Intel i40e driver - IXDP/libxdp packet processing
 
 

Intel i40e driver - IXDP/libxdp packet processing

February 5, 2025
configuration
IXDP, libxdp, driver

Overview #

i40e Linux Base Driver #

This driver is compatible with devices based on the following:

  • Intel(R) Ethernet Controller I710
  • Intel(R) Ethernet Controller X710
  • Intel(R) Ethernet Controller XL710
  • Intel(R) Ethernet Network Connection X722
  • Intel(R) Ethernet Controller XXV710
  • Intel(R) Ethernet Controller V710

i40e on Debian 12 #

kernel release #

A bare metal testing machine with Debian 12 identifies as follows:

root@u32:~# lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Debian
Description:    Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
Release:        12
Codename:       bookworm
root@u32:~#

The kernel release is 6.1.0-30-amd64:

root@u32:~# uname -r
6.1.0-30-amd64
root@u32:~#

Intel® Ethernet Controller X710-BM2 #

The installed Intel® Ethernet Controller X710-BM2 is connected to a 10GBE testing network with two distinct broadcast domains:

root@u32:~# lspci | grep X710
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller X710 for 10GBASE-T (rev 02)
01:00.1 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller X710 for 10GBASE-T (rev 02)
root@u32:~#

The specifications are available here: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/93098/intel-ethernet-controller-x710bm2/specifications.html

As shown by dmesg the two ports are represented as enp1s0f0 and enp1s0f1:

[    0.700621] i40e: Intel(R) Ethernet Connection XL710 Network Driver
[    0.700623] i40e: Copyright (c) 2013 - 2019 Intel Corporation.
[    0.713099] i40e 0000:01:00.0: fw 8.1.63299 api 1.12 nvm 8.10 0x800093ea 1.2829.0 [8086:15ff] [8086:0003]
[    0.972976] i40e 0000:01:00.0: MAC address: f0:b2:b9:15:07:ca
[    0.973273] i40e 0000:01:00.0: FW LLDP is enabled
[    0.994431] i40e 0000:01:00.0 eth1: NIC Link is Up, 10 Gbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: None
[    1.027007] i40e 0000:01:00.0: PCI-Express: Speed 8.0GT/s Width x8
[    1.029450] i40e 0000:01:00.0: Features: PF-id[0] VFs: 64 VSIs: 66 QP: 8 RSS FD_ATR FD_SB NTUPLE DCB VxLAN Geneve PTP VEPA
[    1.043593] i40e 0000:01:00.1: fw 8.1.63299 api 1.12 nvm 8.10 0x800093ea 1.2829.0 [8086:15ff] [8086:0003]
[    1.226314] i40e 0000:01:00.1: MAC address: f0:b2:b9:15:07:cb
[    1.226628] i40e 0000:01:00.1: FW LLDP is enabled
[    1.232180] i40e 0000:01:00.1 eth0: NIC Link is Up, 10 Gbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: None
[    1.233805] i40e 0000:01:00.1: PCI-Express: Speed 8.0GT/s Width x8
[    1.236087] i40e 0000:01:00.1: Features: PF-id[1] VFs: 64 VSIs: 66 QP: 8 RSS FD_ATR FD_SB NTUPLE DCB VxLAN Geneve PTP VEPA
[    1.274767] i40e 0000:01:00.0 enp1s0f0: renamed from eth1
[    1.318662] i40e 0000:01:00.1 enp1s0f1: renamed from eth0

i40e driver and NVM firmware version #

ethtool -i enp1s0f0 shows the driver version:

root@u32:~# ethtool -i enp1s0f0
driver: i40e
version: 6.1.0-30-amd64
firmware-version: 8.10 0x800093ea 1.2829.0
expansion-rom-version: 
bus-info: 0000:01:00.0
supports-statistics: yes
supports-test: yes
supports-eeprom-access: yes
supports-register-dump: yes
supports-priv-flags: yes
root@u32:~#

Note that the driver version matches the Linux kernel version since the i40e loadable kernel object come together (there’s no direct association to its original matching Intel versioning).

The firmware version 8.10 is not the latest, which is currently 9.53. The NVM firmware is upgradable when needed using the Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) Update Utility, more Information and downloads here: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/18190/non-volatile-memory-nvm-update-utility-for-intel-ethernet-network-adapter-700-series.html .

i40e channel parameters #

ethtool -l enp1s0f0 displays the channel parameters:

root@u32:~# ethtool -l enp1s0f0
Channel parameters for enp1s0f0:
Pre-set maximums:
RX:		n/a
TX:		n/a
Other:		1
Combined:	8
Current hardware settings:
RX:		n/a
TX:		n/a
Other:		1
Combined:	2
root@u32:~#

The pre-set “Combined” maximum shows as 8, effectively meaning that this device can operate with a maximum of 8 combined RX/TX queues.

This is the maximum nqueues parameter for the IXDPSetup() call also matching the number of concurrent packets processing threads. For processing packets at 10GBe as in this test specifying 1 is absolutely perfect (any higher number of queues/threads don’t add any benefit).

i40e ring parameters #

ethtool -g enp1s0f0i shows the ring parameters:

root@u32:~# ethtool -g enp1s0f0
Ring parameters for enp1s0f0:
Pre-set maximums:
RX:             4096
RX Mini:        n/a
RX Jumbo:       n/a
TX:             4096
Current hardware settings:
RX:             4096
RX Mini:        n/a
RX Jumbo:       n/a
TX:             4096
RX Buf Len:     n/a
CQE Size:       n/a
TX Push:        off
TCP data split: n/a
root@u32:~#
The RX/TX maximum is also the maximum ringsize parameter for the IXDPSetup() call. The i40e driver coming with the latest Linux kernels allow to specify a value of 8192. With 10GbE network a value of 2048 is perfect, there’s no performance or throughput benefit with higher values.

i40e LLDP disable #

FW-LLDP (Firmware Link Layer Discovery Protocol) should be disabled for i40e in our case, this is done (or tried) by IXDPSetup() implicitly by invoking ethtool like this:

ethtool --set-priv-flags enp1s0f0 disable-fw-lldp on
ethtool --set-priv-flags enp1s0f1 disable-fw-lldp on