xdp-features

xdp-features is a Linux command-line tool for inspecting and checking XDP/AF_XDP readiness on network interfaces.

It has two subcommands:

• info prints a human-readable report.
• check is quiet and intended for scripts.

Usage

xdp-features <COMMAND>

Human Report

demo3.mp4

Inspect every interface:

target/debug/xdp-features info

Inspect one interface:

target/debug/xdp-features info --interface eth0
target/debug/xdp-features info -i eth0 --verbose

Without --interface, info prints a compact summary for every interface, grouped as physical interfaces and virtual/logical interfaces. With --interface, it prints a detailed report for that interface.

Default output shows NIC identity when available and status lines for XDP, zero-copy, and TX ring size. Verbose mode also prints raw kernel netlink values, all known feature flags, PCI details, and RX ring size as informational output.

Example summary:

Physical interfaces:
enp5s0f0: ✅ XDP, ✅ zero-copy, ✅ TX ring 512, Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller X710 for 10GBASE-T [8086:15ff]

Virtual/logical interfaces:
lo: ❌ error: netlink response did not include NETDEV_A_DEV_XDP_FEATURES

Example detailed report:

Interface: enp5s0f0
NIC: Intel Corporation Ethernet Controller X710 for 10GBASE-T [8086:15ff]
Driver: i40e
PCI slot: 0000:05:00.0

✅ XDP: supported
✅ Zero-copy: supported
✅ TX ring: 512, ok

NIC identity is best-effort. The tool reads PCI information from sysfs and uses lspci when available to resolve a human-readable model. If the model cannot be resolved, it falls back to PCI vendor/device IDs.

Script Check

Check that an interface supports XDP and has a valid TX ring size. check always requires -i or --interface:

target/debug/xdp-features check --interface eth0

Also require AF_XDP zero-copy support:

target/debug/xdp-features check -i eth0 --zero-copy

check prints nothing on success. On failure it writes only the failed requirement or runtime error to stderr and exits nonzero. Possible failure messages include:

XDP not supported
zero-copy not supported
TX ring size is invalid: 511 (try: sudo ethtool -G eth0 tx 512)
unable to query ring sizes: <error>
error: <netlink or interface error>

Exit Status

info:

0  inspected interface reports are ready
1  inspected interface reports were queried but are not ready
2  runtime/query error

check:

0  all requested checks passed
1  one or more checks failed, including runtime/query errors

For check, the default checks are XDP support and valid TX ring size. --zero-copy additionally requires zero-copy support. A TX ring size of zero or a non-power-of-two TX ring size fails the check. Failure to query ring sizes also fails the check.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Darius from Cherry Servers for providing access to NICs used for testing and debugging.