Using TCP with Atlas10 cameras on Linux

Introduction

This document will explain how to use TCP with LUCID’s Atlas10 cameras.

Prerequisites

• Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit (Ubuntu 16.04 not supported)
• Atlas10 camera firmware v1.10.0.0 or higher
  Note: ATX314S does not support TCP.
• Arena SDK for Linux x64 v0.1.59 or higher / Arena SDK for ARM64 v0.1.43 or higher

Test Environment

System 1 – Streaming 1x Atlas10 camera

System 2 – Streaming 1x Atlas10 camera (ARM64)

System 3 – Streaming 4x Atlas10 cameras

PCIE-POE-MG2 Settings

• MFR P/N: IOI GE10P-PCIE4XG301
• 10G/5G/2.5G/1G PoE+ NBASE-T Ethernet Card
• Chipset: Marvell Aquantia AQC107
• Driver Version: 2.4.15, Date: July, 1, 2021

PCIE-POE2-MG Settings

• MFR P/N: IOI DGEAP2X-PCIE8XG30
• 10G/5G/2.5G/1G PoE+ NBASE-T Ethernet Card
• Chipset: Marvell Aquantia AQC107
• Driver Version: 2.4.15, Date: July, 1, 2021

Initial NIC Setup

Install the Aquantia Atlantic drivers found on Marvell’s website:
https://www.marvell.com/support/downloads.html

For compilation and installation instructions, see our Knowledge Base article.

Ensure the Aquantia Atlantic driver is installed and 10Gbps speeds are enabled:

Additional NIC Setup

Set a large socket buffer size, 32MB:

sudo sh -c "echo 'net.core.rmem_default=33554432' >> /etc/sysctl.conf"
sudo sh -c "echo 'net.core.rmem_max=33554432' >> /etc/sysctl.conf"
sudo sysctl -p

Assign an IP Address and Subnet to your NIC:

sudo ifconfig enp28s0 192.168.100.100

where enp28s0 is the name of your NIC

Set MTU size to 16000 bytes:

sudo ifconfig enp28s0 mtu 16000

where enp28s0 is the name of your NIC

Maximize the receive buffer size on the NIC:

sudo ethtool -G enp28s0 rx 4096

where enp28s0 is the name of your NIC

Enable Large Receive Offload

Large Receive Offload (LRO) allows the NIC to combine smaller packets into larger segments, reducing the number of smaller packets needed to be processed by the CPU.

Apply the following parameters on the Aquantia card with ethtool:

sudo ethtool -C enp28s0 rx-usecs 112
sudo ethtool -K enp28s0 lro on
sudo ethtool -K enp28s0 gro off

where enp28s0 is the name of your NIC

For convenience, the following can be saved to a script, e.x. nic_setup.sh:

#!/bin/bash
sudo ifconfig $1 mtu 16000
sudo ethtool -G $1 rx 4096
sudo ethtool -C $1 rx-usecs 112
sudo ethtool -K $1 lro on
sudo ethtool -K $1 gro off

Run the script with with the following command:

sudo sh nic_setup.sh enp28s0

where enp28s0 is the name of your NIC

Using TCP

To turn on TCP mode, set TCPEnable = True

In C++ code:

Arena::IDevice* pDevice = pSystem->CreateDevice(deviceInfos[0]);
Arena::SetNodeValue<bool>(pDevice->GetNodeMap(), "TCPEnable", true);

// When using TCP, there is no need to enable packet resend.
//    The packet delay and bandwidth reserve should be set to 0
//    to maximize TCP efficiency.
std::cout << TAB1 << "GevSCPD = " << 0 << std::endl;
Arena::SetNodeValue<int64_t>(pDevice->GetNodeMap(), "GevSCPD", 0);
		
std::cout << TAB1 << "DeviceLinkThroughputReserve = " << 0 << std::endl;
Arena::SetNodeValue<int64_t>(pDevice->GetNodeMap(), "DeviceLinkThroughputReserve", 0);

// It is not necessary to set the GevSCPSPacketSize node when TCPEnable = true.
// The NIC should be set to the maximum available MTU size.

When the camera is streaming, you can verify that TCP packets are being coalesced on the NIC with the following Terminal command:

sudo ethtool -S enp28s0 | grep Lro

where enp28s0 is the name of your NIC

Example output: