Hi Ben, On 22 Jul 2014, at 20:10, Ben Pfaff <b...@nicira.com> wrote:
> After some pondering, I've concluded that the initial Windows datapath > should use Netlink for userspace-kernel datapath communication, > primarily because Netlink is extensible in a forward- and > backward-compatible fashion. That is, as we add new features to the > kernel module, existing userspace continues to work, and newer > userspace also easily continue to work with older kernel modules. > This isn't just theoretical, it's a feature that we've been using with > the Linux kernel module for years: any version of Open vSwitch > userspace works with any version of the Open vSwitch kernel module[*]. > It makes" for smoother upgrades, because userspace and the kernel can > be upgraded separately, giving administrators more flexibility. > > [*] Except the versions before Netlink support, of course. > > This isn't a decision to go with the VMware or the Cloudbase version > of Windows support, by the way, but it does mean that the VMware > kernel module will require significant changes. > This is great news! On this topic, beside Alin's work in sending the rebased netlink related patches for review, we also did a lot of work on refactoring the kernel side code and match it with the rebased userspace netlink implementation. We’ll be able to send the kernel patches for review as soon as the remaining userspace work will be able to merge. Since the userspace / kernel communication design choice (netlink vs dedicated component) was the main differentiator from an architectural perspective, I'd expect that the key differences between the two kernel code efforts are going to be drastically reduced in the next patchsets. I’m looking forward to start working jointly on a common codebase, independently from the origin. > Now I'm going to go review Alin's userspace changes that allow the > userspace dpif-linux code to compile on Windows. (After those changes > are in, we probably want to rename dpif-linux to dpif-netlink.) Thanks, Alessandro > _______________________________________________ > dev mailing list > dev@openvswitch.org > http://openvswitch.org/mailman/listinfo/dev _______________________________________________ dev mailing list dev@openvswitch.org http://openvswitch.org/mailman/listinfo/dev
