Custom Main-App Container

Accessing the SmartNIC from a custom main application

See the napatech.com/nt_pf parameter in the following example.

        resources:
          limits:
            napatech.com/nt_pf: 1
            hugepages-1Gi: 2Gi
            memory: 2Gi

Using this manifest file, the container requests 1 physical function to the Napatech device plugin. The physical function can be allocated to only one container. The container then receives information about the PF0 device's PCI bus ID as well as details regarding all configured virtual functions.

The inline-test application demonstrates how to implement a custom main application. The manifest file is included in the following directory of the Link-Inline™ Software package.

ntinl_package-<version>/kubernetes_v<version>/manifest/k8s-inline-test.yaml

where version is the version identifier of the corresponding package.

Environment variables in the custom main-app container

After the Napatech device plugin allocates the physical function to the custom main-application container, it creates environment variables. This table shows environment variables in the custom main-app container that are set by the Napatech device plugin.

Environment variable	Description
`NT_PF_NUM`	Allocated physical function number. Always `0`.
`NT_PF_DEV`	PCI bus ID of the SmartNIC. For example, `0000:65:00.0`.
`NT_DPDK_PREFIX`	Unique DPDK prefix to avoid clash with other DPDK based applications For example, `nt-container0`.
`NT_VF_NUM`	Virtual function list. For example, `4 5 6 7`.
`NT_VF_QUEUES`	Number of queues to be configured per virtual function. For example, `3`.
`NT_VF_DEV`	PCI bus ID list for all configured virtual functions. For example, `0000:65:00.4 0000:65:00.5 0000:65:00.6 0000:65:00.7`.
`NT_VF_MAC`	MAC address list for all configured virtual functions. For example, `02:11:22:33:44:01 02:11:22:33:44:02 02:11:22:33:44:03 02:11:22:33:44:00`.
`NT_VF_VLAN`	VLAN ID list for all configured virtual functions. For example, `44 45 46 47`.
`NT_VF_SOCKET`	vHost socket file list for all configured virtual functions. For example, `/usr/local/var/run/stdvio4/stdvio4 /usr/local/var/run/stdvio5/stdvio5 /usr/local/var/run/stdvio6/stdvio6`.

Mounting host directories

The Napatech device plugin mounts the following host directories on the custom main-app container.

Directories on the host	Mounted directories on the main-app container
/var/run/ntconnect	/var/run/ntconnect
/usr/local/var/run/stdvio4	/usr/local/var/run/stdvio4
/usr/local/var/run/stdvio5	/usr/local/var/run/stdvio5
…	…

As the sep=1 option is used, each vHost-user socket file is placed in its individual directory. See Shared/separated socket directory.

The Napatech device plugin also mounts the following host device files on the custom main-app containers.

Host path	Pod path
/dev/vfio/vfio	/dev/vfio/vfio
/dev/vfio/<PF_group_number>	/dev/vfio/<PF_group_number>
/dev/vfio/<VF_group_number>	/dev/vfio/<VF_group_number>
…	…

where:

PF_group_number is the IOMMU group number for the vfio device of the assigned physical function.
VF_group_number is the IOMMU group number for the vfio device of the assigned virtual functions.