[dpdk-dev] [PATCH] doc: announce KNI ethtool removal

[Thomas Monjalon]

2016-07-21 16:41, Igor Ryzhov:
> On Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 4:33 PM, Ferruh Yigit <ferruh.yigit at intel.com>
> wrote:
> > On 7/20/2016 5:07 PM, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
> > > The out-of-tree kernel code must be avoided.
> > > Moreover there is no good reason to keep this legacy feature
> > > which is only partially supported.
> > >
> > > As described earlier in this plan:
> > >       http://dpdk.org/ml/archives/dev/2016-July/043606.html
> > > it will help to keep PCI ids in PMD code.
> > >
> > > Signed-off-by: Thomas Monjalon <thomas.monjalon at 6wind.com>
[...]
> > > +
> > > +* The ethtool support will be removed from KNI in 16.11.
> > > +  It is implemented only for igb and ixgbe.
> > > +  It is really hard to maintain because it requires some out-of-tree kernel
> > > +  code to be duplicated in this kernel module.
> > > +  Removing this partial support will help to restrict the PCI id definitions
> > > +  to the PMD code.
> >
> > KNI ethtool is functional and maintained, and it may have users!
> >
> > Why just removing it, specially without providing an alternative?

Because
1/ It is using the shared PCI ids that we want to move
2/ It has a poor support (igb/ixgbe) and makes users confused
3/ It is a big import of another version of igb/ixgbe drivers

About the point 1, if we decide to keep KNI ethtool, please could you
duplicate the igb/ixgbe PCI ids in KNI?

> > Is is good time to discuss KCP again?
> 
> I think good alternative is rte_ethtool library from ethtool sample
> application.

Yes I think so.

> But I am wondering why this code is only in app, not in lib.

It is an example lib because we were not sure wether we wanted to
support it. But maybe it is time to discuss its status and check
if it can be integrated with other DPDK libs?