Hi Sugesh, On Fri, Dec 09, 2016 at 12:18:03PM +0000, Chandran, Sugesh wrote: [...] > > > Are you going to provide any control over the initialization of NIC > > > to define the capability matrices For eg; To operate in a L3 router mode, > > software wanted to initialize the NIC port only to consider the L2 and L3 > > fields. > > > I assume the initialization is done based on the first rules that are > > programmed into the NIC.? > > > > Precisely, PMDs are supposed to determine the most appropriate device > > mode to use in order to handle the requested rules. They may even switch > > to another mode if necessary assuming this does not break existing > > constraints. > > > > I think we've discussed an atomic (commit-based) mode of operation > > through separate functions as well, where the application would attempt to > > create a bunch of rules at once, possibly making it easier for PMDs to > > determine the most appropriate mode of operation for the device. > > > > All of these may be added later according to users feedback once the basic > > API has settled. > [Sugesh] Yes , we discussed about this before. However I feel that, it make > sense > to provide some flexibility to the user/application to define a profile/mode > of the device. > This way the complexity of determining the mode by itself will be taken away > from PMD. > Looking at the P4 enablement patches in OVS, the mode definition APIs can be > used in conjunction > P4 behavioral model. > For eg: A P4 model for a L2 switch operate OVS as a L2 switch. Using the mode > definition APIs > Its possible to impose the same behavioral model in the hardware too. > This way its simple, clean and very predictive though it needs to define an > additional profile_define APIs. > I am sorry to provide the comment at this stage, However looking at the > adoption of ebpf, P4 make me > to think this way. > What do you think?
What you suggest (device profile configuration) would be done by a separate function in any case, so as long as everyone agrees on a generic method to do so, no problem with extending rte_flow. By default in the meantime we'll have to rely on PMDs to make the right decision. Do you think it has to be defined from the beginning? -- Adrien Mazarguil 6WIND
