Alex: > -----Original Message----- > From: Alex Rosenbaum [mailto:rosenbauma...@gmail.com] > Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2017 9:59 PM > To: Zhang, Qi Z <qi.z.zh...@intel.com> > Cc: adrien.mazarg...@6wind.com; DPDK <dev@dpdk.org>; Doherty, Declan > <declan.dohe...@intel.com> > Subject: Re: [dpdk-dev] [RFC v2 3/5] ether: Add flow timeout support > > On Thu, Dec 21, 2017 at 4:35 AM, Qi Zhang <qi.z.zh...@intel.com> wrote: > > Add new APIs to support flow timeout, application is able to 1. Setup > > the time duration of a flow, the flow is expected to be deleted > > automatically when timeout. > > Can you explain how the application (OVS) is expected to use this API? > It will help to better understand the motivation here...
I think the purpose of the APIs is to expose the hardware feature that support flow auto delete with a timeout. As I know, for OVS, every flow in flow table will have time duration A flow be offloaded to hardware is still required to be deleted in specific time, I think these APIs help OVS to take advantage HW feature and simplify the flow aging management > > Are you trying to move the aging timer from application code into the PMD? > or can your HW remove/disable/inactivate a flow at certain time semantics > without software context? Yes, it for hardware feature. > > I would prefer to have the aging timer logic in a centralized location, leek > the > application itself or some DPDK library. instead of having each PMD > implement its own software timers. > > > > 3. Register a callback function when a flow is deleted due to timeout. > > Is the application 'struct rte_flow*' handle really deleted? or the flow was > removed from HW, just in-active at this time? Here the flow is deleted, same thing happen as rte_flow_destroy and we need to call rte_flow_create to re-enable the flow. I will add more explanation to avoid confusion in next release. > > Can a flow be re-activated? or does this require a call to > rte_flow_destory() and ret_flow_create()? > > Alex Thanks Qi
