
  on these threads.

* **Changed the memory allocation in mempool library.**

  * Added ability to allocate a large mempool in virtually fragmented memory.
  * Added new APIs to populate a mempool with memory.
  * Added an API to free a mempool.
  * Modified the API of the ``rte_mempool_obj_iter()`` function.
  * Dropped specific Xen Dom0 code.
  * Dropped specific anonymous mempool code in testpmd.

* **Added new driver for Broadcom NetXtreme-C devices.**

  Added the new bnxt driver for Broadcom NetXtreme-C devices. See the
  "Network Interface Controller Drivers" document for more details on this
  new driver.

* **Added new driver for ThunderX nicvf device.**

* **Added mailbox interrupt support for ixgbe and igb VFs.**

  When the physical NIC link comes up or down, the PF driver will send a
  mailbox message to notify each VF. To handle this link up/down event,
  support have been added for a mailbox interrupt to receive the message and
  allow the application to register a callback for it.

* **Updated the ixgbe base driver.**

  The ixgbe base driver was updated with changes including the
  following:

  * Added sgmii link for X550.
  * Added MAC link setup for X550a SFP and SFP+.
  * Added KR support for X550em_a.
  * Added new PHY definitions for M88E1500.
  * Added support for the VLVF to be bypassed when adding/removing a VFTA entry.
  * Added X550a flow control auto negotiation support.

* **Updated the i40e base driver.**

  Updated the i40e base driver including support for new devices IDs.

* **Updated the enic driver.**

  The enic driver was updated with changes including the following:

  * Optimized the Tx function.
  * Added Scattered Rx capability.
  * Improved packet type identification.
  * Added MTU update in non Scattered Rx mode and enabled MTU of up to 9208
    with UCS Software release 2.2 on 1300 series VICs.

* **Added support for virtio on IBM POWER8.**

  The ioports are mapped in memory when using Linux UIO.

* **Added support for Virtio in containers.**

  Add a new virtual device, named virtio_user, to support virtio for containers.

  Known limitations:

  * Control queue and multi-queue are not supported yet.
  * Doesn't work with ``--huge-unlink``.
  * Doesn't work with ``--no-huge``.
  * Doesn't work when there are more than ``VHOST_MEMORY_MAX_NREGIONS(8)`` hugepages.
  * Root privilege is required for sorting hugepages by physical address.
  * Can only be used with the vhost user backend.

* **Added vhost-user client mode.**

  DPDK vhost-user now supports client mode as well as server mode. Client mode
  is enabled when the ``RTE_VHOST_USER_CLIENT`` flag is set while calling
  ``rte_vhost_driver_register``.

  When DPDK vhost-user restarts from an normal or abnormal exit (such as a
  crash), the client mode allows DPDK to establish the connection again. Note
  that QEMU version v2.7 or above is required for this feature.

  DPDK vhost-user will also try to reconnect by default when:

  * The first connect fails (when QEMU is not started yet).
  * The connection is broken (when QEMU restarts).

  It can be turned off by setting the ``RTE_VHOST_USER_NO_RECONNECT`` flag.

* **Added NSH packet recognition in i40e.**

* **Added AES-CTR support to AESNI MB PMD.**

  Now AESNI MB PMD supports 128/192/256-bit counter mode AES encryption and
  decryption.

* **Added support for AES counter mode with Intel QuickAssist devices.**

  Enabled support for the AES CTR algorithm for Intel QuickAssist devices.
  Provided support for algorithm-chaining operations.

* **Added KASUMI SW PMD.**

  A new Crypto PMD has been added, which provides KASUMI F8 (UEA1) ciphering
  and KASUMI F9 (UIA1) hashing.

* **Added multi-writer support for RTE Hash with Intel TSX.**

  The following features/modifications have been added to rte_hash library:

  * Enabled application developers to use an extra flag for ``rte_hash``
    creation to specify default behavior (multi-thread safe/unsafe) with the
    ``rte_hash_add_key`` function.
  * Changed the Cuckoo Hash Search algorithm to breadth first search for
    multi-writer routines and split Cuckoo Hash Search and Move operations in
    order to reduce transactional code region and improve TSX performance.
  * Added a hash multi-writer test case to the test app.

* **Improved IP Pipeline Application.**

  The following features have been added to the ip_pipeline application:

  * Configure the MAC address in the routing pipeline and automatic route
    updates with change in link state.
  * Enable RSS per network interface through the configuration file.
  * Streamline the CLI code.

* **Added keepalive enhancements.**

  Added support for reporting of core states other than dead to
  monitoring applications, enabling the support of broader liveness
  reporting to external processes.

* **Added packet capture framework.**

  * A new library ``librte_pdump`` is added to provide a packet capture API.
  * A new ``app/pdump`` tool is added to demonstrate capture packets in DPDK.


* **Added floating VEB support for i40e PF driver.**

  A "floating VEB" is a special Virtual Ethernet Bridge (VEB) which does not
  have an upload port, but instead is used for switching traffic between
  virtual functions (VFs) on a port.

  For information on this feature,  please see the "I40E Poll Mode Driver"
  section of the "Network Interface Controller Drivers" document.

* **Added support for live migration of a VM with SRIOV VF.**

  Live migration of a VM with Virtio and VF PMD's using the bonding PMD.


Resolved Issues
---------------

.. This section should contain bug fixes added to the relevant sections. Sample format:

   * **code/section Fixed issue in the past tense with a full stop.**

     Add a short 1-2 sentence description of the resolved issue in the past tense.
     The title should contain the code/lib section like a commit message.
     Add the entries in alphabetic order in the relevant sections below.


EAL
~~~

* **igb_uio: Fixed possible mmap failure for Linux >= 4.5.**

  The mmaping of the iomem range of the PCI device fails for kernels that
  enabled the ``CONFIG_IO_STRICT_DEVMEM`` option. The error seen by the
  user is as similar to the following::

      EAL: pci_map_resource():

          cannot mmap(39, 0x7f1c51800000, 0x100000, 0x0):
          Invalid argument (0xffffffffffffffff)

  The ``CONFIG_IO_STRICT_DEVMEM`` kernel option was introduced in Linux v4.5.

  The issues was resolve by updating ``igb_uio`` to stop reserving PCI memory
  resources. From the kernel point of view the iomem region looks like idle
  and mmap works again. This matches the ``uio_pci_generic`` usage.


Drivers
~~~~~~~

* **i40e: Fixed vlan stripping from inner header.**

  Previously, for tunnel packets, such as VXLAN/NVGRE, the vlan
  tags of the inner header will be stripped without putting vlan
  info to descriptor.
  Now this issue is fixed by disabling vlan stripping from inner header.

* **i40e: Fixed the type issue of a single VLAN type.**

  Currently, if a single VLAN header is added in a packet, it's treated
  as inner VLAN. But generally, a single VLAN header is treated as the
  outer VLAN header.
  This issue is fixed by changing corresponding register for single VLAN.

* **enic: Fixed several issues when stopping then restarting ports and queues.**

  Fixed several crashes related to stopping then restarting ports and queues.
  Fixed possible crash when re-configuring the number of Rx queue descriptors.

* **enic: Fixed Rx data mis-alignment if mbuf data offset modified.**

  Fixed possible Rx corruption when mbufs were returned to a pool with data
  offset other than RTE_PKTMBUF_HEADROOM.

* **enic: Fixed Tx IP/UDP/TCP checksum offload and VLAN insertion.**

* **enic: Fixed Rx error and missed counters.**


Libraries
~~~~~~~~~

* **mbuf: Fixed refcnt update when detaching.**

  Fix the ``rte_pktmbuf_detach()`` function to decrement the direct mbuf's
  reference counter. The previous behavior was not to affect the reference
  counter. This lead to a memory leak of the direct mbuf.


Examples
~~~~~~~~


Other
~~~~~


Known Issues
------------

.. This section should contain new known issues in this release. Sample format:

   * **Add title in present tense with full stop.**

     Add a short 1-2 sentence description of the known issue in the present
     tense. Add information on any known workarounds.


API Changes
-----------

.. This section should contain API changes. Sample format:

   * Add a short 1-2 sentence description of the API change. Use fixed width
     quotes for ``rte_function_names`` or ``rte_struct_names``. Use the past tense.

* The following counters are removed from the ``rte_eth_stats`` structure:

  * ``ibadcrc``
  * ``ibadlen``
  * ``imcasts``
  * ``fdirmatch``
  * ``fdirmiss``
  * ``tx_pause_xon``
  * ``rx_pause_xon``
  * ``tx_pause_xoff``
  * ``rx_pause_xoff``

* The extended statistics are fetched by ids with ``rte_eth_xstats_get``
  after a lookup by name ``rte_eth_xstats_get_names``.

* The function ``rte_eth_dev_info_get`` fill the new fields ``nb_rx_queues``
  and ``nb_tx_queues`` in the structure ``rte_eth_dev_info``.

* The vhost function ``rte_vring_available_entries`` is renamed to
  ``rte_vhost_avail_entries``.

* All existing vhost APIs and callbacks with ``virtio_net`` struct pointer
  as the parameter have been changed due to the ABI refactoring described
  below. It is replaced by ``int vid``.

* The function ``rte_vhost_enqueue_burst`` no longer supports concurrent enqueuing
  packets to the same queue.

* The function ``rte_eth_dev_set_mtu`` adds a new return value ``-EBUSY``, which
  indicates the operation is forbidden because the port is running.

* The script ``dpdk_nic_bind.py`` is renamed to ``dpdk-devbind.py``.
  And the script ``setup.sh`` is renamed to ``dpdk-setup.sh``.


ABI Changes
-----------

.. * Add a short 1-2 sentence description of the ABI change that was announced in
     the previous releases and made in this release. Use fixed width quotes for
     ``rte_function_names`` or ``rte_struct_names``. Use the past tense.

* The ``rte_port_source_params`` structure has new fields to support PCAP files.
  It was already in release 16.04 with ``RTE_NEXT_ABI`` flag.

* The ``rte_eth_dev_info`` structure has new fields ``nb_rx_queues`` and ``nb_tx_queues``
  to support the number of queues configured by software.

* A Vhost ABI refactoring has been made: the ``virtio_net`` structure is no
  longer exported directly to the application. Instead, a handle, ``vid``, has
  been used to represent this structure internally.


Shared Library Versions
-----------------------

.. Update any library version updated in this release and prepend with a ``+`` sign.

The libraries prepended with a plus sign were incremented in this version.

.. code-block:: diff

   + libethdev.so.4
     librte_acl.so.2
     librte_cfgfile.so.2
     librte_cmdline.so.2
     librte_cryptodev.so.1
     librte_distributor.so.1
     librte_eal.so.2
     librte_hash.so.2
     librte_ip_frag.so.1
     librte_ivshmem.so.1
     librte_jobstats.so.1
     librte_kni.so.2
     librte_kvargs.so.1
     librte_lpm.so.2
     librte_mbuf.so.2
   + librte_mempool.so.2
     librte_meter.so.1
     librte_pdump.so.1
     librte_pipeline.so.3
     librte_pmd_bond.so.1
     librte_pmd_ring.so.2
   + librte_port.so.3
     librte_power.so.1
     librte_reorder.so.1
     librte_ring.so.1
     librte_sched.so.1
     librte_table.so.2
     librte_timer.so.1
   + librte_vhost.so.3


Tested Platforms
----------------

.. This section should contain a list of platforms that were tested with this
   release.

   The format is:

   #. Platform name.

      - Platform details.
      - Platform details.


Tested NICs
-----------

.. This section should contain a list of NICs that were tested with this release.

   The format is:

   #. NIC name.

      - NIC details.
      - NIC details.