RE: VJ Channel API - driver level (PATCH)

["Leonid Grossman" <Leonid.Grossman@neterion.com>]

 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org 
> [mailto:netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org] On Behalf Of David S. Miller
> Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2006 11:48 PM
> To: shemminger@osdl.org
> Cc: alex@neterion.com; netdev@vger.kernel.org
> Subject: Re: VJ Channel API - driver level (PATCH)
> 
> 
> I don't think we should be defining driver APIs when we 
> haven't even figured out how the core of it would even work yet.
> 
> A key part of this is the netfilter bits, that will require 
> non-trivial flow identification, a hash will simply not be 
> enough, and it will not be allowed to not support the 
> netfilter bits properly since everyone will have netfilter 
> enabled in one way or another.

Hi Dave,

Do you have suggestions on potential hardware assists/offloads for
netfilter?

I suppose some of it can be worthwhile, although in general may be too
complex to implement - especially above 1 Gig. 

I'd expect high end NIC ASICs to implement rx steering based upon some
sort of hash (for load balancing), as well as explicit "1:1" steering
between a sw channel and a hw channel. Both options for channel
configuration are present in the driver interface.
If netfilter assists can be done in hardware, I agree the driver
interface will need to add support for these - otherwise, netfilter
processing will stay above the driver.


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