You implement resource controls over flows by setting flow properties. Flows support the following properties:
max-bw – The maximum bandwidth of the datalink that the packets identified with a flow can use. You must set a value within the allowed range of values for the bandwidth of a datalink. See Example 83, Setting Maximum Bandwidth and Priority for a Flow.
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. See Example 83, Setting Maximum Bandwidth and Priority for a Flow.
hw-flow – Specifies whether the flow is offloaded to the underlying NIC. The possible values of this property are auto, on, and off.
on means that the flow has been offloaded to the NIC and packet classification for the flow is conducted at the hardware level.
auto, the default setting, means that the system decides if the flow can be offloaded to the NIC based on the capability of the NIC.
off means the flow is not offloaded.
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 value on for hw-flow. Also, not all NICs support the hw-flow property.
rank – The rank for a flow which you can optionally set. A flow with no rank setting is lower in the lookup order than one with a rank. Rank values range from 1 to 65535. Low numbers place flows higher in the lookup order than high numbers. If multiple flows have overlapping rank values, the tie is broken by following the default system policy. See Overlapping Flows.
This example shows how to set the maximum bandwidth to 2G and a high priority for the flow http.
$ flowadm set-flowprop -p max-bw=2G http $ flowadm set-flowprop -p priority=high httpExample 84 Setting hw-flow for a Flow
This example shows how to set the hw-flow property for a flow when the NIC is capable and also when the NIC is not capable of offloading the flows.
$ flowadm show-flowprop -p hw-flow FLOW PROPERTY PERM VALUE EFFECTIVE DEFAULT POSSIBLE ssh-flow hw-flow rw auto off auto auto,off # flowadm set-flowprop -p hw-flow=on ssh-flow flowadm: failed: cannot set flow property 'hw-flow' on 'ssh-flow': operation not supported
The POSSIBLE field shows only the values auto and off, which means that the NIC is not capable of offloading the flows. Therefore, you cannot set the hw-flow property to on.
$ flowadm show-flowprop -p hw-flow FLOW PROPERTY PERM VALUE EFFECTIVE DEFAULT POSSIBLE http-flow hw-flow rw auto on auto auto,on,off $ flowadm set-flowprop -p hw-flow=on http-flow $ flowadm show-flowprop -p hw-flow FLOW PROPERTY PERM VALUE EFFECTIVE DEFAULT POSSIBLE http-flow hw-flow rw on on auto auto,on,off