Which tool to use?

Which tool to use?

[Williams, Mitch A]

Which tool to use?

Just looking for a bit of direction before I go off and start coding...

Our SR-IOV capable parts (like everybody else's) include simple built-in
Layer 2 switch, to allow packets to be switched between the various VF 
devices.

We need the capability of configuring this switch from userspace. There
are a few features we'd like to control, like anti-spoofing, and
storm control, as well as being able to completely disable the internal
switch for external loopback.  Mostly, however, we want to be able to add
new MAC address filters to the switch.

This is actually a pressing need, for SR-IOV to be really usable in
a virtualized environment. In most use cases, along with VMs that are
assigned VF devices, there will be a bunch of VMs talking through the PF
device via a bridge.  We need to add the MAC addresses of these VMs to
the on-board switch, or other VMs using the VF devices won't be able to
talk to them - the packets will go out on the wire instead.

So, which tool do I modify to make this happen? Ethtool, or ip?  I can
think of convincing arguments for either, so I want to double-check with
the maintainers before I dive in.

Thanks,
Mitch

-------
If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research,
would it?
                                   - Albert Einstein

RE: Which tool to use?

[Rose, Gregory V]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org [mailto:netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org]
>On Behalf Of Williams, Mitch A
>Sent: Wednesday, January 27, 2010 10:10 PM
>To: netdev@vger.kernel.org; davem@davemloft.net; Stephen Hemminger
>Subject: Which tool to use?
>
>Which tool to use?
>
>Just looking for a bit of direction before I go off and start coding...
>
>Our SR-IOV capable parts (like everybody else's) include simple built-in
>Layer 2 switch, to allow packets to be switched between the various VF
>devices.
>
>We need the capability of configuring this switch from userspace. There
>are a few features we'd like to control, like anti-spoofing, and
>storm control, as well as being able to completely disable the internal
>switch for external loopback.  Mostly, however, we want to be able to
>add
>new MAC address filters to the switch.
>
>This is actually a pressing need, for SR-IOV to be really usable in
>a virtualized environment. In most use cases, along with VMs that are
>assigned VF devices, there will be a bunch of VMs talking through the PF
>device via a bridge.  We need to add the MAC addresses of these VMs to
>the on-board switch, or other VMs using the VF devices won't be able to
>talk to them - the packets will go out on the wire instead.
>
>So, which tool do I modify to make this happen? Ethtool, or ip?  I can
>think of convincing arguments for either, so I want to double-check with
>the maintainers before I dive in.
>
>Thanks,
>Mitch
>

The folks working on the Open vSwitch project are addressing some of these issues also.  You might want to check them out at openvswitch.org, although I have no idea what sort of view the Linux networking community has towards their work.

- Greg

Re: Which tool to use?

[Mark Smith]

On Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:10:04 -0700
"Williams, Mitch A" <mitch.a.williams@intel.com> wrote:

> Which tool to use?
> 
> Just looking for a bit of direction before I go off and start coding...
> 
> Our SR-IOV capable parts (like everybody else's) include simple built-in
> Layer 2 switch, to allow packets to be switched between the various VF 
> devices.
> 
> We need the capability of configuring this switch from userspace. There
> are a few features we'd like to control, like anti-spoofing, and
> storm control, as well as being able to completely disable the internal
> switch for external loopback.  Mostly, however, we want to be able to add
> new MAC address filters to the switch.
> 
> This is actually a pressing need, for SR-IOV to be really usable in
> a virtualized environment. In most use cases, along with VMs that are
> assigned VF devices, there will be a bunch of VMs talking through the PF
> device via a bridge.  We need to add the MAC addresses of these VMs to
> the on-board switch, or other VMs using the VF devices won't be able to
> talk to them - the packets will go out on the wire instead.
> 
> So, which tool do I modify to make this happen? Ethtool, or ip?  I can
> think of convincing arguments for either, so I want to double-check with
> the maintainers before I dive in.
> 

As they're bridging functions, I think being able to use the
existing brctl bridging utility / interface / api would be both useful
and intuitive. 

> Thanks,
> Mitch
> 
> -------
> If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research,
> would it?
>                                    - Albert Einstein
> 
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