Aging Support For HWS (Hardware Steering)

As of DPDK version 20.11_6.0.0, we support aging for HWS ((Hardware Steering)). When configuring via rte_flow_configure(), new member flags is added to the "struct rte_flow_port_attr".

• RTE_FLOW_PORT_FLAG_STRICT_QUEUE: Indicates that all operations for a given flow rule will strictly happen on the same queue (create/destroy/query/update).

New structure "rte_flow_update_age"is added.

• Update structure to modify the parameters of an indirect AGE action.

• The update structure is used by rte_flow_action_handle_update() function.

New function API "rte_flow_get_aged_flows" is added. Refer to the header file "rte_flow.h" for more detailed descriptions.

Limitations:

• Using the same indirect COUNT action combined with multiple AGE actions in different flows may cause a wrong AGE state for the AGE actions.

• Creating/destroying flow rules with indirect AGE action when it is active (timeout != 0) may cause a wrong AGE state for the indirect AGE action.

• The mlx5 driver reuses counters for aging action, so for optimization, the values in the "struct rte_flow_port_attr" structure should describe:

  • nb_counters: the number of flow rules using counter (with/without AGE)

  • nb_aging_objects: the number of flow rules containing AGE action