On Thu, Mar 05, 2026 at 05:45:49PM +0100, David Marchand wrote: > Some applications use port hotplug as their primary way for using DPDK > resources. > Having a systematic device probing is a problem when not all available > resources will be used by the application, as such applications won't set > an explicit allow list at startup. > > This is the case for OVS on systems with multiple mlx5 devices: > one device can be used by the kernel while the other(s) are used by DPDK. > In such a setup, the kernel used device may get reconfigured in > unexpected ways and trigger issues like the one described by Kevin > not so long ago in bugzilla 1873. > > Add an EAL option so that we can change the default behavior from > block-listing to allow-listing which can be summed up as disabling > automatic probing. > In case some applications want to require automatic probing, add the > opposite option. > > Signed-off-by: David Marchand <[email protected]> > --- > Changes since RFC v2: > - added -A short option alias as it seems intuitive to use with -a, > - renamed option to --no-auto-probing (half Robin and half Thomas > suggestions), > - made -A and -b conflicting options, > - added opposite option in case an application wants an explicit behavior, > - updated unit tests accordingly, > - updated documentation (namely some detail on --vdev), > > Changes since RFC v1: > - changed approach following Bruce suggestion, > > --- > app/test/test_eal_flags.c | 63 +++++++++++++++++++++++ > devtools/test-null.sh | 2 +- > doc/guides/linux_gsg/eal_args.include.rst | 13 +++++ > lib/eal/common/eal_common_bus.c | 17 +++--- > lib/eal/common/eal_common_options.c | 10 ++++ > lib/eal/common/eal_internal_cfg.h | 1 + > lib/eal/common/eal_option_list.h | 2 + > 7 files changed, 101 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-) >
While I really like "-A" as a logical shortcut, I am a little concerned it doesn't seem a shortcut for "--no-auto-probing". However, I don't have a better suggestion so. Acked-by: Bruce Richardson <[email protected]>
