Subject: [net-next V3 15/15] Documentation: networking: Add description for multi-pf netdev

From: Saeed Mahameed <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2024 19:08:14 -0800

From: Tariq Toukan <[email-masked]>

Add documentation for the multi-pf netdev feature.
Describe the mlx5 implementation and design decisions.

Signed-off-by: Tariq Toukan <[email-masked]>
Signed-off-by: Saeed Mahameed <[email-masked]>
---
 Documentation/networking/index.rst           |   1 +
 Documentation/networking/multi-pf-netdev.rst | 157 +++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 158 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 Documentation/networking/multi-pf-netdev.rst

diff --git a/Documentation/networking/index.rst b/Documentation/networking/index.rst
index 69f3d6dcd9fd..473d72c36d61 100644
--- a/Documentation/networking/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/networking/index.rst
@@ -74,6 +74,7 @@ Contents:
    mpls-sysctl
    mptcp-sysctl
    multiqueue
+   multi-pf-netdev
    napi
    net_cachelines/index
    netconsole
diff --git a/Documentation/networking/multi-pf-netdev.rst b/Documentation/networking/multi-pf-netdev.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..6ef2ac448d1e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/networking/multi-pf-netdev.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,157 @@
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+.. include:: <isonum.txt>
+
+===============
+Multi-PF Netdev
+===============
+
+Contents
+========
+
+- `Background`_
+- `Overview`_
+- `mlx5 implementation`_
+- `Channels distribution`_
+- `Topology`_
+- `Steering`_
+- `Mutually exclusive features`_
+
+Background
+==========
+
+The advanced Multi-PF NIC technology enables several CPUs within a multi-socket server to
+connect directly to the network, each through its own dedicated PCIe interface. Through either a
+connection harness that splits the PCIe lanes between two cards or by bifurcating a PCIe slot for a
+single card. This results in eliminating the network traffic traversing over the internal bus
+between the sockets, significantly reducing overhead and latency, in addition to reducing CPU
+utilization and increasing network throughput.
+
+Overview
+========
+
+This feature adds support for combining multiple devices (PFs) of the same port in a Multi-PF
+environment under one netdev instance. Passing traffic through different devices belonging to
+different NUMA sockets saves cross-numa traffic and allows apps running on the same netdev from
+different numas to still feel a sense of proximity to the device and achieve improved performance.
+
+mlx5 implementation
+===================
+
+Multi-PF or Socket-direct in mlx5 is achieved by grouping PFs together which belong to the same
+NIC and has the socket-direct property enabled, once all PFS are probed, we create a single netdev
+to represent all of them, symmetrically, we destroy the netdev whenever any of the PFs is removed.
+
+The netdev network channels are distributed between all devices, a proper configuration would utilize
+the correct close numa node when working on a certain app/cpu.
+
+We pick one PF to be a primary (leader), and it fills a special role. The other devices
+(secondaries) are disconnected from the network at the chip level (set to silent mode). In silent
+mode, no south <-> north traffic flowing directly through a secondary PF. It needs the assistance of
+the leader PF (east <-> west traffic) to function. All RX/TX traffic is steered through the primary
+to/from the secondaries.
+
+Currently, we limit the support to PFs only, and up to two PFs (sockets).
+
+Channels distribution
+=====================
+
+We distribute the channels between the different PFs to achieve local NUMA node performance
+on multiple NUMA nodes.
+
+Each combined channel works against one specific PF, creating all its datapath queues against it. We distribute
+channels to PFs in a round-robin policy.
+
+::
+
+        Example for 2 PFs and 6 channels:
+        +--------+--------+
+        | ch idx | PF idx |
+        +--------+--------+
+        |    0   |    0   |
+        |    1   |    1   |
+        |    2   |    0   |
+        |    3   |    1   |
+        |    4   |    0   |
+        |    5   |    1   |
+        +--------+--------+
+
+
+We prefer this round-robin distribution policy over another suggested intuitive distribution, in
+which we first distribute one half of the channels to PF0 and then the second half to PF1.
+
+The reason we prefer round-robin is, it is less influenced by changes in the number of channels. The
+mapping between a channel index and a PF is fixed, no matter how many channels the user configures.
+As the channel stats are persistent across channel's closure, changing the mapping every single time
+would turn the accumulative stats less representing of the channel's history.
+
+This is achieved by using the correct core device instance (mdev) in each channel, instead of them
+all using the same instance under "priv->mdev".
+
+Topology
+========
+Currently the sysfs is kept untouched, letting the netdev sysfs point to its primary PF.
+Enhancing sysfs to reflect the actual topology is to be discussed and contributed separately.
+For now, debugfs is being used to reflect the topology:
+
+.. code-block:: bash
+
+        $ grep -H . /sys/kernel/debug/mlx5/0000\:08\:00.0/sd/*
+        /sys/kernel/debug/mlx5/0000:08:00.0/sd/group_id:0x00000101
+        /sys/kernel/debug/mlx5/0000:08:00.0/sd/primary:0000:08:00.0 vhca 0x0
+        /sys/kernel/debug/mlx5/0000:08:00.0/sd/secondary_0:0000:09:00.0 vhca 0x2
+
+Steering
+========
+Secondary PFs are set to "silent" mode, meaning they are disconnected from the network.
+
+In RX, the steering tables belong to the primary PF only, and it is its role to distribute incoming
+traffic to other PFs, via cross-vhca steering capabilities. Nothing special about the RSS table
+content, except that it needs a capable device to point to the receive queues of a different PF.
+
+In TX, the primary PF creates a new TX flow table, which is aliased by the secondaries, so they can
+go out to the network through it.
+
+In addition, we set default XPS configuration that, based on the cpu, selects an SQ belonging to the
+PF on the same node as the cpu.
+
+XPS default config example:
+
+NUMA node(s):          2
+NUMA node0 CPU(s):     0-11
+NUMA node1 CPU(s):     12-23
+
+PF0 on node0, PF1 on node1.
+
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-0/xps_cpus:000001
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-1/xps_cpus:001000
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-2/xps_cpus:000002
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-3/xps_cpus:002000
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-4/xps_cpus:000004
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-5/xps_cpus:004000
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-6/xps_cpus:000008
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-7/xps_cpus:008000
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-8/xps_cpus:000010
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-9/xps_cpus:010000
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-10/xps_cpus:000020
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-11/xps_cpus:020000
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-12/xps_cpus:000040
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-13/xps_cpus:040000
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-14/xps_cpus:000080
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-15/xps_cpus:080000
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-16/xps_cpus:000100
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-17/xps_cpus:100000
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-18/xps_cpus:000200
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-19/xps_cpus:200000
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-20/xps_cpus:000400
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-21/xps_cpus:400000
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-22/xps_cpus:000800
+- /sys/class/net/eth2/queues/tx-23/xps_cpus:800000
+
+Mutually exclusive features
+===========================
+
+The nature of Multi-PF, where different channels work with different PFs, conflicts with
+stateful features where the state is maintained in one of the PFs.
+For example, in the TLS device-offload feature, special context objects are created per connection
+and maintained in the PF.  Transitioning between different RQs/SQs would break the feature. Hence,
+we disable this combination for now.
-- 
2.43.0