Added support for using externally allocated memory in DPDK. DPDK has added support for creating new rte_malloc heaps referencing memory that was created outside of DPDK’s own page allocator, and using that memory natively with any other DPDK library or data structure.

Added check for ensuring allocated memory is addressable by devices. Some devices can have addressing limitations so a new function, rte_mem_check_dma_mask() , has been added for checking that allocated memory is not out of the device range. Since memory can now be allocated dynamically after initialization, a DMA mask is stored and any new allocated memory will be checked against it and rejected if it is out of range. If more than one device has addressing limitations, the DMA mask is the more restrictive one.

Updated the C11 memory model version of the ring library. Added changes to decrease latency for architectures using the C11 memory model version of the ring library. On Cavium ThunderX2 platform, the changes decreased latency by 27-29% and 3-15% for MPMC and SPSC cases respectively (with 2 lcores). The real improvements may vary with the number of contending lcores and the size of the ring.

Added hot-unplug handle mechanism. Added rte_dev_hotplug_handle_enable() and rte_dev_hotplug_handle_disable() for enabling or disabling the hotplug handle mechanism.

Added support for device multi-process hotplug. Added support for hotplug and hot-unplug in a multiprocessing scenario. Any ethdev devices created in the primary process will be regarded as shared and will be available for all DPDK processes. Synchronization between processes will be done using DPDK IPC.

Added new Flow API actions to rewrite fields in packet headers. Added new Flow API actions to: Modify source and destination IP addresses in the outermost IPv4/IPv6 headers.

Modify source and destination port numbers in the outermost TCP/UDP headers.

Added new Flow API action to swap MAC addresses in Ethernet header. Added new Flow API action to swap the source and destination MAC addresses in the outermost Ethernet header.

Add support to offload more flow match and actions for CXGBE PMD. The Flow API support has been enhanced for the CXGBE Poll Mode Driver to offload: Match items: destination MAC address.

Action items: push/pop/rewrite vlan header, rewrite IP addresses in outermost IPv4/IPv6 header, rewrite port numbers in outermost TCP/UDP header, swap MAC addresses in outermost Ethernet header.

Added a devarg to use the latest supported vector path in i40e. A new devarg use-latest-supported-vec was introduced to allow users to choose the latest vector path that the platform supported. For example, users can use AVX2 vector path on BDW/HSW to get better performance.

Added support for SR-IOV in netvsc PMD. The netvsc poll mode driver now supports the Accelerated Networking SR-IOV option in Hyper-V and Azure. This is an alternative to the previous vdev_netvsc, tap, and failsafe drivers combination.

Added a new net driver for Marvell Armada 3k device. Added the new mvneta net driver for Marvell Armada 3k device. See the MVNETA Poll Mode Driver NIC guide for more details on this new driver.

Added NXP ENETC PMD. Added the new enetc driver for the NXP enetc platform. See the ENETC Poll Mode Driver NIC driver guide for more details on this new driver.

Added Ethernet poll mode driver for Aquantia aQtion family of 10G devices. Added the new atlantic ethernet poll mode driver for Aquantia XGBE devices. See the Aquantia Atlantic DPDK Driver NIC driver guide for more details on this driver.

Updated mlx5 driver. Updated the mlx5 driver including the following changes: Improved security of PMD to prevent the NIC from getting stuck when the application misbehaves.

Reworked flow engine to supported e-switch flow rules (transfer attribute).

Added support for header re-write(L2-L4), VXLAN encap/decap, count, match on TCP flags and multiple flow groups with e-switch flow rules.

Added support for match on metadata, VXLAN and MPLS encap/decap with flow rules.

Added support for RTE_ETH_DEV_CLOSE_REMOVE flag to provide better support for representors.

flag to provide better support for representors. Added support for meson build.

Fixed build issue with PPC.

Added support for BlueField VF.

Added support for externally allocated static memory for DMA.

Updated Solarflare network PMD. Updated the sfc_efx driver including the following changes: Added support for Rx scatter in EF10 datapath implementation.

Added support for Rx descriptor status API in EF10 datapath implementation.

Added support for TSO in EF10 datapath implementation.

Added support for Tx descriptor status API in EF10 (ef10 and ef10_simple) datapaths implementation.

Updated the enic driver. Added AVX2-based vectorized Rx handler.

Added VLAN and checksum offloads to the simple Tx handler.

Added the “count” flow action.

Enabled the virtual address IOVA mode.

Updated the failsafe driver. Updated the failsafe driver including the following changes: Added support for Rx and Tx queues start and stop.

Added support for Rx and Tx queues deferred start.

Added support for runtime Rx and Tx queues setup.

Added support multicast MAC address set.

Added a devarg to use a PCAP interface physical MAC address. A new devarg phy_mac was introduced to allow users to use the physical MAC address of the selected PCAP interface.

Added TAP Rx/Tx queues sharing with a secondary process. Added support to allow a secondary process to attach a TAP device created in the primary process, probe the queues, and process Rx/Tx in a secondary process.

Added classification and metering support to SoftNIC PMD. Added support for flow classification (rte_flow API), and metering and policing (rte_mtr API) to the SoftNIC PMD.

Added Crypto support to the Softnic PMD. The Softnic is now capable of processing symmetric crypto workloads such as cipher, cipher-authentication chaining, and AEAD encryption and decryption. This is achieved by calling DPDK Cryptodev APIs.

Added cryptodev port to port library. Cryptodev port is a shim layer in the port library that interacts with DPDK Cryptodev PMDs including burst enqueuing and dequeuing crypto operations.

Added symmetric cryptographic actions to the pipeline library. In the pipeline library support was added for symmetric crypto action parsing and an action handler was implemented. The action allows automatic preparation of the crypto operation with the rules specified such as algorithm, key, and IV, etc. for the cryptodev port to process.

Updated the AESNI MB PMD. The AESNI MB PMD has been updated with additional support for the AES-GCM algorithm.

Added NXP CAAM JR PMD. Added the new caam job ring driver for NXP platforms. See the NXP CAAM JOB RING (caam_jr) guide for more details on this new driver.

Added support for GEN3 devices to Intel QAT driver. Added support for the third generation of Intel QuickAssist devices.

Updated the QAT PMD. The QAT PMD was updated with additional support for: The AES-CMAC algorithm.

Added support for Dynamic Huffman Encoding to Intel QAT comp PMD. The Intel QuickAssist (QAT) compression PMD has been updated with support for Dynamic Huffman Encoding for the Deflate algorithm.

Added Event Ethernet Tx Adapter. Added event ethernet Tx adapter library that provides configuration and data path APIs for the ethernet transmit stage of an event driven packet processing application. These APIs abstract the implementation of the transmit stage and allow the application to use eventdev PMD support or a common implementation.

Added Distributed Software Eventdev PMD. Added the new Distributed Software Event Device (DSW), which is a pure-software eventdev driver distributing the work of scheduling among all eventdev ports and the lcores using them. DSW, compared to the SW eventdev PMD, sacrifices load balancing performance to gain better event scheduling throughput and scalability.

Added extendable bucket feature to hash library (rte_hash). This new “extendable bucket” feature provides 100% insertion guarantee to the capacity specified by the user by extending hash table with extra buckets when needed to accommodate the unlikely event of intensive hash collisions. In addition, the internal hashing algorithm was changed to use partial-key hashing to improve memory efficiency and lookup performance.

Added lock free reader/writer concurrency to hash library (rte_hash). Lock free reader/writer concurrency prevents the readers from getting blocked due to a preempted writer thread. This allows the hash library to be used in scenarios where the writer thread runs on the control plane.

Added Traffic Pattern Aware Power Control Library. Added an experimental library that extends the Power Library and provides empty_poll APIs. This feature measures how many times empty_polls are executed per core and uses the number of empty polls as a hint for system power management. See the Power Management section of the DPDK Programmers Guide document for more information.

Added JSON power policy interface for containers. Extended the Power Library and vm_power_manager sample app to allow power policies to be submitted via a FIFO using JSON formatted strings. Previously limited to Virtual Machines, this feature extends power policy functionality to containers and host applications that need to have their cores frequency controlled based on the rules contained in the policy.

Added Telemetry API. Added a new telemetry API which allows applications to transparently expose their telemetry in JSON via a UNIX socket. The JSON can be consumed by any Service Assurance agent, such as CollectD.

Updated KNI kernel module, rte_kni library, and KNI sample application. Updated the KNI kernel module with a new kernel module parameter, carrier=[on|off] to allow the user to control the default carrier state of the KNI kernel network interfaces. The default carrier state is now set to off , so the interfaces cannot be used until the carrier state is set to on via rte_kni_update_link or by writing 1 to /sys/devices/virtual/net/<iface>/carrier . In previous versions the default carrier state was left undefined. See Kernel NIC Interface for more information. Also added the new API function rte_kni_update_link() to allow the user to set the carrier state of the KNI kernel network interface. Also added a new command line flag -m to the KNI sample application to monitor and automatically reflect the physical NIC carrier state to the KNI kernel network interface with the new rte_kni_update_link() API. See Kernel NIC Interface Sample Application for more information.

Added ability to switch queue deferred start flag on testpmd app. Added a console command to testpmd app, giving ability to switch rx_deferred_start or tx_deferred_start flag of the specified queue of the specified port. The port must be stopped before the command call in order to reconfigure queues.

Add a new sample application for vDPA. The vdpa sample application creates vhost-user sockets by using the vDPA backend. vDPA stands for vhost Data Path Acceleration which utilizes virtio ring compatible devices to serve virtio driver directly to enable datapath acceleration. As vDPA driver can help to set up vhost datapath, this application doesn’t need to launch dedicated worker threads for vhost enqueue/dequeue operations.

Added cryptodev FIPS validation example application. Added an example application to parse and perform symmetric cryptography computation to the NIST Cryptographic Algorithm Validation Program (CAVP) test vectors.