[dpdk-dev] KNI broken again with 4.9 kernel

[Jay Rolette]

On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 6:01 AM, Mcnamara, John <john.mcnamara at intel.com>
wrote:

>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: dev [mailto:dev-bounces at dpdk.org] On Behalf Of Stephen Hemminger
> > Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2016 11:41 PM
> > To: dev at dpdk.org
> > Subject: [dpdk-dev] KNI broken again with 4.9 kernel
> >
> > /build/lib/librte_eal/linuxapp/kni/igb_main.c:2317:21: error:
> > initialization from incompatible pointer type [-Werror=incompatible-
> > pointer-types]
> >   .ndo_set_vf_vlan = igb_ndo_set_vf_vlan,
> >                      ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
> > I am sure Ferruh Yigit will fix it.
> >
> > Which raises a couple of questions:
> >  1. Why is DPDK still keeping KNI support for Intel specific ethtool
> > functionality.
> >     This always breaks, is code bloat, and means a 3rd copy of base code
> > (Linux, DPDK PMD, + KNI)
> >
> >  2. Why is KNI not upstream?
> >     If not acceptable due to security or supportablity then why does it
> > still exist?
> >
> >  3. If not upstream, then maintainer should track upstream kernel changes
> > and fix DPDK before
> >     kernel is released.  The ABI is normally set early in the rc cycle
> > weeks before release.
>
>
> Hi Stephen,
>
> On point 2: The feedback we have always received is that the KNI code
> isn't upstreamable. Do you think there is an upstream path?
>
> > If not acceptable due to security or supportablity then why does it
> > still exist?
>
> The most commonly expressed reason when we have asked this question in the
> past (and we did again at Userspace a few months ago) is that the people
> who use it want the performance.
>

We use KNI in our product. In our case, it's because it allows "normal"
non-DPDK apps in the control plane to interact with traffic on the fastpath
as needed. Having everything under the sun live in DPDK's essentially flat
memory space is not great for security or stability.

It helps time to market by being able to use existing programs that
interface to the network via sockets instead of having to limit ourselves
to the relatively tiny set of libraries out there that work directly DPDK.

Double bonus on the time-to-market argument since we can implement
functionality in other higher-level languages as appropriate.

Performance-wise, KNI is "ok" but not great. It's not clear to me why it is
so much slower than using a NIC normally (not via DPDK) via the Linux
network stack. Copying data between sk_buf and mbuf is never going to be
cheap, but comparing that to what happens through all the kernel network
stack layers, the end result seems too slow.

That said, it's still faster than TAP/TUN interfaces and similar approaches.

Jay

On point 3: We do have an internal continuous integration system that runs
> nightly compiles of DPDK against the latest kernel and flags any issues.
>
> John
>