On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 11:20:02AM -0500, Aaron Conole wrote: > Ferruh Yigit <ferruh.yigit at intel.com> writes: > > This work is to make DPDK ports more visible and to enable using common > > Linux tools to configure DPDK ports. > > This is a good goal. Only question - why use an additional kernel module > to do this? Is it _JUST_ for ethtool support?
Kernel module used to create/destroy Linux net_devices, and module has a simple driver for that device which only handles control messages by passing them into userspace. To represent DPDK ports as Linux net_devices we need kernel support. > I think the other stuff > can be accomplished using netlink sockets + messages, no? Netlink sockets just used to communicate kernel-space - user-space, this is not why we need a kernel module, for example this communication is implemented in original KNI as part of FIFO. >The only > trepidation I would have with something like this is the support from > major vendors - out of tree modules are not generally supportable. Might > be good to get some of the ethtool commands as netlink messages as well, > then it is supportable with no 3rd party kernel modules. Yes, there is a out of three module problem for some distros, but unfortunately we are not able to find a solution for this case without an external kernel module. This patch is still an RFC and if we receive suggested solution without a kernel module, we can work on it together. Thanks, ferruh