Re: SRIOV switchdev mode BoF minutes

["Samudrala, Sridhar" <sridhar.samudrala@intel.com>]

On 4/17/2018 7:47 AM, Andy Gospodarek wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 04:58:05PM +0300, Or Gerlitz wrote:
>> On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 4:30 PM, Andy Gospodarek
>> <andrew.gospodarek@broadcom.com> wrote:
>>> On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 07:08:39PM -0700, Samudrala, Sridhar wrote:
>>>> On 4/16/2018 5:39 AM, Andy Gospodarek wrote:
>>>>> On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 09:01:16AM +0300, Or Gerlitz wrote:
>>>>>> On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 2:03 AM, Samudrala, Sridhar
>>>>>> <sridhar.samudrala@intel.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I meant between PFs on 2 compute nodes.
>>>>>> If the PF serves as uplink rep, it functions as  a switch port -- applications
>>>>>> don't run on switch ports. One way to get apps to run on the host in switchdev
>>>>>> mode is probe one of the VFs there.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>> So once a pci device is configured in 'switchdev' mode,  only port representor netdevs are
>>>> seen on the host, no more PF netdev.
>>> That is not the functionality I would propose.  The PF netdev will still be there.
>> Andy,
>>
>> Basically LGTM, so even in smartnic configs, the PF @ the host is
>> still privileged to
>> create/destroy VFs or provision MACs for them even if it is not the
>> e-switch manager
>> anymore?
> Yes, in a SmartNIC world one config we aim to have is that a host can create
> and destroy VFs as needed.  One of the challenges is how the VF reps are
> managed by applications in the SmartNIC when the host could make them
> disappear.

OK. So are we saying that in 'switchdev' mode with 2 VFs and 1 uplink, the host will
see PF netdev, 2 vf-rep netdev's corresponding to 2 VFs and 1 uplink-rep netdev.

Is PF netdev used only for the control/configure of the VFs? If it used as a datapath,
i think we need a pf-rep netdev too.