Documentation/networking/multiqueue.txt

		HOWTO for multiqueue network device support
		===========================================

Section 1: Base driver requirements for implementing multiqueue support

Intro: Kernel support for multiqueue devices
---------------------------------------------------------

Kernel support for multiqueue devices is always present.

Section 1: Base driver requirements for implementing multiqueue support
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Base drivers are required to use the new alloc_etherdev_mq() or
alloc_netdev_mq() functions to allocate the subqueues for the device.  The
underlying kernel API will take care of the allocation and deallocation of
the subqueue memory, as well as netdev configuration of where the queues
exist in memory.

The base driver will also need to manage the queues as it does the global
netdev->queue_lock today.  Therefore base drivers should use the
netif_{start|stop|wake}_subqueue() functions to manage each queue while the
device is still operational.  netdev->queue_lock is still used when the device
comes online or when it's completely shut down (unregister_netdev(), etc.).

Finally, the base driver should indicate that it is a multiqueue device.  The
feature flag NETIF_F_MULTI_QUEUE should be added to the netdev->features
bitmap on device initialization.  Below is an example from e1000:

#ifdef CONFIG_E1000_MQ
	if ( (adapter->hw.mac.type == e1000_82571) ||
	     (adapter->hw.mac.type == e1000_82572) ||
	     (adapter->hw.mac.type == e1000_80003es2lan))
		netdev->features |= NETIF_F_MULTI_QUEUE;
#endif

Author: Peter P. Waskiewicz Jr. <peter.p.waskiewicz.jr@intel.com>