NTPL Interface Configuration

Installation and Use of Napatech Link-Capture™ Software for Intel® PAC with Intel® Arria® 10 GX FPGA
Platform
Content Type
Quick Guide
Capture Software Version
Link™ Capture Software 12.10

Use the Stream configuration method page to set up the mapping between SmartNIC Rx ports and NTAPI streams.

The Stream Configuration page

The upper area displays the available SmartNICs and the port numbering. See SmartNICs and Port Speeds.

In the middle area, you select one of four interface configuration methods:

  • One stream ID per port

  • One stream ID merge all ports

  • Load distributed - all ports -> N stream IDs

  • Load distributed - set of x,y..z ports -> N stream IDs

In the lower area, you can edit stream IDs and, for Load distributed - set of x,y..z ports -> N stream IDs, edit which Rx ports maps to which stream ID.

One stream ID per port

The default configuration is one port per stream. Use this configuration if traffic from each port should be handled by a separate thread or application.

Stream configuration method screen, showing entry for One stream ID per port option
The NTPL generated by this configuration example is as follows:
Assign[StreamId = 0] = Port == 0
Assign[StreamId = 1] = Port == 1
Assign[StreamId = 2] = Port == 2
Assign[StreamId = 3] = Port == 3
Assign[StreamId = 4] = Port == 4
Assign[StreamId = 5] = Port == 5
Assign[StreamId = 6] = Port == 6
Assign[StreamId = 7] = Port == 7

One stream ID merge all ports

All ports use one stream. Use this configuration to make traffic from all ports available on one stream, for example, to allow a single process to handle all traffic.

Stream configuration method screen, showing entry for One stream ID merge all ports option
The NTPL generated by this configuration is as follows:
Assign[StreamId = 0] = Port == 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7

Load distributed - all ports -> N stream IDs

All ports map to N streams to enable load balancing. Use this configuration, for example, to distribute processing of traffic to a number of processes to take advantage of multi-CPU systems.

Stream configuration method screen, showing entry for Load distributed - all ports → N stream IDs option
The NTPL generated by this configuration is as follows:
Assign[StreamId = 0] = Port == 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7
HashMode = HashRoundRobin

Choose how many streams to create. The default is 8, the range is 1 to 64 for Intel® PAC A10 GX acceleration cards, and 1 to 128 for Napatech SmartNICs.

The traffic from all ports is distributed between the defined streams. The way the traffic is distributed depends on the selected hash mode. The hash mode is selected on thePacket Processing page.

You can edit which Rx ports map to each stream ID.

Load distributed - set of x,y..z ports-> N stream IDs

Specific ports map to N streams to enable load balancing. Use this configuration to setup any combination of merging and load distribution.

Stream configuration method screen, showing entry for Load distributed - set of x,y..z ports → N stream IDs option
The NTPL generated by this configuration is as follows:
Assign[StreamId = (0..3)] = Port == 0, 1
Assign[StreamId = (4..7)] = Port == 2, 3
Assign[StreamId = (8..11)] = Port == 4, 5
Assign[StreamId = (12..15)] = Port == 6, 7
HashMode = HashRoundRobin

Choose how many streams to create. The range is 1 to 64 for Intel® PAC A10 GX acceleration cards, and 1 to 128 for Napatech SmartNICs.

The traffic from all ports is distributed between the defined streams. The way the traffic is distributed depends on the selected hash mode. The hash mode is selected on the Packet Processing page.

You can edit which Rx ports map to each stream ID.