28/12/2022 17:54, Viacheslav Ovsiienko: > The RTE Flow API implements the concept of shared objects, > known as indirect actions (RTE_FLOW_ACTION_TYPE_INDIRECT). > An application can create the indirect action of desired > type and configuration with rte_flow_action_handle_create > call and then specify the obtained action handle in multiple > flows. > > The initial concept supposes the action handle has strict > attachment to the port it was created on and to be used > exclusively in the flows being installed on the port. > > Nowadays the multipath network topologies are quite common, > packets belonging to the same connection might arrive and > be sent over multiple ports, and there is the raising demand > to handle these "spread" connections. To fulfil this demand > it is proposed to extend indirect action sharing across the > multiple ports. This kind of sharing would be extremely useful > for the meters and counters, allowing to manage the single > connection over the multiple ports. > > This cross-port object sharing is hard to implement in > generic way merely with software on the upper layers, but > can be provided by the driver over the single hardware > instance, where multiple ports reside on the same physical > NIC and share the same hardware context. > > To allow this action sharing application should specify > the "host port" during flow configuring to claim the intention > to share the indirect actions. All indirect actions reside within > "host port" context and can be shared in flows being installed
I don't like the word "host" because it may refer to the host CPU. Also if I understand well, the application must choose one port between all ports of the NIC and keep using the same. I guess we don't want to create a NIC id. So I would suggest to rename to nic_ref_port or something like that. > on the host port and on all the ports referencing this one. Not "all the ports" but only on sibling ports (ports of the same NIC). > If sharing between host and port being configured is not supported > the configuration should be rejected with error. There might be > multiple independent (mutual exclusive) sharing domains with > dedicated host and referencing ports. > > To manage the shared indirect action any port from sharing domain > can be specified. To share or not the created action is up to > application, no API change is needed. [...] > + /** > + * Port to base shared objects on. > + */ > + uint16_t host_port_id; Is it a DPDK ethdev port ID? You should add this feature to the release notes and in rte_flow guide. PS: please Cc ethdev maintainers.
