Evaluation and Implementation of Linux User-space Fast Path Technologies : Linux, User-space

Abstract: The enormous increase in device connectivity for data and telecom devices places significant challenges on the packet processing techniques used in embedded systems such as IP stacks. Therefore, the traditional packet processing software cannot handle the line rate packet flow even for the most cutting edge devices. A solution to this problem is to allow applications to directly receive packets without passing through the normal kernel stack and drivers i.e. interface directly with the hardware. Two such open source libraries for Linux are PF_RING and Netmap. In addition Freescale has a similar technology called USDPAA. In order to satisfy the first goal of this project, a detailed analysis and evaluation of PF_RING, Netmap and USDPAA has been conducted in order to determine how they compare in relation to a number of criteria such as functionality, support, performance, ease of use, software/ hardware dependencies and project stability etc. Secondly based on the earlier work, a design is proposed that can be used to build and port an application to run on Freescale DPAA based hardware (P4080) on top of USDPAA.