According to exist implementation,rte_eth_[rx|tx]_queue_setup will always return fail if device is already started(rte_eth_dev_start).
This can't satisfied the usage when application want to deferred setup part of the queues while keep traffic running on those queues already be setup. example: rte_eth_dev_config(nb_rxq = 2, nb_txq =2) rte_eth_rx_queue_setup(idx = 0 ...) rte_eth_rx_queue_setup(idx = 0 ...) rte_eth_dev_start(...) /* [rx|tx]_burst is ready to start on queue 0 */ rte_eth_rx_queue_setup(idx=1 ...) /* fail*/ Basically this is not a general hardware limitation, because for NIC like i40e, ixgbe, it is not necessary to stop the whole device before configure a fresh queue or reconfigure an exist queue with no traffic on it. The patch let etherdev driver expose the capability flag through rte_eth_dev_info_get when it support deferred queue configuraiton, then base on these flag, rte_eth_[rx|tx]_queue_setup could decide continue to setup the queue or just return fail when device already started. v3: - not overload deferred start. - rename deferred setup to runtime setup. - remove unecessary testpmd parameters (patch 2/4 of v2) - add offload support to testpmd queue setup command line - i40e fix: return fail when required rx/tx function conflict with exist setup. v2: - enhance comment in rte_ethdev.h *** BLURB HERE *** Qi Zhang (3): ether: support runtime queue setup app/testpmd: add command for queue setup net/i40e: enable runtime queue setup app/test-pmd/cmdline.c | 128 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ doc/guides/nics/features.rst | 8 ++ doc/guides/testpmd_app_ug/testpmd_funcs.rst | 7 ++ drivers/net/i40e/i40e_ethdev.c | 4 + drivers/net/i40e/i40e_rxtx.c | 64 ++++++++++++++ lib/librte_ether/rte_ethdev.c | 30 ++++--- lib/librte_ether/rte_ethdev.h | 7 ++ 7 files changed, 236 insertions(+), 12 deletions(-) -- 2.13.6