DOCA Ethernet

Examples

• "My RX queue is up but no packets arrive." — RX and TX are two Core contexts; one doca_ctx_start() does not cover both.
• "Send-task returns AGAIN at line rate." — size burst against the _cap_* queries before changing queue type.

Instructions

Follow Loading order below. Open the tasks companion for configure / build / run. Open the capabilities companion for the RX-type taxonomy and send surface. Do not open every companion file.

Where to start: This skill assumes DOCA is already installed and the user is doing hands-on packet-queue work on a host or BlueField with DOCA. Open the tasks companion if the user wants to do something (configure / build / modify / run / test / debug); open the capabilities companion when the question is what can a DOCA Ethernet queue express on this version. If the user has not installed DOCA yet, route to doca-setup/SKILL.md first. RX and TX are independent Core contexts. A doca_eth_rxq and a doca_eth_txq each get their own doca_ctx_create / _start / _stop / _destroy; one doca_ctx_start() does not start both sides. Do not walk a single lifecycle for "the queue pair". If the user is asking "how do I get packets to land on my RX queue at all", the answer lives in doca-flow/SKILL.md — DOCA Ethernet is the queue surface; DOCA Flow is the steering surface, and they are independent libraries.

Example questions this skill answers well

The CLASSES of DOCA Ethernet questions this skill is built to answer, each with one worked example. The agent should treat the class as the load-bearing piece — the worked example is a single instance.

• "How do I bring up an RX and TX queue on a representor or physical port?" — worked example: "set up a doca_eth_rxq plus a doca_eth_txq on a single BlueField representor for first-run testing". Answered by two independent Core contexts (each with its own start) in

  configure +

  Capabilities and modes

  RX / TX object table.
• "Which RX type fits my data shape — regular, cyclic, or managed-recv?" — worked example: "line-rate ingress with fixed-size frames into a pre-allocated buffer ring". Answered by the RX-type taxonomy in

  Capabilities and modes

  • the capability-query rule (doca_eth_rxq_cap_is_type_supported against a doca_devinfo) in

  configure.

• "How do I send a packet from user code through doca_eth_txq?" — worked example: "allocate a packet doca_buf, attach the payload, submit one send-task, wait for the completion event". Answered by the TX submission shape in

  Capabilities and modes

  • the property-set workflow in

  modify.

• "My queue is up but no packets arrive — why?" — worked example: "doca_eth_rxq started cleanly but the recv callback never fires". Answered by the steering-dependency rule in

  Safety policy

  • the env-prep checklist in

  configure step 1, which

  routes the steering side to doca-flow/SKILL.md and the promiscuous-mode side to doca-setup/SKILL.md.
• "Is this Ethernet capability available on my device + my installed DOCA?" — worked example: "does this device advertise L3 checksum offload". Answered by the capability-query rule (doca_eth_txq_cap_is_l3_chksum_offload_supported against a doca_devinfo) in

  Capabilities and modes

  • the version-and-device overlay in

  Version compatibility.

• "What does this DOCA_ERROR_* from an Ethernet call mean and which layer caused it?" — worked example: "DOCA_ERROR_AGAIN on doca_task_submit for an eth_txq send-task at high rate". Answered by the Ethernet overlay on the cross-library taxonomy in

  Error taxonomy

  • the layered ladder in

  debug that escalates to

  doca-debug/SKILL.md.

Picking the root-cause layer when several could explain a symptom. Walk the layers bottom-up (install → version → build → link → runtime → program → driver) with the read-only check each layer names in TASKS.md ## debug. The lowest layer whose check fails is the root cause: fix it, change one variable at a time, and re-run the same check before moving up. For a silent RX queue, rule out the three runtime preconditions (device access, port up, traffic steered to the queue) before any program or driver cause.

Audience

This skill serves external developers building applications that consume the DOCA Ethernet library — i.e., users whose code calls doca_eth_rxq_* / doca_eth_txq_* (directly in C/C++, or through FFI/bindings from another language) to do line-rate packet I/O on physical ports, representors, or SFs of a BlueField or ConnectX device. It is not for NVIDIA developers contributing to DOCA Ethernet itself.

Language scope. DOCA Ethernet ships as a C library with pkg-config module name doca-eth. The shipped samples are written in C. C and C++ consumers are the canonical case; the worked examples in the tasks companion assume that path. Other-language consumers (Rust, Go, Python, …) consume the same *.so through FFI or language-specific bindings; the skill's contribution in that case is to keep the queue-object split, lifecycle, capability-discovery, permission, RX-type taxonomy, and error-taxonomy guidance language-neutral, and to route the agent to the public C ABI as the authoritative surface that any wrapper will eventually call.

When to load this skill

Load this skill when the user is doing hands-on DOCA Ethernet work, in any language. Concretely:

• Initializing a doca_eth_rxq on a doca_dev opened against a physical port, a representor, or an SF — choosing among the regular / cyclic / managed-recv RX types based on data shape before doca_ctx_start().
• Initializing a doca_eth_txq on the same or a different doca_dev and posting send-tasks against packet doca_bufs payload buffers.
• Reading or setting Ethernet queue properties via doca_eth_rxq_set_* / doca_eth_txq_set_* and querying device capability via doca_eth_rxq_cap_* / doca_eth_txq_cap_* (max burst size, RX-type support, max scatter-gather length, checksum-offload presence).
• Confirming the port is up and that traffic is actually steered to the chosen RX queue — either via DOCA Flow rules (the canonical path) or via kernel-side promiscuous mode (the expedient first-run path).
• Wiring an Ethernet queue to a higher-level data plane: GPU packet processing via DOCA GPUNetIO, custom user-space forwarding agents, or telemetry mirrors that snap a copy of every packet.
• Debugging a DOCA_ERROR_* returned from an Ethernet call (lifecycle vs. permission vs. capability vs. send-queue-full vs. driver-below) and the per-queue progress engine events.
• Designing or extending non-C bindings (Rust, Go, Python, …) that wrap the DOCA Ethernet C ABI — for the lifecycle, queue split, RX-type, capability, and permission rules the wrapper must honor.

Do not load this skill for general DOCA orientation, install of DOCA itself, flow-rule programming (use doca-flow/SKILL.md), host ↔ DPU control messaging (use doca-comch/SKILL.md), or RDMA data movement (use doca-rdma/SKILL.md). For DOCA documentation orientation, use doca-public-knowledge-map/SKILL.md.

What this skill provides

This is a thin loader. The body keeps only the orientation needed to pick the right next file. The substantive Ethernet- specific material lives in two companion files:

• the capabilities companion — what a DOCA Ethernet queue can express on this version: the RX / TX object split, the RX-type taxonomy (regular / cyclic / managed-recv), the send-task / frame submission surface, the capability-query surface (doca_eth_rxq_cap_* / doca_eth_txq_cap_*), the Ethernet error taxonomy (mapped onto the cross-library DOCA_ERROR_* set), the observability surface (per-queue progress engine events, capability snapshots), and the safety policy that gates the steering / permission / port-state preconditions.
• the tasks companion — step-by-step workflows for the six in-scope Ethernet verbs: configure, build, modify, run, test, debug. Plus a Deferred task verbs block that points out-of-scope questions at the right next skill, and a Command appendix of the recurring commands the agent reaches for.

The skill assumes a host or BlueField where DOCA is already installed at the standard location and the user has the privileges their public install profile expects (typically sudo or mlnx-group membership to open a doca_dev against a port). It does not cover installing DOCA — that path goes through doca-setup/SKILL.md.

What this skill deliberately does not ship

This skill is agent guidance, not a samples or templates bundle. To keep the boundary clean, it deliberately does not contain — and pull requests should not add:

• Pre-written DOCA Ethernet application source code, in any language. The verified Ethernet source code is the shipped C samples at /opt/mellanox/doca/samples/doca_eth/<name>/. The agent's job is to route the user to those files and prescribe a minimum-diff modification on them via the universal modify-a-sample workflow in doca-programming-guide/SKILL.md, layered with the Ethernet-specific overrides in

  modify.

• Standalone build manifests (meson.build, CMakeLists.txt, Cargo.toml, …) parked inside the skill. The agent constructs the build manifest in the user's project directory against the user's installed DOCA, where pkg-config --modversion doca-eth is the source of truth.
• A samples/, bindings/, or reference/ subtree of any kind. A mock or incomplete artifact in this skill's tree, even one labeled "reference", is misleading: users will read it as buildable.

Loading order

1. Read this skill first to confirm the user's question is in scope.
2. For the Ethernet capability matrix, RX-type taxonomy, send surface, capability-query rules, error taxonomy, observability, and safety policy, see the capabilities companion.
3. For step-by-step workflows — configure, build, modify, run, test, debug — see the tasks companion.

Both companion files cross-link to each other, doca-version/SKILL.md for the canonical version-handling rules, doca-flow/SKILL.md for the steering side that the RX queue depends on, and doca-public-knowledge-map/SKILL.md whenever the right answer is "look it up in the public docs or the installed package layout" rather than "Ethernet-specific guidance".

Related skills

• doca-public-knowledge-map/SKILL.md — the routing table for every public DOCA documentation source and the on-disk layout of an installed DOCA package. The Ethernet URL slug is DOCA-Ethernet.
• doca-setup/SKILL.md — env preparation, install verification, port-state checks (devlink dev show, ip link), permission and group-membership requirements for opening a doca_dev. This skill assumes its preconditions are satisfied.
• doca-version/SKILL.md — canonical DOCA version-handling rules. This skill's ## Version compatibility cross-links the four-way match rule and adds only the Ethernet-specific overlay (RX-type availability windows, checksum-offload device-conditional support).
• doca-structured-tools-contract/SKILL.md — the bundle's structured-tools precedence rule (detect / prefer / fall back / report). The Command appendix in the tasks companion honors this contract.
• doca-programming-guide/SKILL.md — general DOCA programming patterns shared by every library: the canonical pkg-config + meson build pattern, the universal modify-a-shipped-sample first-app workflow, the universal lifecycle, the cross-library DOCA_ERROR_* taxonomy, and the program-side debug order. This skill layers Ethernet specifics on top.
• doca-flow/SKILL.md — the steering surface that decides which packets land on which doca_eth_rxq. DOCA Ethernet does not program steering itself; an empty RX queue almost always means a missing or wrong Flow rule, not an Ethernet bug.
• doca-debug/SKILL.md — the cross-cutting debug ladder (install / version / build / link / runtime / program / driver). Ethernet-specific debug (RX-type mismatches, send-queue-full retries, steering-empty-queue symptoms) overlays on top of that ladder.