DNA (Direct NIC Access) is a unique network driver for Silicom
1 Gigabit (e1000e-based, igb-based) and
10 Gigabit (82598/99-based) adapters, that features unprecedented packet capture speed by completely bypassing the Linux kernel and allowing applications like
Network Monitoring to read packets directly from the
network adapter with no-Linux kernel interaction.
Thanks to this straight capture mode, CPU cycles are preserved while obtaining the maximum packet capture speed DNA drivers fully support modern 82599-based 10 Gigabit network adapters and Silicom director card for combining advanced packet filtering facilities with groundbreaking packet capture performance.
Typical packet capture performance on a low-end Xeon server (X3450) with DNA-aware
10 Gigabit driver exceed 11 million packets/sec (Silicom
10 Gigabit 82598/99 adapters, 64 bytes packet size), that is almost 200% speedup with respect to TNAPI and close to the theoretical maximum ethernet speed. DNA drivers can be exploited only by
PF_RING-based applications and due to its kernel-bypass architecture, not all typical
PF_RING features are available to applications.
See also PF_RING for more advanced packet capturing:
PF_RING