Managing Resources on Flows

Flows consist of network packets that are organized according to an attribute. Flows enable you to further allocate network resources. For an overview of flows, see Network Resource Management by Using Flows.

To use flows for managing resources, you perform the following general steps:

1. Create the flow by basing it on a specific attribute as listed in Network Resource Management by Using Flows.

2. Customize the flow's use of resources by setting properties that pertain to network resources. Currently, only the bandwidth and priority for processing packets can be set.

Configuring Flows on the Network

Flows can be created on the physical network as well as the virtual network. To configure flows, you use the flowadm command. For detailed technical information, refer to the flowadm(1M) man page.

How to Configure a Flow

1. (Optional) Determine the link on which you will configure flows.

   # dladm show-link

2. Verify that IP interfaces over the selected link are properly configured with IP addresses.

   # ipadm show-addr

3. Create flows according to the attribute you have determined for each flow.

   # flowadm add-flow -l link -a attribute=value[,attribute=value] flow

   attribute

   Refers to one of the following classifications by which you can organize network packets into a flow:

   • IP address

   • Transport protocol (UDP, TCP, or SCTP)

   • Port number for an application (for example port 21 for FTP)

   • DS field attribute, which is used for quality of service in IPv6 packets only. For more information about the DS field, refer to DS Codepoint in System Administration Guide: IP Services.

   flow

   Refers to the name that you assign to the particular flow.

   For more details about flows and flow attributes, see the flowadm(1M) man page.

4. Implement resource controls on the flows by setting the appropriate flow properties.

   # flowadm set-flowprop -p property=value[,property=value,...] flow

   You can specify the following flow properties that control resources:

   maxbw

   The maximum amount of the link's bandwidth that packets identified with this flow can use. The value you set must be within the allowed range of values for the link's bandwidth. To display the possible range of values for a link's bandwidth, check the POSSIBLE field in the output that is generated by the following command:

   # dladm show-linkprop -p maxbw link

   priority

   The priority given to packets in this flow. The possible values are high, medium, and low. The default value is medium.

   ---

   Note - Currently, only a flow's bandwidth and priority can be customized.

   ---

5. (Optional) Display the flows that you have created over the link.

   # flowadm show-flow -l link

6. (Optional) Display the property settings for a specified flow.

   # flowadm show-flowprop flow

Example 19-8 Managing Resources by Setting Link and Flow Properties

This example combines the steps for allocating network resources to both datalinks and flows. The example is based on the configuration shown in the following figure.

The figure shows two physical hosts that are connected to each other.

• Host1 has the following configuration:

  • It has one non-global zone that functions as a router zone. Two interfaces are assigned to the zone: external0 connects to the Internet while internal0 connects to the internal network including the second host.

  • The IP interfaces have been renamed to use customized names. Although not required, using customized names on links and interfaces provides advantages when you administer the network. See Assigning Names to Datalinks.

  • A flow is configured over internal0 to isolate UDP traffic and implement control over how UDP packets use resources. For information about configuring flows, see Managing Resources on Flows.

• Host2 has the following configuration:

  • It has three non-global zones and their respective VNICs. The VNICs are configured over an nxge card that supports dynamic ring allocation. For more information about ring allocation, see Transmit and Receive Rings.

  • Each zone's network processing load is different. For the purposes of this example, the load for zone1 is heavy, the load for zone2 is medium, and the load for zone3 is light. Resources are assigned to these zones according to their loads.

  • A separate VNIC is configured as a sofware-based client. For an overview of MAC clients, see MAC Clients and Ring Allocation.

The tasks in this example involve the following:

• Creating a flow and configuring flow controls – A flow is created over internal0 to create separate resource controls over UDP packets that are received by Host2.

• Configuring network resource properties for the VNICs on Host2 – Based on the processing load on each zone, each zone's VNIC is configured with a set of dedicated rings. A separate VNIC is also configured without dedicated rings as an example of a software-based client.

Note that the example does not include any procedure for zone configuration. To configure zones, refer to Chapter 17, Planning and Configuring Non-Global Zones (Tasks), in System Administration Guide: Oracle Solaris Zones, Oracle Solaris 10 Containers, and Resource Management.

First, view information about links and IP interfaces on Host1.

# dladm show-phys
LINK         MEDIA      STATE      SPEED DUPLEX   DEVICE
internal0    Ethernet   up         1000 full      nge1
e1000g0      n          unknown    0    half      e1000g0
e1000g1      n          unknown    0    half      e1000g1
external0    Ethernet   up         1000 full      nge0

# dladm show-link
LINK        CLASS    MTU    STATE    BRIDGE  OVER
internal0   phys     1500   up       --      nge1
e1000g0     phys     1500   unknown  --      --
e1000g1     phys     1500   unknown  --      --
external0   phys     1500   up       --      nge0

# ipadm show-addr
ADDROBJ     TYPE     STATE     ADDR
lo0/4       static   ok        127.0.0.1/8
external0   static   ok        10.10.6.5/24
internal0   static   ok        10.10.12.42/24

Next, create a flow over internal0 to isolate UDP traffic to Host2. Then, implement resource controls on the flow.

# flowadm add-flow -l external0 -a transport=udp udpflow
# flowadm set-flowprop -p maxbw=80,priority=low udpflow

Then, check the information about the created flow.

flowadm show-flow
FLOW        LINK        IPADDR   PROTO   PORT   DFSLD
udpflow     internal0   --       udp     --     --

# flowadm show-flowprop
SECURE OUTPUT FOR THIS

On Host2, configure VNICs over nxge0 for each zone. Implement resource controls on each VNIC. Then, assign the VNICs to their respective zones.

# dladm create-vnic -l nxge0 vnic0
# dladm create-vnic -l nxge0 vnic1
# dladm create-vnic -l nxge0 vnic2

# dladm set-prop -p rxrings=4,txrings=4,priority=high vnic0
# dladm set-prop -p rxrings=2,txrings=2,priority=high vnic1
# dladm set-prop -p rxrings=1,txrings=1,priority=low vnic2

# zone1>zonecfg>net> set physical=vnic0
# zone2>zonecfg>net> set physical=vnic1
# zone3>zonecfg>net> set physical=vnic2

Suppose that pool1, a set of CPUs in Host2, was previously configured for use by zone1. Bind that pool of CPUs to also manage network processes for zone1 as follows:

# dladm set-prop -p pool=pool01 vnic0

Finally, create a software-based client that shares rings with nxge0, the primary interface.

dladm create-vnic -p rxrings=sw,txrings=sw -l nxge0 vnic3