Re: [PATCH net-next v4 2/5] ipv6: ioam: Data plane support for Pre-allocated Trace

[Justin Iurman <justin.iurman@uliege.be>]

>> >> Last two sentences are repeated.
>> > 
>> > One describes net.ipv6.conf.XXX.ioam6_id (per interface) and the other describes
>> > net.ipv6.ioam6_id (per namespace). It allows for defining an IOAM id to an
>> > interface and, also, the node in general.
>> >   
>> >> Is 0 a valid interface ID? If not why not use id != 0 instead of
>> >> having a separate enabled field?
>> > 
>> > Mainly for semantic reasons. Indeed, I'd prefer to keep a specific "enable" flag
>> > per interface as it sounds more intuitive. But, also because 0 could very well
>> > be a "valid" interface id (more like a default value).
>> 
>> Actually, it's more than for semantic reasons. Take the following topology:
>> 
>>  _____              _____              _____
>> |     | eth0  eth0 |     | eth1  eth0 |     |
>> |  A  |.----------.|  B  |.----------.|  C  |
>> |_____|            |_____|            |_____|
>> 
>> If I only want IOAM to be deployed from A to C but not from C to A,
>> then I would need the following on B (let's just focus on B):
>> 
>> B.eth0.ioam6_enabled = 1 // enable IOAM *on input* for B.eth0
>> B.eth0.ioam6_id = B1
>> B.eth1.ioam6_id = B2
>> 
>> Back to your suggestion, if I only had one field (i.e., ioam6_id != 0
>> to enable IOAM), I would end up with:
>> 
>> B.eth0.ioam6_id = B1 // (!= 0)
>> B.eth1.ioam6_id = B2 // (!= 0)
>> 
>> Which means in this case that IOAM would also be enabled on B for the
>> reverse path. So we definitely need two fields to distinguish both
>> the status (enabled/disabled) and the IOAM ID of an interface.
> 
> Makes sense. Is it okay to assume 0 is equivalent to ~0, though:
> 
> +		raw32 = dev_net(skb->dev)->ipv6.sysctl.ioam6_id;
> +		if (!raw32)
> +			raw32 = IOAM6_EMPTY_u24;
> 
> etc. Quick grep through the RFC only reveals that ~0 is special (not
> available). Should we init ids to ~0 instead of 0 explicitly?

Yes, I think so. And it is indeed correct to assume that. So, if it's fine for you to init IDs to ~0, then it'd be definitely a big yes from me.