mtcp_init

type

The type of application that the user wants to run. An application can either be an endpoint application (’end’) such as an mTCP client or mTCP server, or be a middlebox application (’monitor’).

run

The name of the binary to execute.

core_mask

The CPU bitmask where you want to run the application. The mask 0x000F denotes that the user wants to run a single-process, 4-threaded application on the first four cores of the CPU (CPU 0~3).

forward

Setting this option to 1 enables packet forwarding (for middlebox operations). Keep this value to 0 for endpoint mTCP applications.

nb_mem_channels

(Mandatory for DPDK) nb_mem_channels parameter specifies the number of memory channels per CPU socket. Please refer to DPDK user guide, on tuning this parameter for performance optimizations.

netdev

netdev parameter block specifies the network interfaces (or device ports) used for mOS applications. Each line contains the mapping of a network interface and CPU core mask. In the example above, it uses two DPDK-assisted network interfaces (dpdk0 and dpdk1), and CPU cores 0~3 receive/transmit traffic from/to the first 4 (0~3) hardware queues of the NIC. We program our DPDK driver to use symmetric RSS algorithm to distribute traffic across the cores. This ensures that the same CPU gets to examine packets of both flows of the connection.

stat_print

stat_print parameter specifies the network interfaces which the application is interested in displaying runtime monitor statistics.

mos_log

mos_log parameter specifies the path to a directory where the mOS system writes extra logging data.

nic_forward_table

nic_forward_table parameter block specifies the static Ethernet traffic forwarding rules when the mOS middlebox application is set in inline mode (Running Monitor Applications in Inline Mode). If enabled, each line accepts a pair of DPDK-registered NIC interfaces via which the traffic can later be forwarded in either direction. Each interface should have one-to-one mapping with another. In the example above, traffic is switched from dpdk0 to dpdk1 and vice versa. The middlebox is configured as a ’bump-in-the-wire’.

max_concurrency

max_concurrency specifies the maximum number of concurrent flows a middlebox can examine per CPU core. This parameter is used for preallocating the memory for flows. [default value: 100000]

no_ring_buffers

no_ring_buffers determines whether the TCP ring buffer should be disabled. For mOS endpoint (mTCP) applications, mOS always require the socket buffers for the application. For middlebox applications, you can disable the receive-side socket buffer by putting no_ring_buffers = 1. [default value: 0 (ring buffer is enabled by default)]

rmem_size

Specifies the size of receive buffer per socket in bytes [default value: 8192 B].

wmem_size

Specifies the size of send buffer per socket in bytes [default value: 8192 B].

tcp_tw_interval

Specifies the TCP timewait interval value in seconds. TCP timewait interval is the allowed time for a connection to be in the TIME_WAIT state. For mOS endpoint (mTCP) applications, user can set it as an arbitrary value larger than 0 to guarantee graceful shutdown. For monitoring applications, the user may set it to 0 if she is not interested in monitoring the flow after TIME_WAIT state. [default value: 0s]

tcp_timeout

Specifies the TCP timeout value in seconds. This parameter determines the maximum allowed time for any flows to exist without any packet reception. In other words, mOS middlebox stops monitoring the connection after tcp_timeout idle period. You can set tcp_timeout = -1 to disable the timeout checking. For mOS endpoint (mTCP) applications, tcp_timeout serves as a timeout period for connections that are in active open states (SYN_SENT states). [default value: 30s]