Documentation: document ovs-dpdk flow offload

Add details in the DPDK howto guide on the way to enable the offload along with the supported NICs and flow types. The flow offload is marked as experimental. Signed-off-by: Yuanhan Liu <[email protected]> Co-authored-by: Shahaf Shuler <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Shahaf Shuler <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Ian Stokes <[email protected]>
asdlei99 · Jul 6, 2018 · c3c722d · c3c722d
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diff --git a/Documentation/howto/dpdk.rst b/Documentation/howto/dpdk.rst
@@ -358,6 +358,28 @@ devices to bridge ``br0``. Once complete, follow the below steps:
 
        $ cat /proc/interrupts | grep virtio
 
+.. _dpdk-flow-hardware-offload:
+
+Flow Hardware Offload (Experimental)
+------------------------------------
+
+The flow hardware offload is disabled by default and can be enabled by::
+
+    $ ovs-vsctl set Open_vSwitch . other_config:hw-offload=true
+
+So far only partial flow offload is implemented. Moreover, it only works
+with PMD drivers have the rte_flow action "MARK + RSS" support.
+
+The validated NICs are:
+
+- Mellanox (ConnectX-4, ConnectX-4 Lx, ConnectX-5)
+- Napatech (NT200B01)
+
+Supported protocols for hardware offload are:
+- L2: Ethernet, VLAN
+- L3: IPv4, IPv6
+- L4: TCP, UDP, SCTP, ICMP
+
 Further Reading
 ---------------
 

diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
@@ -34,6 +34,7 @@ Post-v2.9.0
        See Testing topic for the details.
      * Add LSC interrupt support for DPDK physical devices.
      * Allow init to fail and record DPDK status/version in OVS database.
+     * Add experimental flow hardware offload support
    - Userspace datapath:
      * Commands ovs-appctl dpif-netdev/pmd-*-show can now work on a single PMD
      * Detailed PMD performance metrics available with new command
@@ -110,7 +111,6 @@ v2.9.0 - 19 Feb 2018
      * New appctl command 'dpif-netdev/pmd-rxq-rebalance' to rebalance rxq to
        pmd assignments.
      * Add rxq utilization of pmd to appctl 'dpif-netdev/pmd-rxq-show'.
-     * Add support for vHost dequeue zero copy (experimental)
    - Userspace datapath:
      * Output packet batching support.
    - vswitchd: