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-rw-r--r--docs/configuration/interfaces/ethernet.rst42
1 files changed, 28 insertions, 14 deletions
diff --git a/docs/configuration/interfaces/ethernet.rst b/docs/configuration/interfaces/ethernet.rst
index d7bc8518..1d99019c 100644
--- a/docs/configuration/interfaces/ethernet.rst
+++ b/docs/configuration/interfaces/ethernet.rst
@@ -69,28 +69,42 @@ Ethernet options
Offloading
----------
-.. cfgcmd:: set interfaces ethernet <interface> offload <gro | gso | sg |
- tso | ufo>
+.. cfgcmd:: set interfaces ethernet <interface> offload <gro | gso | sg | tso |
+ ufo | rps>
Enable different types of hardware offloading on the given NIC.
- Generic segmentation offload is a pure software offload that is meant to deal
- with cases where device drivers cannot perform the offloads described above.
- What occurs in GSO is that a given skbuff will have its data broken out over
- multiple skbuffs that have been resized to match the MSS provided via
- skb_shinfo()->gso_size.
+ :abbr:`GSO (Generic Segmentation Offload)` is a pure software offload that is
+ meant to deal with cases where device drivers cannot perform the offloads
+ described above. What occurs in GSO is that a given skbuff will have its data
+ broken out over multiple skbuffs that have been resized to match the MSS
+ provided via skb_shinfo()->gso_size.
Before enabling any hardware segmentation offload a corresponding software
offload is required in GSO. Otherwise it becomes possible for a frame to be
re-routed between devices and end up being unable to be transmitted.
- Generic receive offload is the complement to GSO. Ideally any frame assembled
- by GRO should be segmented to create an identical sequence of frames using
- GSO, and any sequence of frames segmented by GSO should be able to be
- reassembled back to the original by GRO. The only exception to this is IPv4
- ID in the case that the DF bit is set for a given IP header. If the value of
- the IPv4 ID is not sequentially incrementing it will be altered so that it is
- when a frame assembled via GRO is segmented via GSO.
+ :abbr:`GRO (Generic receive offload)` is the complement to GSO. Ideally any
+ frame assembled by GRO should be segmented to create an identical sequence of
+ frames using GSO, and any sequence of frames segmented by GSO should be able
+ to be reassembled back to the original by GRO. The only exception to this is
+ IPv4 ID in the case that the DF bit is set for a given IP header. If the
+ value of the IPv4 ID is not sequentially incrementing it will be altered so
+ that it is when a frame assembled via GRO is segmented via GSO.
+
+ :abbr:`RPS (Receive Packet Steering)` is logically a software implementation
+ of :abbr:`RSS (Receive Side Scaling)`. Being in software, it is necessarily
+ called later in the datapath. Whereas RSS selects the queue and hence CPU that
+ will run the hardware interrupt handler, RPS selects the CPU to perform
+ protocol processing above the interrupt handler. This is accomplished by
+ placing the packet on the desired CPU's backlog queue and waking up the CPU
+ for processing. RPS has some advantages over RSS:
+
+ - it can be used with any NIC,
+ - software filters can easily be added to hash over new protocols,
+ - it does not increase hardware device interrupt rate (although it does
+ introduce inter-processor interrupts (IPIs)).
+
.. cmdinclude:: /_include/interface-xdp.txt
:var0: ethernet