Linux* aQuantia AQtion Driver for the aQuantia Multi-Gigabit PCI Express Family of Ethernet Adapters

May 05, 2017

Contents

• Important Note
• In This Release
• Identifying Your Adapter
• Building and Installation
• Command Line Parameters
• Additional Configurations
• Support

IMPORTANT NOTE

WARNING: The AQtion driver compiles by default with the LRO (Large Receive Offload) feature enabled. This option offers the lowest CPU utilization for receives, but is completely incompatible with routing/ip forwarding and bridging. If enabling ip forwarding or bridging is a requirement, it is necessary to disable LRO using compile time options as noted in the LRO section later in this document. The result of not disabling LRO when combined with ip forwarding or bridging can be low throughput or even a kernel panic.

In This Release

This file describes the aQuantia AQtion Driver for the aQuantia Multi-Gigabit PCI Express Family of Ethernet Adapters. This driver supports the linux kernels >= 3.10, and includes support for x86_64 and ARM Linux system.

This release contains source tarball and src.rpm package.

Identifying Your Adapter

The driver in this release is compatible with AQC-100, AQC-107, AQC-108 based ethernet adapters.

SFP+ Devices (for AQC-100 based adapters)

This release tested with passive Direct Attach Cables (DAC) and SFP+/LC Optical Transceiver.

Building and Installation

To manually build this driver:

1. Move the base driver tar file to the directory of your choice. For example, use /home/username/aquantia.

2. Untar/unzip archive:

   tar zxf Aquantia-AQtion-1.6.7.tar.gz

3. Change to the driver src directory:

   cd Aquantia-AQtion-1.6.7/

4. Compile the driver module: make

5. Load the module: sudo insmod atlantic.ko

6. Unload the driver sudo rmmod atlantic

7. Install the driver in the system make && make install

   /lib/modules/[KERNEL_VERSION]/aquantia/atlantic.ko

8. Uninstall the driver: make uninstall or Run the following commands: sudo rm -f /lib/modules/uname -r/aquantia/atlantic.ko depmod -a `uname -r’

Or alternatively you can use Aquantia-AQtion-1.6.7-1.src.rpm

1. Move the Aquantia-AQtion-1.6.7-1.src.rpm file to the directory of your choice. For example, use /home/username/aquantia.

2. Execute the commands: rpmbuild --rebuild Aquantia-AQtion-1.6.7-1.src.rpm sudo rpm -ivh ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/Aquantia-AQtion-1.6.7-1.x86_64.rpm

   After this driver will be installed. (You can check this via "rpm -qa | grep Aquantia")

3. Uninstall the driver: Run the following commands: sudo rpm -e Aquantia-AQtion-1.6.7-1.x86_64

Check that the driver is working

1. Verify ethernet interface appears: ifconfig or ip addr show

   If not new interface appears, check dmesg output. If you see "Bad firmware detected" please update firmware on your ethernet card.

2. Assign an IP address to the interface by entering the following, where x is the interface number:

   ifconfig ethX <IP_address> netmask or ip addr add <IP_address> dev

3. Verify that the interface works. Enter the following, where <IP_address> is the IP address for another machine on the same subnet as the interface that is being tested:

   ping <IP_address> or (for IPv6) ping6 <IPv6_address>

Command Line Parameters

Command line parameters are not supported in this release.

Config file parametes

Some parameters can be changed in the {source_dir}/aq_cfg.h file:

AQ_CFG_VECS_DEF

Number of queues Valid Range: 0 - 8 (up to AQ_CFG_VECS_MAX) Default value: 4

AQ_CFG_IS_RSS_DEF

Enable/disable Receive Side Scaling

This feature allows the adapter to distribute receive processing across multiple CPU-cores and to prevent from overloading a single CPU core.

Valid values 0 - disabled 1 - enabled

Default value: 1

AQ_CFG_NUM_RSS_QUEUES_DEF

Number of queues for Receive Side Scaling Valid Range: 0 - 4 (up to AQ_CFG_VECS_DEF)

Default value: 4

AQ_CFG_IS_LRO_DEF

Enable/disable Large Receive Offload

This offload enables the adapter to coalesce multiple TCP segments and indicate them as a single coalesced unit to the OS networking subsystem. The system consumes less energy but it also introduces more latency in packets processing.

Valid values 0 - disabled 1 - enabled

Default value: 1

After the aq_cfg.h file changed the driver must be rebuilt to take effect.

Additional Configurations

Viewing Link Messages

Link messages will not be displayed to the console if the distribution is restricting system messages. In order to see network driver link messages on your console, set dmesg to eight by entering the following:

   dmesg -n 8

NOTE: This setting is not saved across reboots.

Jumbo Frames

The driver supports Jumbo Frames for all adapters. Jumbo Frames support is enabled by changing the MTU to a value larger than the default of 1500. The maximum value for the MTU is 16000. Use the ifconfig command to increase the MTU size. For example:

    ifconfig <ethX> mtu 9000 up

ethtool

The driver utilizes the ethtool interface for driver configuration and diagnostics, as well as displaying statistical information. The latest ethtool version is required for this functionality.

NAPI

NAPI (Rx polling mode) is supported in the ixgbe driver.

See ftp://robur.slu.se/pub/Linux/net-development/NAPI/usenix-paper.tgz for more information on NAPI.

Supported ethtool options

Viewing adapter settings

ethtool

Output example: Settings for enp1s0: Supported ports: [ ] Supported link modes: 100baseT/Full 1000baseT/Full 10000baseT/Full Supported pause frame use: Symmetric Supports auto-negotiation: Yes Advertised link modes: 100baseT/Full 1000baseT/Full 10000baseT/Full Advertised pause frame use: Symmetric Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes Speed: 10000Mb/s Duplex: Full Port: FIBRE PHYAD: 0 Transceiver: external Auto-negotiation: on Link detected: yes

---

Note: AQrate speeds (2.5/5 Gb/s) will be displayed only with linux kernels > 4.10. But you can still use these speeds: ethtool -s eth0 autoneg off speed 2500

Viewing adapter information

ethtool -i

Output example: driver: atlantic version: 1.6.7.0 firmware-version: 1.5.49 expansion-rom-version: bus-info: 0000:01:00.0 supports-statistics: yes supports-test: no supports-eeprom-access: no supports-register-dump: yes supports-priv-flags: no

Viewing Ethernet adapter statistics:

ethtool -S

Output example: NIC statistics: InPackets: 13238607 InUCast: 13293852 InMCast: 52 InBCast: 3 InErrors: 0 OutPackets: 23703019 OutUCast: 23704941 OutMCast: 67 OutBCast: 11 InUCastOctects: 213182760 OutUCastOctects: 22698443 InMCastOctects: 6600 OutMCastOctects: 8776 InBCastOctects: 192 OutBCastOctects: 704 InOctects: 2131839552 OutOctects: 226938073 InPacketsDma: 95532300 OutPacketsDma: 59503397 InOctetsDma: 1137102462 OutOctetsDma: 2394339518 InDroppedDma: 0 Queue[0] InPackets: 23567131 Queue[0] OutPackets: 20070028 Queue[0] InJumboPackets: 0 Queue[0] InLroPackets: 0 Queue[0] InErrors: 0 Queue[1] InPackets: 45428967 Queue[1] OutPackets: 11306178 Queue[1] InJumboPackets: 0 Queue[1] InLroPackets: 0 Queue[1] InErrors: 0 Queue[2] InPackets: 3187011 Queue[2] OutPackets: 13080381 Queue[2] InJumboPackets: 0 Queue[2] InLroPackets: 0 Queue[2] InErrors: 0 Queue[3] InPackets: 23349136 Queue[3] OutPackets: 15046810 Queue[3] InJumboPackets: 0 Queue[3] InLroPackets: 0 Queue[3] InErrors: 0

Disable GRO when routing/bridging

Due to a known kernel issue, GRO must be turned off when routing/bridging. Its can be done with command:

ethtool -K gro off

Disable LRO when routing/bridging

Due to a known kernel issue, LRO must be turned off when routing/bridging. Its can be done with command:

ethtool -K lro off

Support

If an issue is identified with the released source code on the supported kernel with a supported adapter, email the specific information related to the issue to rdc-drv@aquantia.com

License

aQuantia Corporation Network Driver Copyright(c) 2014 - 2017 aQuantia Corporation.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms and conditions of the GNU General Public License, version 2, as published by the Free Software Foundation.