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Nicola Bonelli edited this page Feb 4, 2015 · 38 revisions

Architecture

architecture

PFQ is a Linux Kernel module for packet capture and in-kernel functional processing designed to be efficient on multi-core architectures.

PFQ works by registering itself as a network sniffer (as PF_PACKET), or through accelerated drivers obtained by recompiling the source codes by pfq-omatic script.

Module parameters

description:    Functional Networking Framework for Multi-core Architectures
author:         Nicola Bonelli <nicola@pfq.io>
license:        GPL
depends:        crc16
vermagic:       3.16-2-amd64 SMP mod_unload modversions 
parm:           skb_pool_size:int
parm:           direct_capture: Direct capture packets: (0 default) (int)
parm:           capture_incoming: Capture incoming packets: (1 default) (int)
parm:           capture_outgoing: Capture outgoing packets: (0 default) (int)
parm:           cap_len: Default capture length (bytes) (int)
parm:           max_len: Maximum transmission length (default=1514 bytes) (int)
parm:           max_queue_slots: Max Queue slots (default=226144) (int)
parm:           batch_len: Batch queue length (int)
parm:           tx_max_retry: Transmission max retry (default=1024)
parm:           vl_untag: Enable vlan untagging (default=0) (int)

Performance

PFQ provides similar performance to that of PF_RING-DNA and Netmap, while maintaining the total flexibility of the software and the full compatibility with a plethora of network device drivers.

The software acceleration is achieved with a total lock-free architecture and by overloading certain kernel functions at compile with more efficient implementations. Additional information is available in the section pfq-omatic.

PFQ takes advantage from:

  • A total lock-free architecture on the fast-data path.
  • Efficient implementations of queues (MPSC, SPMC) with amortized atomic operations.
  • Reduced traffic of coherence among cores.
  • Ad-hoc socket buffer memory allocator.
  • Lightweight sparse counters.
  • No false-sharing.

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