Re: [patch net-next v4 0/4] return offloaded stats as default and expose original sw stats

Roopa Prabhu
2016-06-20T03:06:48Z

On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 7:54 AM, Jamal Hadi Salim <jhs@mojatatu.com> wrote:
> On 16-06-17 10:05 AM, Jiri Pirko wrote:
>>
>> Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 03:48:35PM CEST, dsa@cumulusnetworks.com wrote:
>>>
>>> On 6/17/16 2:24 AM, Jiri Pirko wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>
>>
>> That is problematic. Existing apps depend on rtnetlink stats. But if we
>> don't count offloaded forwarded packets, the apps don't see anything.
>> Therefore I believe that this patchset approach is better. The existing
>> apps continue to work and future apps can use newly introduces sw_stats
>> to query slowpath traffic. Makes sense to me.
>>
>
> I agree with Jiri. It is a bad idea to depend on ethtool for any of
> this stuff.

The concern should not be that it is an ethtool api.
In all previous discussions on this patchset and also my
stats api patches, i have indicated that we have to move all stats
in one place, so naturally, ethtool stats should move eventually to the
stats api as a new nested netlink attribute. I think i called it
IFLA_STATS_LINK_HW (or something like that)...
and this nested attribute should provide the flexibility and extensibility
of the current ethtool stats api.

> Is there a way we can tag netlink stats instead
> to indicate they are hardware or software?
> We already have a use case with the tc where someone could get/set
> hardware and/or software.
>
> cheers,
> jamal