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Debugging & Profiling DPDK Apps

Useful tools and approaches:

1) Start from a known-good app​

  • dpdk-testpmd is a common sanity check.
  • If testpmd can't RX/TX, your environment isn't ready for custom code.

2) Check hugepages​

  • Not enough hugepages → EAL init errors
  • Wrong mount / permissions → memory failures

3) Check NIC availability​

  • Ensure the interface is visible to DPDK
  • Confirm correct driver binding if your setup requires it

4) Log key stages​

Print:

  • port count
  • port link status
  • RX/TX queue setup results
  • burst receive counts

5) Profile carefully​

DPDK performance depends heavily on:

  • CPU pinning
  • cache locality
  • batch sizes
  • memory bandwidth

Next: go to the GPU Networking Examples repo for runnable DPDK examples.