Re: [PATCH net-next 1/4] net: Introduce NETIF_F_GRO_HW

[David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>]

From: Alexander Duyck <alexander.duyck@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2017 10:43:58 -0800

> On Mon, Dec 4, 2017 at 10:23 AM, Michael Chan <michael.chan@broadcom.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Dec 4, 2017 at 8:47 AM, Alexander Duyck
>> <alexander.duyck@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Mon, Dec 4, 2017 at 3:12 AM, Michael Chan <michael.chan@broadcom.com> wrote:
>>>> Introduce NETIF_F_GRO_HW feature flag for NICs that support hardware
>>>> GRO.  With this flag, we can now independently turn on or off hardware
>>>> GRO when GRO is on.  Hardware GRO guarantees that packets can be
>>>> re-segmented by TSO/GSO to reconstruct the original packet stream.
>>>>
>>>> Cc: Ariel Elior <Ariel.Elior@cavium.com>
>>>> Cc: everest-linux-l2@cavium.com
>>>> Signed-off-by: Michael Chan <michael.chan@broadcom.com>
>>>
>>> Do we really need yet another feature bit for this? We already have
>>> LRO and GRO and now we have to add something that isn't quite either
>>> one?
>>
>> I think so, to be consistent with TSO/GSO on the transmit side.  On
>> the receive side, we have LRO/GRO_HW/GRO.  There is difference between
>> LRO/GRO_HW that we need to distinguish between the 2.
> 
> I don't really see the difference. Your GRO_HW likely doens't do all
> of the stuff GRO can do. Neither does LRO. Both occur in the hardware
> normally. It would make sense to reuse the LRO flag for this instead
> of coming up with a new feature flag that makes things confusing by
> saying you are doing a software offload in hardware.
> 
> I view LRO as a subset of what GRO can handle, that is performed in
> hardware. From the stack perspective the only thing that really
> matters is that the frames can be segmented back into what they were
> before they were assembled. That is why I think it would be better to
> add a flag indicating that the LRO is reversible instead of adding yet
> another feature bit that the user has to toggle. That way if at some
> point in the future an issue is found where your "GRO in hardware"
> feature has a bug that isn't reversible it is just a matter of
> clearing the privage flag bit and the mechanisms already in place for
> dealing with assembly and routing can take over.

I don't think they should use the LRO flag.

If their HW GRO stream is fully reversible, which it is, then it's not
LRO.

LRO gets disabled when bridging or routing is enabled, and HW GRO
should not take this penalty.