On Tue, May 22, 2018 at 02:04:06PM -0700, Jeff Kirsher wrote: > On Tue, 2018-05-22 at 14:56 -0600, Jason Gunthorpe wrote: > > On Tue, May 22, 2018 at 01:38:31PM -0700, Jeff Kirsher wrote: > > > From: Sindhu Devale <sindhu.dev...@intel.com> > > > > > > Currently i40iw is dependent on i40e symbols > > > i40e_register_client and i40e_unregister_client due to > > > which i40iw cannot be loaded without i40e being loaded. > > > > > > This patch allows RDMA driver to build and load without > > > linking to LAN driver and without LAN driver being loaded > > > first. Once the LAN driver is loaded, the RDMA driver > > > is notified through the netdevice notifiers to register > > > as client to the LAN driver. Add function pointers to IDC > > > register/unregister in the private VSI structure. This > > > allows a RDMA driver to build without linking to i40e. > > > > Why would you want to do this? The rdma driver is non-functional > > without the ethernet driver, so why on earth would we want to defeat > > the module dependency mechanism? > > This change is driven by the OSV's like Red Hat, where customer's were > updating the i40e driver, which in turn broke i40iw.
So that isn't a reason to put something into the main line kernel, and I'm deeply skeptical this change is even sane. It has been a while since I've looked at RH's kernel, but AFAIK, breakage should only happen if the ABIs around i40e_unregister_client/etc change.. So if the i40e module updates breaks the ABI, then stuffing that same broken ABI through a function pointer is *totally* wrong. Looks like a NAK for the RDMA side. Jason
