What is HugePages in DPDK?

Hugepages must be enabled for running DPDK with high performance. Hugepage support is required to reserve large amount size of pages, 2MB or 1GB per page, to less TLB (Translation Lookaside Buffers) and to reduce cache miss. Less TLB means that it reduce the time for translating virtual address to physical.

What is HugePages?

HugePages is a feature integrated into the Linux kernel 2.6. Enabling HugePages makes it possible for the operating system to support memory pages greater than the default (usually 4 KB).

How do I use DPDK?

The following is a brief synopsis of each step.

1. Step 1: Build DPDK Libraries. Initially, the user must select a DPDK target to choose the correct target type and compiler options to use when building the libraries.
2. Step 2: Setup Environment.
3. Step 3: Run an Application.
4. Step 4: Examining the System.
5. Step 5: System Cleanup.

How do I allocate Hugepages?

The administrator can allocate persistent huge pages on the kernel boot command line by specifying the “hugepages=N” parameter, where ‘N’ = the number of huge pages requested. This is the most reliable method of allocating huge pages as memory has not yet become fragmented.

How do I get best performance with NICS on Intel platforms?

Disable Turbo Boost to ensure the performance scaling increases with the number of cores. Set memory frequency to the highest available number, NOT auto. Disable all virtualization options when you test the physical function of the NIC, and turn on VT-d if you wants to use VFIO.

Is Hugepages enabled?

Transparent Huge Pages (THP) are enabled by default in RHEL 6 for all applications. The kernel attempts to allocate hugepages whenever possible and any Linux process will receive 2MB pages if the mmap region is 2MB naturally aligned.

Why is DPDK faster?

In layman terms, DPDK enables us to build applications, that we can use to process packets faster! It does so by enabling packets to follow “fastpath” instead of normal route of Network layers and Context switching. DPDK accelerated hardware enables the packets to bypass the Kernel entirely!

What is DPDK port?

DPDK Physical Ports¶ The netdev datapath allows attaching of DPDK-backed physical interfaces in order to provide high-performance ingress/egress from the host. Important. To use any DPDK-backed interface, you must ensure your bridge is configured correctly. For more information, refer to DPDK Bridges.

How do you check if Hugepages are enabled?

How to tell if Explicit HugePages is enabled or disabled

1. If the value of HugePages_Total is greater than “0”, it means HugePages is enabled on the system:
2. Similarly if the value in /proc/sys/vm/nr_hugepages file or vm.nr_hugepages sysctl parameter is greater than “0”, it means HugePages is enabled on the system:

How do I enable Hugepages in Linux?

Execute ‘sysctl -p’ command to enable the hugepages parameter. Note : It’s recommended to restart the system after configuring hugepages as the chances of having free contiguous memory (for hugepages allocation) is much greater when a system is started.