0 network ports available to DPDK/Gatekeeper, but interfaces are DPDK controlled

[gibimbas]

cat gatekeeper_2025_06_17_18_17.log

Main/0 2025-06-17 18:17:02 NOTICE cycles/second = 2599999285, cycles/millisecond = 2599999, cycles/nanoseconds = 2.599999, picosec/cycle = 384
Main/0 2025-06-17 18:17:02 ERR net: there are only 0 network ports available to DPDK/Gatekeeper, but configuration is using 2 ports
Main/0 2025-06-17 18:17:02 ERR config: /etc/gatekeeper/net.lua:142: Failed to initilize the network
Main/0 2025-06-17 18:17:02 ERR Failed to configure Gatekeeper
root@LV346:/var/log/gatekeeper# cat /sys/kernel/mm/hugepages/hugepages-2048kB/nr_hugepages
6144

sudo /usr/local/bin/dpdk-devbind.py --status

...
Network devices using DPDK-compatible driver

0000:01:00.0 'MT27800 Family [ConnectX-5] 1017' drv=vfio-pci unused=mlx5_core
0000:01:00.1 'MT27800 Family [ConnectX-5] 1017' drv=vfio-pci unused=mlx5_core

cat envvars

DPDK_ARGS="-a 0000:01:00.0 -a 0000:01:00.1 --socket-mem 1024,1024"
GATEKEEPER_ARGS="--lua-base-dir /etc/gatekeeper --log-base-dir /var/log/gatekeeper"
GATEKEEPER_INTERFACES="01:00.0 01:00.1"

sudo /usr/local/bin/dpdk-testpmd -a 0000:01:00.0 -a 0000:01:00.1 -- \

--total-num-mbufs=262144 --interactive
EAL: Detected CPU lcores: 256
EAL: Detected NUMA nodes: 2
EAL: Detected static linkage of DPDK
EAL: Multi-process socket /var/run/dpdk/rte/mp_socket
EAL: Selected IOVA mode 'VA'
EAL: VFIO support initialized
TELEMETRY: No legacy callbacks, legacy socket not created
testpmd: No probed ethernet devices
Interactive-mode selected
testpmd: create a new mbuf pool <mb_pool_0>: n=262144, size=2176, socket=0
testpmd: preferred mempool ops selected: ring_mp_mc
testpmd: create a new mbuf pool <mb_pool_1>: n=262144, size=2176, socket=1
testpmd: preferred mempool ops selected: ring_mp_mc
Done

[AltraMayor]

Hi @gibimbas,

The zero in "0 network ports available" of the log entry "Main/0 2025-06-17 18:17:02 ERR net: there are only 0 network ports available to DPDK/Gatekeeper, but configuration is using 2 ports" comes from rte_eth_dev_count_avail(). This means that DPDK is not seeing the Mellanox NICs. dpdk-testpmd confirms this issue with the message testpmd: No probed ethernet devices.

I see that you're using 2MB huge pages. If you can, test with 1GB huge pages. And check that the memory is split between the memory banks with cat /sys/devices/system/node/node*/hugepages/hugepages-1048576kB/nr_hugepages. See more information on this here.

If you haven´t already, I'd test with the NICs listed here to make sure that there's no other problem going on.