To Enable Multiqueue Using Destination-Port Based Steering

To get the new method of using multiqueue:

Install the 10 Gigabit Ethernet product off of the December 2005 operating environment media.

In addition to getting the 10 Gigabit Ethernet product off of the December 2005 operating environment media, you also need to install the following dependencies to enable the new destination-port based steered multiqueues:




	NOTE: The following enhancement products and patches are needed in addition to the December 2005 quarterly release. If you load only the December 2005 quarterly release without these dependencies, your system will run the VLAN based method of multiqueing described in the May 2005 10 Gigabit Ethernet Release Notes. If you do not plan to use multiqueue, the following patches are optional.

TOUR 3.0 (Transport Optional update release). For further information on this, please see the latest TOUR release notes at: http://docs.hp.com/en/netcom.html#Internet%20Transport. To download the software, go to http://software.hp.com.
STAR 1.0 (Streams Advanced Release). To download the software, go to http://software.hp.com.
PHNE_32277 (Streams Cumulative Patch). Download the needed software by going to: http://itrc.hp.com. Select “patch database,” and search for the needed patch number. If not already registered, you can register for free on the ITRC home page.
PHNE_33429 (DLPI patch for NOSYNC support). Download the needed software by going to: http://itrc.hp.com. Select “patch database,” and search for the needed patch number. If not already registered, you can register for free on the ITRC home page.

If your system already has a 10GigE interface previously configured (from any of the software releases prior to December 2005) -- the new features would not be enabled by default.
After explicitly installing all the dependencies, to enable multiqueue that uses destination port based steering, you then need to
- Set the new driver parameter HP_IXGBE_DPS to ON or OFF in the driver config file /etc/rc.config.d/hpixgbeconf
  Setting this field to ON enables this feature and setting it to OFF disables this feature when the driver startup script runs. The default setting of HP_IXGBE_DPS is ON.
- To temporarily* enable this feature: lanadmin -X drv_dp_on ppa
  
  To temporarily disable this feature: lanadmin -X drv_dp_off ppa
  
  To query the status of this feature: lanadmin -x drv_dp ppa
  
  (*lanadmin does not preserve your settings across reboots)

The card_info command option of lanadmin also has been modified to display the current multiqueue mode: Destination port based or VLAN priority based.Enabling/Disabling this feature will cause an internal reset on the interface.

Benefits of Multi-Queue

The ixgbe driver in the 10GigEthr-00 driver software bundle can configure the AB287A 10 Gigabit Ethernet card to support up to 8 logical paths in each direction (transmitting and receiving). This feature is critical to achieving good sustained throughput. Without making use of multiqueue, a single CPU will be used for interrupt processing on the receive path. If the CPU becomes over-saturated (very likely if the MTU is set to 1500 and there is a heavy traffic load), the card will not be able to sustain link rate. With multiqueue configured, different flows of traffic will be routed to different CPUs thereby helping to avoid saturating a CPU.

Difference in Multi-Queue Implementation from Previous Release

Beginning with the December 2005 release, the ixgbe driver uses destination-port based steering to configure 10 Gigabit Ethernet multiqueues. The prior implementation used VLANs. When multiqueues are enabled now, the driver will automatically configure the optimal number of queues.

The advantages of constructing multiqueues with destination port based steering (over the VLAN method) are as follows:

There is no need to configure VLANs on the switch or on the system.
There is no need to assign separate IP addresses to VLANs and partition applications among them.

To Enable Multiqueue Using Destination-Port Based Steering

Technical documentation

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Benefits of Multi-Queue

Difference in Multi-Queue Implementation from Previous Release