Intel ixgbe driver - IXDP/libxdp packet processing
 
 

Intel ixgbe driver - IXDP/libxdp packet processing

February 12, 2025
configuration
IXDP, libxdp, driver

Overview #

ixgbe Linux Base Driver #

The ixgbe driver supports 82598- and 82599-based PCI Express 10 Gigabit Network Connections.

ixgbe 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 6.1.0-31-amd64:

root@u32:~# uname -r
6.1.0-31-amd64
root@u32:~#

Intel® Ethernet Controller X540-AT2 #

The installed Intel® Ethernet Controller X540-AT2 is connected to a 10GBE testing network with two distinct broadcast domains:

root@u32:/home/t# lspci | grep X540-AT2
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller 10-Gigabit X540-AT2 (rev 01)
01:00.1 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller 10-Gigabit X540-AT2 (rev 01)
root@u32:/home/t#

The specifications are available here: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/60020/intel-ethernet-controller-x540at2/specifications.html

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

[    0.687513] ixgbe: Intel(R) 10 Gigabit PCI Express Network Driver
[    0.687515] ixgbe: Copyright (c) 1999-2016 Intel Corporation.
[    0.969079] ixgbe 0000:01:00.0: Multiqueue Enabled: Rx Queue count = 8, Tx Queue count = 8 XDP Queue count = 0
[    1.055881] ixgbe 0000:01:00.0: 32.000 Gb/s available PCIe bandwidth (5.0 GT/s PCIe x8 link)
[    1.154250] ixgbe 0000:01:00.0: MAC: 3, PHY: 0, PBA No: G45270-003
[    1.154259] ixgbe 0000:01:00.0: a0:36:9f:21:48:fc
[    1.304836] ixgbe 0000:01:00.0: Intel(R) 10 Gigabit Network Connection
[    1.591248] ixgbe 0000:01:00.1: Multiqueue Enabled: Rx Queue count = 8, Tx Queue count = 8 XDP Queue count = 0
[    1.678252] ixgbe 0000:01:00.1: 32.000 Gb/s available PCIe bandwidth (5.0 GT/s PCIe x8 link)
[    1.776804] ixgbe 0000:01:00.1: MAC: 3, PHY: 0, PBA No: G45270-003
[    1.776814] ixgbe 0000:01:00.1: a0:36:9f:21:48:fe
[    1.930829] ixgbe 0000:01:00.1: Intel(R) 10 Gigabit Network Connection
[    1.950664] ixgbe 0000:01:00.0 enp1s0f0: renamed from eth0
[    1.994688] ixgbe 0000:01:00.1 enp1s0f1: renamed from eth1
This particular Ethernet Controller 10-Gigabit X540-AT2 shows as discontinued, the 82598- and 82599 chipsets remain widely used. The ixgbe driver itself is actively maintained.

ixgbe driver and NVM firmware version #

ethtool -i enp1s0f0 shows the driver version:

root@u32:~# ethtool -i enp1s0f0
driver: ixgbe
version: 6.1.0-31-amd64
firmware-version: 0x80000389
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:~#

ixgbe channel parameters #

ethtool -l enp1s0f0 displays the channel parameters:

root@u32:~# ethtool -l enp1s0f0
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:	1
root@u32:~#
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).

ixgbe 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:~#