xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/nvme.4 (revision 1f4bcc459a76b7aa664f3fd557684cd0ba6da352)
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30.\" nvme driver man page.
31.\"
32.\" Author: Jim Harris <jimharris@FreeBSD.org>
33.\"
34.\" $FreeBSD$
35.\"
36.Dd January 7, 2016
37.Dt NVME 4
38.Os
39.Sh NAME
40.Nm nvme
41.Nd NVM Express core driver
42.Sh SYNOPSIS
43To compile this driver into your kernel,
44place the following line in your kernel configuration file:
45.Bd -ragged -offset indent
46.Cd "device nvme"
47.Ed
48.Pp
49Or, to load the driver as a module at boot, place the following line in
50.Xr loader.conf 5 :
51.Bd -literal -offset indent
52nvme_load="YES"
53.Ed
54.Pp
55Most users will also want to enable
56.Xr nvd 4
57to surface NVM Express namespaces as disk devices which can be
58partitioned.
59Note that in NVM Express terms, a namespace is roughly equivalent to a
60SCSI LUN.
61.Sh DESCRIPTION
62The
63.Nm
64driver provides support for NVM Express (NVMe) controllers, such as:
65.Bl -bullet
66.It
67Hardware initialization
68.It
69Per-CPU IO queue pairs
70.It
71API for registering NVMe namespace consumers such as
72.Xr nvd 4
73.It
74API for submitting NVM commands to namespaces
75.It
76Ioctls for controller and namespace configuration and management
77.El
78.Pp
79The
80.Nm
81driver creates controller device nodes in the format
82.Pa /dev/nvmeX
83and namespace device nodes in
84the format
85.Pa /dev/nvmeXnsY .
86Note that the NVM Express specification starts numbering namespaces at 1,
87not 0, and this driver follows that convention.
88.Sh CONFIGURATION
89By default,
90.Nm
91will create an I/O queue pair for each CPU, provided enough MSI-X vectors
92and NVMe queue pairs can be allocated.  If not enough vectors or queue
93pairs are available, nvme(4) will use a smaller number of queue pairs and
94assign multiple CPUs per queue pair.
95.Pp
96To force a single I/O queue pair shared by all CPUs, set the following
97tunable value in
98.Xr loader.conf 5 :
99.Bd -literal -offset indent
100hw.nvme.per_cpu_io_queues=0
101.Ed
102.Pp
103To assign more than one CPU per I/O queue pair, thereby reducing the number
104of MSI-X vectors consumed by the device, set the following tunable value in
105.Xr loader.conf 5 :
106.Bd -literal -offset indent
107hw.nvme.min_cpus_per_ioq=X
108.Ed
109.Pp
110To force legacy interrupts for all
111.Nm
112driver instances, set the following tunable value in
113.Xr loader.conf 5 :
114.Bd -literal -offset indent
115hw.nvme.force_intx=1
116.Ed
117.Pp
118Note that use of INTx implies disabling of per-CPU I/O queue pairs.
119.Sh SYSCTL VARIABLES
120The following controller-level sysctls are currently implemented:
121.Bl -tag -width indent
122.It Va dev.nvme.0.num_cpus_per_ioq
123(R) Number of CPUs associated with each I/O queue pair.
124.It Va dev.nvme.0.int_coal_time
125(R/W) Interrupt coalescing timer period in microseconds.
126Set to 0 to disable.
127.It Va dev.nvme.0.int_coal_threshold
128(R/W) Interrupt coalescing threshold in number of command completions.
129Set to 0 to disable.
130.El
131.Pp
132The following queue pair-level sysctls are currently implemented.
133Admin queue sysctls take the format of dev.nvme.0.adminq and I/O queue sysctls
134take the format of dev.nvme.0.ioq0.
135.Bl -tag -width indent
136.It Va dev.nvme.0.ioq0.num_entries
137(R) Number of entries in this queue pair's command and completion queue.
138.It Va dev.nvme.0.ioq0.num_tr
139(R) Number of nvme_tracker structures currently allocated for this queue pair.
140.It Va dev.nvme.0.ioq0.num_prp_list
141(R) Number of nvme_prp_list structures currently allocated for this queue pair.
142.It Va dev.nvme.0.ioq0.sq_head
143(R) Current location of the submission queue head pointer as observed by
144the driver.
145The head pointer is incremented by the controller as it takes commands off
146of the submission queue.
147.It Va dev.nvme.0.ioq0.sq_tail
148(R) Current location of the submission queue tail pointer as observed by
149the driver.
150The driver increments the tail pointer after writing a command
151into the submission queue to signal that a new command is ready to be
152processed.
153.It Va dev.nvme.0.ioq0.cq_head
154(R) Current location of the completion queue head pointer as observed by
155the driver.
156The driver increments the head pointer after finishing
157with a completion entry that was posted by the controller.
158.It Va dev.nvme.0.ioq0.num_cmds
159(R) Number of commands that have been submitted on this queue pair.
160.It Va dev.nvme.0.ioq0.dump_debug
161(W) Writing 1 to this sysctl will dump the full contents of the submission
162and completion queues to the console.
163.El
164.Sh SEE ALSO
165.Xr nvd 4 ,
166.Xr pci 4 ,
167.Xr nvmecontrol 8 ,
168.Xr disk 9
169.Sh HISTORY
170The
171.Nm
172driver first appeared in
173.Fx 9.2 .
174.Sh AUTHORS
175.An -nosplit
176The
177.Nm
178driver was developed by Intel and originally written by
179.An Jim Harris Aq Mt jimharris@FreeBSD.org ,
180with contributions from
181.An Joe Golio
182at EMC.
183.Pp
184This man page was written by
185.An Jim Harris Aq Mt jimharris@FreeBSD.org .
186