Documentation/networking/cxgb.txt - linux - Git at Google

                  Chelsio N210 10Gb Ethernet Network Controller

                          Driver Release Notes for Linux

                                  Version 2.1.1

                                  June 20, 2005

 CONTENTS
 ========
  INTRODUCTION
  FEATURES
  PERFORMANCE
  DRIVER MESSAGES
  KNOWN ISSUES
  SUPPORT


 INTRODUCTION
 ============

  This document describes the Linux driver for Chelsio 10Gb Ethernet Network
  Controller. This driver supports the Chelsio N210 NIC and is backward
  compatible with the Chelsio N110 model 10Gb NICs.


 FEATURES
 ========

  Adaptive Interrupts (adaptive-rx)
  ---------------------------------

   This feature provides an adaptive algorithm that adjusts the interrupt
   coalescing parameters, allowing the driver to dynamically adapt the latency
   settings to achieve the highest performance during various types of network
   load.

   The interface used to control this feature is ethtool. Please see the
   ethtool manpage for additional usage information.

   By default, adaptive-rx is disabled.
   To enable adaptive-rx:

       ethtool -C <interface> adaptive-rx on

   To disable adaptive-rx, use ethtool:

       ethtool -C <interface> adaptive-rx off

   After disabling adaptive-rx, the timer latency value will be set to 50us.
   You may set the timer latency after disabling adaptive-rx:

       ethtool -C <interface> rx-usecs <microseconds>

   An example to set the timer latency value to 100us on eth0:

       ethtool -C eth0 rx-usecs 100

   You may also provide a timer latency value while disabling adaptive-rx:

       ethtool -C <interface> adaptive-rx off rx-usecs <microseconds>

   If adaptive-rx is disabled and a timer latency value is specified, the timer
   will be set to the specified value until changed by the user or until
   adaptive-rx is enabled.

   To view the status of the adaptive-rx and timer latency values:

       ethtool -c <interface>


  TCP Segmentation Offloading (TSO) Support
  -----------------------------------------

   This feature, also known as "large send", enables a system's protocol stack
   to offload portions of outbound TCP processing to a network interface card
   thereby reducing system CPU utilization and enhancing performance.

   The interface used to control this feature is ethtool version 1.8 or higher.
   Please see the ethtool manpage for additional usage information.

   By default, TSO is enabled.
   To disable TSO:

       ethtool -K <interface> tso off

   To enable TSO:

       ethtool -K <interface> tso on

   To view the status of TSO:

       ethtool -k <interface>


 PERFORMANCE
 ===========

  The following information is provided as an example of how to change system
  parameters for "performance tuning" an what value to use. You may or may not
  want to change these system parameters, depending on your server/workstation
  application. Doing so is not warranted in any way by Chelsio Communications,
  and is done at "YOUR OWN RISK". Chelsio will not be held responsible for loss
  of data or damage to equipment.

  Your distribution may have a different way of doing things, or you may prefer
  a different method. These commands are shown only to provide an example of
  what to do and are by no means definitive.

  Making any of the following system changes will only last until you reboot
  your system. You may want to write a script that runs at boot-up which
  includes the optimal settings for your system.

   Setting PCI Latency Timer:
       setpci -d 1425:* 0x0c.l=0x0000F800

   Disabling TCP timestamp:
       sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_timestamps=0

   Disabling SACK:
       sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_sack=0

   Setting large number of incoming connection requests:
       sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_max_syn_backlog=3000

   Setting maximum receive socket buffer size:
       sysctl -w net.core.rmem_max=1024000

   Setting maximum send socket buffer size:
       sysctl -w net.core.wmem_max=1024000

   Set smp_affinity (on a multiprocessor system) to a single CPU:
       echo 1 > /proc/irq/<interrupt_number>/smp_affinity

   Setting default receive socket buffer size:
       sysctl -w net.core.rmem_default=524287

   Setting default send socket buffer size:
       sysctl -w net.core.wmem_default=524287

   Setting maximum option memory buffers:
       sysctl -w net.core.optmem_max=524287

   Setting maximum backlog (# of unprocessed packets before kernel drops):
       sysctl -w net.core.netdev_max_backlog=300000

   Setting TCP read buffers (min/default/max):
       sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_rmem="10000000 10000000 10000000"

   Setting TCP write buffers (min/pressure/max):
       sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_wmem="10000000 10000000 10000000"

   Setting TCP buffer space (min/pressure/max):
       sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_mem="10000000 10000000 10000000"

   TCP window size for single connections:
    The receive buffer (RX_WINDOW) size must be at least as large as the
    Bandwidth-Delay Product of the communication link between the sender and
    receiver. Due to the variations of RTT, you may want to increase the buffer
    size up to 2 times the Bandwidth-Delay Product. Reference page 289 of
    "TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1, The Protocols" by W. Richard Stevens.
    At 10Gb speeds, use the following formula:
        RX_WINDOW >= 1.25MBytes * RTT(in milliseconds)
        Example for RTT with 100us: RX_WINDOW = (1,250,000 * 0.1) = 125,000
    RX_WINDOW sizes of 256KB - 512KB should be sufficient.
    Setting the min, max, and default receive buffer (RX_WINDOW) size:
        sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_rmem="<min> <default> <max>"

   TCP window size for multiple connections:
    The receive buffer (RX_WINDOW) size may be calculated the same as single
    connections, but should be divided by the number of connections. The
    smaller window prevents congestion and facilitates better pacing,
    especially if/when MAC level flow control does not work well or when it is
    not supported on the machine. Experimentation may be necessary to attain
    the correct value. This method is provided as a starting point for the
    correct receive buffer size.
    Setting the min, max, and default receive buffer (RX_WINDOW) size is
    performed in the same manner as single connection.


 DRIVER MESSAGES
 ===============

  The following messages are the most common messages logged by syslog. These
  may be found in /var/log/messages.

   Driver up:
      Chelsio Network Driver - version 2.1.1

   NIC detected:
      eth#: Chelsio N210 1x10GBaseX NIC (rev #), PCIX 133MHz/64-bit

   Link up:
      eth#: link is up at 10 Gbps, full duplex

   Link down:
      eth#: link is down


 KNOWN ISSUES
 ============

  These issues have been identified during testing. The following information
  is provided as a workaround to the problem. In some cases, this problem is
  inherent to Linux or to a particular Linux Distribution and/or hardware
  platform.

   1. Large number of TCP retransmits on a multiprocessor (SMP) system.

       On a system with multiple CPUs, the interrupt (IRQ) for the network
       controller may be bound to more than one CPU. This will cause TCP
       retransmits if the packet data were to be split across different CPUs
       and re-assembled in a different order than expected.

       To eliminate the TCP retransmits, set smp_affinity on the particular
       interrupt to a single CPU. You can locate the interrupt (IRQ) used on
       the N110/N210 by using ifconfig:
           ifconfig <dev_name> | grep Interrupt
       Set the smp_affinity to a single CPU:
           echo 1 > /proc/irq/<interrupt_number>/smp_affinity

       It is highly suggested that you do not run the irqbalance daemon on your
       system, as this will change any smp_affinity setting you have applied.
       The irqbalance daemon runs on a 10 second interval and binds interrupts
       to the least loaded CPU determined by the daemon. To disable this daemon:
           chkconfig --level 2345 irqbalance off

       By default, some Linux distributions enable the kernel feature,
       irqbalance, which performs the same function as the daemon. To disable
       this feature, add the following line to your bootloader:
           noirqbalance

           Example using the Grub bootloader:
               title Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS (2.4.21-27.ELsmp)
               root (hd0,0)
               kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.21-27.ELsmp ro root=/dev/hda3 noirqbalance
               initrd /initrd-2.4.21-27.ELsmp.img

   2. After running insmod, the driver is loaded and the incorrect network
      interface is brought up without running ifup.

       When using 2.4.x kernels, including RHEL kernels, the Linux kernel
       invokes a script named "hotplug". This script is primarily used to
       automatically bring up USB devices when they are plugged in, however,
       the script also attempts to automatically bring up a network interface
       after loading the kernel module. The hotplug script does this by scanning
       the ifcfg-eth# config files in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts, looking
       for HWADDR=<mac_address>.

       If the hotplug script does not find the HWADDRR within any of the
       ifcfg-eth# files, it will bring up the device with the next available
       interface name. If this interface is already configured for a different
       network card, your new interface will have incorrect IP address and
       network settings.

       To solve this issue, you can add the HWADDR=<mac_address> key to the
       interface config file of your network controller.

       To disable this "hotplug" feature, you may add the driver (module name)
       to the "blacklist" file located in /etc/hotplug. It has been noted that
       this does not work for network devices because the net.agent script
       does not use the blacklist file. Simply remove, or rename, the net.agent
       script located in /etc/hotplug to disable this feature.

   3. Transport Protocol (TP) hangs when running heavy multi-connection traffic
      on an AMD Opteron system with HyperTransport PCI-X Tunnel chipset.

       If your AMD Opteron system uses the AMD-8131 HyperTransport PCI-X Tunnel
       chipset, you may experience the "133-Mhz Mode Split Completion Data
       Corruption" bug identified by AMD while using a 133Mhz PCI-X card on the
       bus PCI-X bus.

       AMD states, "Under highly specific conditions, the AMD-8131 PCI-X Tunnel
       can provide stale data via split completion cycles to a PCI-X card that
       is operating at 133 Mhz", causing data corruption.

       AMD's provides three workarounds for this problem, however, Chelsio
       recommends the first option for best performance with this bug:

         For 133Mhz secondary bus operation, limit the transaction length and
         the number of outstanding transactions, via BIOS configuration
         programming of the PCI-X card, to the following:

            Data Length (bytes): 1k
            Total allowed outstanding transactions: 2

       Please refer to AMD 8131-HT/PCI-X Errata 26310 Rev 3.08 August 2004,
       section 56, "133-MHz Mode Split Completion Data Corruption" for more
       details with this bug and workarounds suggested by AMD.

       It may be possible to work outside AMD's recommended PCI-X settings, try
       increasing the Data Length to 2k bytes for increased performance. If you
       have issues with these settings, please revert to the "safe" settings
       and duplicate the problem before submitting a bug or asking for support.

       NOTE: The default setting on most systems is 8 outstanding transactions
             and 2k bytes data length.

   4. On multiprocessor systems, it has been noted that an application which
      is handling 10Gb networking can switch between CPUs causing degraded
      and/or unstable performance.

       If running on an SMP system and taking performance measurements, it
       is suggested you either run the latest netperf-2.4.0+ or use a binding
       tool such as Tim Hockin's procstate utilities (runon)
       <http://www.hockin.org/~thockin/procstate/>.

       Binding netserver and netperf (or other applications) to particular
       CPUs will have a significant difference in performance measurements.
       You may need to experiment which CPU to bind the application to in
       order to achieve the best performance for your system.

       If you are developing an application designed for 10Gb networking,
       please keep in mind you may want to look at kernel functions
       sched_setaffinity & sched_getaffinity to bind your application.

       If you are just running user-space applications such as ftp, telnet,
       etc., you may want to try the runon tool provided by Tim Hockin's
       procstate utility. You could also try binding the interface to a
       particular CPU: runon 0 ifup eth0


 SUPPORT
 =======

  If you have problems with the software or hardware, please contact our
  customer support team via email at support@chelsio.com or check our website
  at http://www.chelsio.com

 ===============================================================================

  Chelsio Communications
  370 San Aleso Ave.
  Suite 100
  Sunnyvale, CA 94085
  http://www.chelsio.com

 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2, as
 published by the Free Software Foundation.

 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
 with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307, USA.

 THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
 WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
 MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

  Copyright (c) 2003-2005 Chelsio Communications. All rights reserved.

 ===============================================================================
	Chelsio N210 10Gb Ethernet Network Controller

	Driver Release Notes for Linux

	Version 2.1.1

	June 20, 2005

	CONTENTS
	========
	INTRODUCTION
	FEATURES
	PERFORMANCE
	DRIVER MESSAGES
	KNOWN ISSUES
	SUPPORT


	INTRODUCTION
	============

	This document describes the Linux driver for Chelsio 10Gb Ethernet Network
	Controller. This driver supports the Chelsio N210 NIC and is backward
	compatible with the Chelsio N110 model 10Gb NICs.


	FEATURES
	========

	Adaptive Interrupts (adaptive-rx)
	---------------------------------

	This feature provides an adaptive algorithm that adjusts the interrupt
	coalescing parameters, allowing the driver to dynamically adapt the latency
	settings to achieve the highest performance during various types of network
	load.

	The interface used to control this feature is ethtool. Please see the
	ethtool manpage for additional usage information.

	By default, adaptive-rx is disabled.
	To enable adaptive-rx:

	ethtool -C <interface> adaptive-rx on

	To disable adaptive-rx, use ethtool:

	ethtool -C <interface> adaptive-rx off

	After disabling adaptive-rx, the timer latency value will be set to 50us.
	You may set the timer latency after disabling adaptive-rx:

	ethtool -C <interface> rx-usecs <microseconds>

	An example to set the timer latency value to 100us on eth0:

	ethtool -C eth0 rx-usecs 100

	You may also provide a timer latency value while disabling adaptive-rx:

	ethtool -C <interface> adaptive-rx off rx-usecs <microseconds>

	If adaptive-rx is disabled and a timer latency value is specified, the timer
	will be set to the specified value until changed by the user or until
	adaptive-rx is enabled.

	To view the status of the adaptive-rx and timer latency values:

	ethtool -c <interface>


	TCP Segmentation Offloading (TSO) Support
	-----------------------------------------

	This feature, also known as "large send", enables a system's protocol stack
	to offload portions of outbound TCP processing to a network interface card
	thereby reducing system CPU utilization and enhancing performance.

	The interface used to control this feature is ethtool version 1.8 or higher.
	Please see the ethtool manpage for additional usage information.

	By default, TSO is enabled.
	To disable TSO:

	ethtool -K <interface> tso off

	To enable TSO:

	ethtool -K <interface> tso on

	To view the status of TSO:

	ethtool -k <interface>


	PERFORMANCE
	===========

	The following information is provided as an example of how to change system
	parameters for "performance tuning" an what value to use. You may or may not
	want to change these system parameters, depending on your server/workstation
	application. Doing so is not warranted in any way by Chelsio Communications,
	and is done at "YOUR OWN RISK". Chelsio will not be held responsible for loss
	of data or damage to equipment.

	Your distribution may have a different way of doing things, or you may prefer
	a different method. These commands are shown only to provide an example of
	what to do and are by no means definitive.

	Making any of the following system changes will only last until you reboot
	your system. You may want to write a script that runs at boot-up which
	includes the optimal settings for your system.

	Setting PCI Latency Timer:
	setpci -d 1425:* 0x0c.l=0x0000F800

	Disabling TCP timestamp:
	sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_timestamps=0

	Disabling SACK:
	sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_sack=0

	Setting large number of incoming connection requests:
	sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_max_syn_backlog=3000

	Setting maximum receive socket buffer size:
	sysctl -w net.core.rmem_max=1024000

	Setting maximum send socket buffer size:
	sysctl -w net.core.wmem_max=1024000

	Set smp_affinity (on a multiprocessor system) to a single CPU:
	echo 1 > /proc/irq/<interrupt_number>/smp_affinity

	Setting default receive socket buffer size:
	sysctl -w net.core.rmem_default=524287

	Setting default send socket buffer size:
	sysctl -w net.core.wmem_default=524287

	Setting maximum option memory buffers:
	sysctl -w net.core.optmem_max=524287

	Setting maximum backlog (# of unprocessed packets before kernel drops):
	sysctl -w net.core.netdev_max_backlog=300000

	Setting TCP read buffers (min/default/max):
	sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_rmem="10000000 10000000 10000000"

	Setting TCP write buffers (min/pressure/max):
	sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_wmem="10000000 10000000 10000000"

	Setting TCP buffer space (min/pressure/max):
	sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_mem="10000000 10000000 10000000"

	TCP window size for single connections:
	The receive buffer (RX_WINDOW) size must be at least as large as the
	Bandwidth-Delay Product of the communication link between the sender and
	receiver. Due to the variations of RTT, you may want to increase the buffer
	size up to 2 times the Bandwidth-Delay Product. Reference page 289 of
	"TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1, The Protocols" by W. Richard Stevens.
	At 10Gb speeds, use the following formula:
	RX_WINDOW >= 1.25MBytes * RTT(in milliseconds)
	Example for RTT with 100us: RX_WINDOW = (1,250,000 * 0.1) = 125,000
	RX_WINDOW sizes of 256KB - 512KB should be sufficient.
	Setting the min, max, and default receive buffer (RX_WINDOW) size:
	sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_rmem="<min> <default> <max>"

	TCP window size for multiple connections:
	The receive buffer (RX_WINDOW) size may be calculated the same as single
	connections, but should be divided by the number of connections. The
	smaller window prevents congestion and facilitates better pacing,
	especially if/when MAC level flow control does not work well or when it is
	not supported on the machine. Experimentation may be necessary to attain
	the correct value. This method is provided as a starting point for the
	correct receive buffer size.
	Setting the min, max, and default receive buffer (RX_WINDOW) size is
	performed in the same manner as single connection.


	DRIVER MESSAGES
	===============

	The following messages are the most common messages logged by syslog. These
	may be found in /var/log/messages.

	Driver up:
	Chelsio Network Driver - version 2.1.1

	NIC detected:
	eth#: Chelsio N210 1x10GBaseX NIC (rev #), PCIX 133MHz/64-bit

	Link up:
	eth#: link is up at 10 Gbps, full duplex

	Link down:
	eth#: link is down


	KNOWN ISSUES
	============

	These issues have been identified during testing. The following information
	is provided as a workaround to the problem. In some cases, this problem is
	inherent to Linux or to a particular Linux Distribution and/or hardware
	platform.

	1. Large number of TCP retransmits on a multiprocessor (SMP) system.

	On a system with multiple CPUs, the interrupt (IRQ) for the network
	controller may be bound to more than one CPU. This will cause TCP
	retransmits if the packet data were to be split across different CPUs
	and re-assembled in a different order than expected.

	To eliminate the TCP retransmits, set smp_affinity on the particular
	interrupt to a single CPU. You can locate the interrupt (IRQ) used on
	the N110/N210 by using ifconfig:
	ifconfig <dev_name> \| grep Interrupt
	Set the smp_affinity to a single CPU:
	echo 1 > /proc/irq/<interrupt_number>/smp_affinity

	It is highly suggested that you do not run the irqbalance daemon on your
	system, as this will change any smp_affinity setting you have applied.
	The irqbalance daemon runs on a 10 second interval and binds interrupts
	to the least loaded CPU determined by the daemon. To disable this daemon:
	chkconfig --level 2345 irqbalance off

	By default, some Linux distributions enable the kernel feature,
	irqbalance, which performs the same function as the daemon. To disable
	this feature, add the following line to your bootloader:
	noirqbalance

	Example using the Grub bootloader:
	title Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS (2.4.21-27.ELsmp)
	root (hd0,0)
	kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.21-27.ELsmp ro root=/dev/hda3 noirqbalance
	initrd /initrd-2.4.21-27.ELsmp.img

	2. After running insmod, the driver is loaded and the incorrect network
	interface is brought up without running ifup.

	When using 2.4.x kernels, including RHEL kernels, the Linux kernel
	invokes a script named "hotplug". This script is primarily used to
	automatically bring up USB devices when they are plugged in, however,
	the script also attempts to automatically bring up a network interface
	after loading the kernel module. The hotplug script does this by scanning
	the ifcfg-eth# config files in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts, looking
	for HWADDR=<mac_address>.

	If the hotplug script does not find the HWADDRR within any of the
	ifcfg-eth# files, it will bring up the device with the next available
	interface name. If this interface is already configured for a different
	network card, your new interface will have incorrect IP address and
	network settings.

	To solve this issue, you can add the HWADDR=<mac_address> key to the
	interface config file of your network controller.

	To disable this "hotplug" feature, you may add the driver (module name)
	to the "blacklist" file located in /etc/hotplug. It has been noted that
	this does not work for network devices because the net.agent script
	does not use the blacklist file. Simply remove, or rename, the net.agent
	script located in /etc/hotplug to disable this feature.

	3. Transport Protocol (TP) hangs when running heavy multi-connection traffic
	on an AMD Opteron system with HyperTransport PCI-X Tunnel chipset.

	If your AMD Opteron system uses the AMD-8131 HyperTransport PCI-X Tunnel
	chipset, you may experience the "133-Mhz Mode Split Completion Data
	Corruption" bug identified by AMD while using a 133Mhz PCI-X card on the
	bus PCI-X bus.

	AMD states, "Under highly specific conditions, the AMD-8131 PCI-X Tunnel
	can provide stale data via split completion cycles to a PCI-X card that
	is operating at 133 Mhz", causing data corruption.

	AMD's provides three workarounds for this problem, however, Chelsio
	recommends the first option for best performance with this bug:

	For 133Mhz secondary bus operation, limit the transaction length and
	the number of outstanding transactions, via BIOS configuration
	programming of the PCI-X card, to the following:

	Data Length (bytes): 1k
	Total allowed outstanding transactions: 2

	Please refer to AMD 8131-HT/PCI-X Errata 26310 Rev 3.08 August 2004,
	section 56, "133-MHz Mode Split Completion Data Corruption" for more
	details with this bug and workarounds suggested by AMD.

	It may be possible to work outside AMD's recommended PCI-X settings, try
	increasing the Data Length to 2k bytes for increased performance. If you
	have issues with these settings, please revert to the "safe" settings
	and duplicate the problem before submitting a bug or asking for support.

	NOTE: The default setting on most systems is 8 outstanding transactions
	and 2k bytes data length.

	4. On multiprocessor systems, it has been noted that an application which
	is handling 10Gb networking can switch between CPUs causing degraded
	and/or unstable performance.

	If running on an SMP system and taking performance measurements, it
	is suggested you either run the latest netperf-2.4.0+ or use a binding
	tool such as Tim Hockin's procstate utilities (runon)
	<http://www.hockin.org/~thockin/procstate/>.

	Binding netserver and netperf (or other applications) to particular
	CPUs will have a significant difference in performance measurements.
	You may need to experiment which CPU to bind the application to in
	order to achieve the best performance for your system.

	If you are developing an application designed for 10Gb networking,
	please keep in mind you may want to look at kernel functions
	sched_setaffinity & sched_getaffinity to bind your application.

	If you are just running user-space applications such as ftp, telnet,
	etc., you may want to try the runon tool provided by Tim Hockin's
	procstate utility. You could also try binding the interface to a
	particular CPU: runon 0 ifup eth0


	SUPPORT
	=======

	If you have problems with the software or hardware, please contact our
	customer support team via email at support@chelsio.com or check our website
	at http://www.chelsio.com

	===============================================================================

	Chelsio Communications
	370 San Aleso Ave.
	Suite 100
	Sunnyvale, CA 94085
	http://www.chelsio.com

	This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
	it under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2, as
	published by the Free Software Foundation.

	You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
	with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
	59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

	THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
	WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
	MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

	Copyright (c) 2003-2005 Chelsio Communications. All rights reserved.

	===============================================================================