Configuring Flows

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This section describes how to create a flow and set flow properties.

How to Configure Flows

Become an administrator.
For more information, see Using Your Assigned Administrative Rights in Securing Users and Processes in Oracle Solaris 11.2 .
(Optional) List the available links to determine the link on which you will configure flows.
```
# dladm show-link
```
Verify that IP interfaces over the selected link are properly configured with IP addresses.
```
# ipadm show-addr
```
Create flows according to the attribute you have determined for each flow.
```
# flowadm add-flow -l link -a attribute=value[,attribute=value] flow
```
link

Refers to the link on which you are configuring the flow.

attribute

Refers to a single or a combination of attributes that you can use to organize network packets into a flow. For information about the attributes, see Managing Network Resources by Using Flows.

flow

Refers to the name that you assign to the flow.

For more information about flows and flow attributes, see the flowadm (1M) man page.
(Optional) Display the possible range of values for the link's bandwidth.
```
# dladm show-linkprop -p maxbw link
```
link

Refers to the datalink on which the flow is configured.

The range of values is listed under the POSSIBLE field of the command's output.
Implement resource controls on the flows by setting the appropriate flow properties.
```
# flowadm set-flowprop -p prop=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 the flow can use. The value you set must be within the allowed range of values for the link's bandwidth.

priority

The priority with which packets belonging to the specified flow will be processed. The allowed values for the priority property are high, medium, and low. If the priority of a flow is set to high, all the packets belonging to that flow will be processed ahead of other packets on the same link. This property is used to create a flow for applications that are latency sensitive. The default value of this property is medium.

Note - Currently, setting the priority property to low from medium has no effect.
(Optional) Display the flows that you have created over the datalink.
```
# flowadm
```
Note - The flowadm command, if used without any subcommand, provides the same information as the flowadm show-flow command.
(Optional) Display the property values for a specified flow.
```
# flowadm show-flowprop flow
```
This command displays maxbw and priority flow properties, plus the read-only hwflow property.

hwflow

A read-only property that helps you to understand the packet classification in flows. The possible values of this property are on and off. The value of on means that the flow has been offloaded to the NIC and packet classification for the flow is conducted at the hardware level. This property cannot be used with –p option in flowadm add-flow, flowadm set-flowprop, or flowadm reset-flowprop commands.

Note - Currently, only the flows that are defined by specifying all the transport protocols, local or remote IP address, and local or remote port can be assigned the on value for hwflow. Also, not all NICs support the hwflow property.