Friday, November 1, 2019 11:33 AM, Ilya Maximets:
> Subject: Re: [dpdk-dev] [PATCH v2 0/3] ethdev: configure SR-IOV VF from
> host
> 
> On 30.10.2019 22:42, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
> > 30/10/2019 17:09, Ilya Maximets:
> >> On 30.10.2019 16:49, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
> >>> 30/10/2019 16:07, Ilya Maximets:
> >>>> On 29.10.2019 19:50, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
> >>>>> In a virtual environment, the network controller may have to
> >>>>> configure some SR-IOV VF parameters for security reasons.
> >>>>>
[...]

> > If we consider what Intel did, i.e. configure VF in place of
> > representor for some operations, there are two drawbacks:
> > - confusing that some ops apply to representor, others apply to VF
> > - some ops are not possible on representor (because targetted to VF)
> >
> > I still feel that the addition of one single bit in the port ID is an
> > elegant solution to target either the VF or its representor.
> 
> Since we already have a confusion about what is configured when operations
> are performed on a representor port we have 2 options:

I don't agree we have. I don't think there is any design note or API doc that 
says the ethdev configuration on representor should be applied on VF (please 
share if I missed it). 
The fact that there are some drivers that implemented it doesn't mean it is 
correct. 

> 1. Have this proposed API to configure representor itself while
>     setting config to representor and configuring VF if special
>     bit enabled.
> 2. Reverse the logic of current proposal, i.e. always apply
>     configuration to VF while working with representor and apply
>     configuration to representor itself if special bit is set.
> 
> I'd probably prefer option #2, because:
> - From the OVS and OpenStack point of view, I think, we don't
>    really need to configure representor itself in most cases.
>    And OVS really should not know if it works with representor
>    or some real port.

I don't thinks OVS can be really agnostic to the fact it runs on top of 
representors:
1. probing of representor has different command line -w <bdf>,representor=XXX
2. the whole acceleration framework based on insertion of flow rules for direct 
forward from the VF to target entity. Rules are applied on the representor and 
would not work if port is not such. 
3. some multi-port devices cannot do direct fwd between its different port. 
This is why rep has switch_id and application should query it and act upon. 
4. representor carry the VF port id. This is how application know to which VF 
(or vport) they associated with on their other side. 

> - It seems that most of the existing code in DPDK already works
>    like this, i.e. applying configs to VF itself.  Intel drivers
>    works like this and  Mellanox drivers, as Thomas said, doesn't
>    have this functionality at all.

As I said above, I don't think we need to refer to specific driver behavior, 
rather the API guidelines. 
To me, it is a bit strange and not natural that ethdev configuration is applied 
to different port w/o any explicit request from the application. 
This is why I would prefer #1 above. 

> 
> >
> >
> >>>> The this is that this new API will produce conceptual fragmentation
> >>>> between DPDK and the Linux kernel, because to do the same thing
> >>>> you'll have to use different ways. I mean, to change mac of VF in
> >>>> kernel you need to set mac to the representor, but in DPDK changing
> >>>> setting mac to representor will lead to changing the mac of the
> >>>> representor itself, not the VF. This will be really confusing for users.
> >>>
> >>> I am not responsible of the choices in Linux.
> >>> But I agree it would be interesting to check the reason of such decision.
> >>> Rony, please could you explain?
> >
> > I looked at few Linux drivers:
> >
> >     bnxt_vf_rep_netdev_ops has no op to set MAC
> >     bnxt_netdev_ops.ndo_set_vf_mac = set VF MAC from PF
> >
> >     lio_vf_rep_ndev_ops has no op to set MAC
> >     lionetdevops.ndo_set_vf_mac = set VF MAC from PF
> >
> >     mlx5e_netdev_ops_rep has no op to set MAC
> >     mlx5e_netdev_ops.ndo_set_vf_mac = set VF MAC from PF
> >     mlx5e_netdev_ops_uplink_rep.ndo_set_vf_mac = set VF MAC from
> PF
> >
> >     nfp_repr_netdev_ops.ndo_set_mac_address = set representor
> MAC
> >     nfp_repr_netdev_ops.ndo_set_vf_mac = set VF MAC from
> representor
> >     nfp_net_netdev_ops.ndo_set_vf_mac = set VF MAC from PF
> >
> > There is a big chance that the behaviour is not standardized in Linux
> > (as usual). So it is already confusing for users of Linux.
> >
> >

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