* Fwd: [ofa-general] FW: QLogic vNIC Kernel Submission [not found] <99863D2ED484D449811D97A4C44C9CBD7C50F7@EPEXCH2.qlogic.org> @ 2008-06-17 17:18 ` Amar Mudrankit 2008-06-17 18:34 ` Patrick McHardy 2008-06-18 10:43 ` Jeff Garzik 0 siblings, 2 replies; 9+ messages in thread From: Amar Mudrankit @ 2008-06-17 17:18 UTC (permalink / raw) To: netdev; +Cc: rdreier, Ramachandra K, poornima.kamath, amar.mudrankit ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: John Russo <john.russo@qlogic.com> Date: Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 6:36 PM Subject: [ofa-general] FW: QLogic vNIC Kernel Submission To: general@lists.openfabrics.org It looks as if my original email was "scrubbed" before it made the mailing list so I am resending it... QLogic has been attempting to submit our virtual NIC (vNIC) driver to the Linux kernel for several months. We have made changes to the code based on the feedback we have received over four rounds of submissions. Among the feedback we received during this process was a request to alter our code to use a single value per file for configuration of our driver through sysfs interface. After spending much time and effort to complete this change to our design we re-submitted the driver only to receive a response suggesting that we change once again from this interface to a different API interface called rtnl_link. Needless to say I am very frustrated with this process. This new API interface would require substantial changes to our code. QLogic has met the initial request to move to a single valued sysfs interface and I would hope that this new request will be waived and will not be a roadblock to inclusion of our driver to the kernel. _______________________________________________ general mailing list general@lists.openfabrics.org http://lists.openfabrics.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/general To unsubscribe, please visit http://openib.org/mailman/listinfo/openib-general ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: Fwd: [ofa-general] FW: QLogic vNIC Kernel Submission 2008-06-17 17:18 ` Fwd: [ofa-general] FW: QLogic vNIC Kernel Submission Amar Mudrankit @ 2008-06-17 18:34 ` Patrick McHardy 2008-06-17 19:14 ` Stephen Hemminger 2008-06-17 19:15 ` Patrick McHardy 2008-06-18 10:43 ` Jeff Garzik 1 sibling, 2 replies; 9+ messages in thread From: Patrick McHardy @ 2008-06-17 18:34 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Amar Mudrankit; +Cc: netdev, rdreier, Ramachandra K, poornima.kamath Amar Mudrankit wrote: > It looks as if my original email was "scrubbed" before it made the > mailing list so I am resending it... > > QLogic has been attempting to submit our virtual NIC (vNIC) driver to > the Linux kernel for several months. We have made changes to the code > based on the feedback we have received over four rounds of > submissions. Among the feedback we received during this process was a > request to alter our code to use a single value per file for > configuration of our driver through sysfs interface. After spending > much time and effort to complete this change to our design we > re-submitted the driver only to receive a response suggesting that we > change once again from this interface to a different API interface > called rtnl_link. Needless to say I am very frustrated with this > process. This new API interface would require substantial changes to > our code. Thats one of the reasons why it should be done before merging it. The other one being that an API can't be removed easily once its in the kernel. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: Fwd: [ofa-general] FW: QLogic vNIC Kernel Submission 2008-06-17 18:34 ` Patrick McHardy @ 2008-06-17 19:14 ` Stephen Hemminger [not found] ` <C07C40DB2364324799506DE8FF12F8D859E90D@EPEXCH1.qlogic.org> 2008-06-17 19:15 ` Patrick McHardy 1 sibling, 1 reply; 9+ messages in thread From: Stephen Hemminger @ 2008-06-17 19:14 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Patrick McHardy Cc: Amar Mudrankit, netdev, rdreier, Ramachandra K, poornima.kamath On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:34:59 +0200 Patrick McHardy <kaber@trash.net> wrote: > Amar Mudrankit wrote: > > It looks as if my original email was "scrubbed" before it made the > > mailing list so I am resending it... > > > > QLogic has been attempting to submit our virtual NIC (vNIC) driver to > > the Linux kernel for several months. We have made changes to the code > > based on the feedback we have received over four rounds of > > submissions. Among the feedback we received during this process was a > > request to alter our code to use a single value per file for > > configuration of our driver through sysfs interface. After spending > > much time and effort to complete this change to our design we > > re-submitted the driver only to receive a response suggesting that we > > change once again from this interface to a different API interface > > called rtnl_link. Needless to say I am very frustrated with this > > process. This new API interface would require substantial changes to > > our code. > > Thats one of the reasons why it should be done before merging it. > The other one being that an API can't be removed easily once its > in the kernel. Understand that this is a community process and it isn't going to follow a corporate model. There is no external pressures like schedules and users. As Patrick said, there is also a sense of doing the right thing. The developers would rather not repeat past mistakes, so are naturally hesitant on API's. Adding a device that follows existing API's is always much easier. What you are seeing is in part an internal discomfort with the plethora of API's and the binary baggage of ioctl's, sysfs, etc. If you could give a general outline of what the interface you want would do, perhaps the community could provide some sample code that do what you want. Netlink interfaces are less common, and there are fewer examples. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
[parent not found: <C07C40DB2364324799506DE8FF12F8D859E90D@EPEXCH1.qlogic.org>]
* RE: Fwd: [ofa-general] FW: QLogic vNIC Kernel Submission [not found] ` <C07C40DB2364324799506DE8FF12F8D859E90D@EPEXCH1.qlogic.org> @ 2008-06-17 20:12 ` John Russo 2008-06-17 20:49 ` Patrick McHardy 0 siblings, 1 reply; 9+ messages in thread From: John Russo @ 2008-06-17 20:12 UTC (permalink / raw) To: shemminger Cc: Amar Mudrankit (Contractor - ), netdev, rdreier, Kuchimanchi, Ramachandra (Contractor - ), Poornima Kamath (Contractor - ) Stephen, >> Understand that this is a community process and it isn't going to follow >> a corporate model. There is no external pressures like schedules and >> users. With all due respect... In my mind, that is just not realistic. Work done in this community has very strong corporate repercussions and these issues can't simply be ignored. I am not saying that the community should ever alter their ideals for any company, just that some people/groups/companies will be reluctant to even try to contribute if they feel that guidelines like this can be changed this way and make their efforts wasted. >> As Patrick said, there is also a sense of doing the right thing. The >> developers would rather not repeat past mistakes, so are naturally >> hesitant on API's. I completely understand the sense of doing the right thing. That is why we put in the effort to migrate our code to sysfs in the first place. We had a different solution but agreed to change it to meet the guidelines of other contributors to the InfiniBand (OFED) stack. What I can't understand is the ease of which some people say "let's just change to this great new design even if it means a large rewrite of existing code which may increase the likelihood of injecting errors". I apologize if I come off as being agitated but it is very frustrating to spend time and effort attempting to conform to a groups requests only to have it changed at the end. >> Adding a device that follows existing API's is always much easier. What >> you are seeing is in part an internal discomfort with the plethora of >> API's and the binary baggage of ioctl's, sysfs, etc. Again, I completely understand the level of discomfort. We are trying to work to the same 'rules' that other members of our community have used. >> If you could give a general outline of what the interface you want would >> do, perhaps the community could provide some sample code that do what you >> want. >> Netlink interfaces are less common, and there are fewer examples. -----Original Message----- From: Stephen Hemminger [mailto:shemminger@vyatta.com] Sent: Wed 6/18/2008 12:44 AM To: Patrick McHardy Cc: Amar Mudrankit (Contractor - ); netdev@vger.kernel.org; rdreier@cisco.com; Kuchimanchi, Ramachandra (Contractor - ); Poornima Kamath (Contractor - ) Subject: Re: Fwd: [ofa-general] FW: QLogic vNIC Kernel Submission On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:34:59 +0200 Patrick McHardy <kaber@trash.net> wrote: > Amar Mudrankit wrote: > > It looks as if my original email was "scrubbed" before it made the > > mailing list so I am resending it... > > > > QLogic has been attempting to submit our virtual NIC (vNIC) driver to > > the Linux kernel for several months. We have made changes to the code > > based on the feedback we have received over four rounds of > > submissions. Among the feedback we received during this process was a > > request to alter our code to use a single value per file for > > configuration of our driver through sysfs interface. After spending > > much time and effort to complete this change to our design we > > re-submitted the driver only to receive a response suggesting that we > > change once again from this interface to a different API interface > > called rtnl_link. Needless to say I am very frustrated with this > > process. This new API interface would require substantial changes to > > our code. > > Thats one of the reasons why it should be done before merging it. > The other one being that an API can't be removed easily once its > in the kernel. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: Fwd: [ofa-general] FW: QLogic vNIC Kernel Submission 2008-06-17 20:12 ` John Russo @ 2008-06-17 20:49 ` Patrick McHardy 2008-06-17 23:59 ` Jeff Garzik 0 siblings, 1 reply; 9+ messages in thread From: Patrick McHardy @ 2008-06-17 20:49 UTC (permalink / raw) To: John Russo Cc: shemminger, Amar Mudrankit (Contractor - ), netdev, rdreier, Kuchimanchi, Ramachandra (Contractor - ), Poornima Kamath (Contractor - ) John Russo wrote: >>> As Patrick said, there is also a sense of doing the right thing. The >>> developers would rather not repeat past mistakes, so are naturally >>> hesitant on API's. >>> > > I completely understand the sense of doing the right thing. That is why > we put in the effort to migrate our code to sysfs in the first place. > We had a different solution but agreed to change it to meet the > guidelines of other contributors to the InfiniBand (OFED) stack. What I > can't understand is the ease of which some people say "let's just change > to this great new design even if it means a large rewrite of existing > code which may increase the likelihood of injecting errors". I > apologize if I come off as being agitated but it is very frustrating to > spend time and effort attempting to conform to a groups requests only to > have it changed at the end. > Frankly, you didn't even try to fix the most obvious mistakes in your interface, like duplication of existing interfaces (csum settings) and very unusual behaviour (state machine triggered device registation) before you started complaining (and both of these are *really* easy to do). That you were asked to migrate to sysfs is unfortunate. The fact is though that your driver is a virtual ethernet device, not an infiniband device, so it should use the proper APIs for this kind of device. Work has been going on for years to provide a uniform interface to the network and your interface is a move in the opposite direction. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: Fwd: [ofa-general] FW: QLogic vNIC Kernel Submission 2008-06-17 20:49 ` Patrick McHardy @ 2008-06-17 23:59 ` Jeff Garzik 0 siblings, 0 replies; 9+ messages in thread From: Jeff Garzik @ 2008-06-17 23:59 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Patrick McHardy Cc: John Russo, shemminger, Amar Mudrankit (Contractor - ), netdev, rdreier, Kuchimanchi, Ramachandra (Contractor - ), Poornima Kamath (Contractor - ) Patrick McHardy wrote: > Frankly, you didn't even try to fix the most obvious mistakes in your > interface, like duplication of existing interfaces (csum settings) > and very unusual behaviour (state machine triggered device registation) > before you started complaining (and both of these are *really* easy to > do). > > That you were asked to migrate to sysfs is unfortunate. The fact is > though that your driver is a virtual ethernet device, not an infiniband > device, so it should use the proper APIs for this kind of device. Work > has been going on for years to provide a uniform interface to the network > and your interface is a move in the opposite direction. That's pretty much my feeling. Jeff ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: Fwd: [ofa-general] FW: QLogic vNIC Kernel Submission 2008-06-17 18:34 ` Patrick McHardy 2008-06-17 19:14 ` Stephen Hemminger @ 2008-06-17 19:15 ` Patrick McHardy 1 sibling, 0 replies; 9+ messages in thread From: Patrick McHardy @ 2008-06-17 19:15 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Amar Mudrankit; +Cc: netdev, rdreier, Ramachandra K, poornima.kamath Patrick McHardy wrote: > Amar Mudrankit wrote: >> It looks as if my original email was "scrubbed" before it made the >> mailing list so I am resending it... >> >> QLogic has been attempting to submit our virtual NIC (vNIC) driver to >> the Linux kernel for several months. We have made changes to the code >> based on the feedback we have received over four rounds of >> submissions. Among the feedback we received during this process was a >> request to alter our code to use a single value per file for >> configuration of our driver through sysfs interface. After spending >> much time and effort to complete this change to our design we >> re-submitted the driver only to receive a response suggesting that we >> change once again from this interface to a different API interface >> called rtnl_link. Needless to say I am very frustrated with this >> process. This new API interface would require substantial changes to >> our code. > > Thats one of the reasons why it should be done before merging it. > The other one being that an API can't be removed easily once its > in the kernel. Besides that, the state machine triggered device registration and the sysfs based checksumming settings of also need to go (both should be about 5 minutes of work by the way). ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: Fwd: [ofa-general] FW: QLogic vNIC Kernel Submission 2008-06-17 17:18 ` Fwd: [ofa-general] FW: QLogic vNIC Kernel Submission Amar Mudrankit 2008-06-17 18:34 ` Patrick McHardy @ 2008-06-18 10:43 ` Jeff Garzik 2008-06-18 11:19 ` Patrick McHardy 1 sibling, 1 reply; 9+ messages in thread From: Jeff Garzik @ 2008-06-18 10:43 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Amar Mudrankit; +Cc: netdev, rdreier, Ramachandra K, poornima.kamath Amar Mudrankit wrote: > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: John Russo <john.russo@qlogic.com> > Date: Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 6:36 PM > Subject: [ofa-general] FW: QLogic vNIC Kernel Submission > To: general@lists.openfabrics.org > > > It looks as if my original email was "scrubbed" before it made the > mailing list so I am resending it... > > QLogic has been attempting to submit our virtual NIC (vNIC) driver to > the Linux kernel for several months. We have made changes to the code > based on the feedback we have received over four rounds of > submissions. Among the feedback we received during this process was a > request to alter our code to use a single value per file for > configuration of our driver through sysfs interface. After spending > much time and effort to complete this change to our design we > re-submitted the driver only to receive a response suggesting that we > change once again from this interface to a different API interface > called rtnl_link. Needless to say I am very frustrated with this > process. This new API interface would require substantial changes to > our code. > > QLogic has met the initial request to move to a single valued sysfs > interface and I would hope that this new request will be waived and > will not be a roadblock to inclusion of our driver to the kernel. One option is to get the base driver into the tree, sans sysfs interface, and wait for the netlink interface. As Patrick noted, it is very important to -not- just throw new user interfaces into the tree, because that essentially sets them in stone at that point, needing to be supported as an Application Binary Interface (ABI). The other stuff, like duplication of existing interfaces and strange FSM-based netdev registration, are problems that could be worked out in-tree, I suppose. Jeff ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: Fwd: [ofa-general] FW: QLogic vNIC Kernel Submission 2008-06-18 10:43 ` Jeff Garzik @ 2008-06-18 11:19 ` Patrick McHardy 0 siblings, 0 replies; 9+ messages in thread From: Patrick McHardy @ 2008-06-18 11:19 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Jeff Garzik Cc: Amar Mudrankit, netdev, rdreier, Ramachandra K, poornima.kamath Jeff Garzik wrote: > Amar Mudrankit wrote: >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> From: John Russo <john.russo@qlogic.com> >> Date: Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 6:36 PM >> Subject: [ofa-general] FW: QLogic vNIC Kernel Submission >> To: general@lists.openfabrics.org >> >> >> It looks as if my original email was "scrubbed" before it made the >> mailing list so I am resending it... >> >> QLogic has been attempting to submit our virtual NIC (vNIC) driver to >> the Linux kernel for several months. We have made changes to the code >> based on the feedback we have received over four rounds of >> submissions. Among the feedback we received during this process was a >> request to alter our code to use a single value per file for >> configuration of our driver through sysfs interface. After spending >> much time and effort to complete this change to our design we >> re-submitted the driver only to receive a response suggesting that we >> change once again from this interface to a different API interface >> called rtnl_link. Needless to say I am very frustrated with this >> process. This new API interface would require substantial changes to >> our code. >> >> QLogic has met the initial request to move to a single valued sysfs >> interface and I would hope that this new request will be waived and >> will not be a roadblock to inclusion of our driver to the kernel. > > One option is to get the base driver into the tree, sans sysfs > interface, and wait for the netlink interface. > > As Patrick noted, it is very important to -not- just throw new user > interfaces into the tree, because that essentially sets them in stone at > that point, needing to be supported as an Application Binary Interface > (ABI). > > The other stuff, like duplication of existing interfaces and strange > FSM-based netdev registration, are problems that could be worked out > in-tree, I suppose. That sounds fine to me. The duplication is even going away automatically with removal of the sysfs interface. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
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[not found] <99863D2ED484D449811D97A4C44C9CBD7C50F7@EPEXCH2.qlogic.org>
2008-06-17 17:18 ` Fwd: [ofa-general] FW: QLogic vNIC Kernel Submission Amar Mudrankit
2008-06-17 18:34 ` Patrick McHardy
2008-06-17 19:14 ` Stephen Hemminger
[not found] ` <C07C40DB2364324799506DE8FF12F8D859E90D@EPEXCH1.qlogic.org>
2008-06-17 20:12 ` John Russo
2008-06-17 20:49 ` Patrick McHardy
2008-06-17 23:59 ` Jeff Garzik
2008-06-17 19:15 ` Patrick McHardy
2008-06-18 10:43 ` Jeff Garzik
2008-06-18 11:19 ` Patrick McHardy
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