From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jeff Garzik Subject: Re: TOE, etc. (was Re: [PATCH Round 3 0/2][RFC] Network Event Notifier Mechanism) Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 00:40:51 -0400 Message-ID: <44A20853.7060406@pobox.com> References: <20060627205050.30723.25753.stgit@stevo-desktop> <20060628030400.GA4474@gondor.apana.org.au> <44A1F669.8070606@pobox.com> <20060628033708.GA4922@gondor.apana.org.au> <44A20311.5050301@pobox.com> <20060628042959.GA5561@gondor.apana.org.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: davem@davemloft.net, Steve Wise , netdev@vger.kernel.org Return-path: Received: from srv5.dvmed.net ([207.36.208.214]:3504 "EHLO mail.dvmed.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1423041AbWF1Ek6 (ORCPT ); Wed, 28 Jun 2006 00:40:58 -0400 To: Herbert Xu In-Reply-To: <20060628042959.GA5561@gondor.apana.org.au> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org Herbert Xu wrote: > On Wed, Jun 28, 2006 at 12:18:25AM -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote: >> A PCI device that presents itself as a SCSI controller, but under the >> hood is really iSCSI-over-TCP smells like TOE. Running a virtualized >> Linux guest on top of a proprietary stack [which provides networking >> services to guests] also smells like TOE. :) > > Agreed. However, when they start adding hooks to the ARP table, the > routing table, and PMTU management, it begs the question what more is > there to add for TOE (well, user-space driven TOE at least)? Well, you've always been able to implement userspace (or otherwise completely-virtualized) network stack. tuntap and the packet socket enable that, if nothing else. But, like you characterize below, those are existing, well-defined, easily contained interfaces. > Put it another way, I think the dividing line between TOE and iSCSI or > virtualisation is exactly the interface between them and the Linux kernel. > If the interface is an existing one such as SCSI or standard IP then it's > OK. However, when it starts poking in the guts of the Linux stack I'd say > that it has crossed the line. Strongly agreed. Jeff