From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Stefan Berger Subject: Re: [PATCH] virtif: initial interface extensions Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 15:37:00 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: References: <201005061842.51981.arnd@arndb.de> <201005090120.19958.arnd@arndb.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: netdev@vger.kernel.org Return-path: Received: from lo.gmane.org ([80.91.229.12]:41314 "EHLO lo.gmane.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752532Ab0EJQKF (ORCPT ); Mon, 10 May 2010 12:10:05 -0400 Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OBVYS-0000Xc-ID for netdev@vger.kernel.org; Mon, 10 May 2010 18:10:04 +0200 Received: from pool-74-101-125-124.nycmny.fios.verizon.net ([74.101.125.124]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Mon, 10 May 2010 18:10:04 +0200 Received: from stefanb by pool-74-101-125-124.nycmny.fios.verizon.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Mon, 10 May 2010 18:10:04 +0200 Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Arnd Bergmann arndb.de> writes: [...] > + if (tb[IFLA_VIRTIF]) { > + struct ifla_virtif_port_profile *ivp; > + struct nlattr *virtif[IFLA_VIRTIF_MAX+1]; > + u32 vf; > + > + err = nla_parse_nested(virtif, IFLA_VIRTIF_MAX, > + tb[IFLA_VIRTIF], ifla_virtif_policy); > + if (err < 0) > + return err; > + > + if (!virtif[IFLA_VIRTIF_VF] || !virtif[IFLA_VIRTIF_PORT_PROFILE]) > + goto novirtif; /* IFLA_VIRTIF may be directed at user space */ In what case would the IFLA_VIRTIF_PORT_PROFILE be provided? Would libvirt for example need to be aware of whether the Ethernet device can handle the setup protocol via its firmware and in this case provide the port profile parameter and in other cases provide other parameters? Certainly the user or upper layer management software would have to know it when creating the domain XML and in fact different types of parameters were needed. Obviously we should have one common set of (XML) parameters that go into the netlink message and that can be handled by the kernel driver if the firmware knows how to handle it or by LLDPAD. Libvirt would send the parameters via netlink message to trigger the setup protocol and the message may be received by kernel and LLDPAD. From what I can see LLDPAD also may need a way to probe the kernel driver whether it handled the setup protocol via firmware on a given interface, which may or may not be true for all interfaces, but may be necessary to avoid triggering the setup protocol twice. Stefan