[dpdk-dev] [PATCH v1 0/8] Bus control framework

[Shreyansh Jain]

Hello Gaetan,

(I am assuming that this series is still valid for 18.02 and you will 
spin a new version of this.)

On Thursday 12 October 2017 01:48 PM, Gaetan Rivet wrote:
> Probing policy was introduced in the previous release as a configuration item.
> It was thus added to the generic bus structure, breaking its ABI.
> 
> In this release, the IOVA mode can be read from a bus to configure the
> EAL. This new configuration element also broke the bus ABI when it was
> added.
> 
> As new operators had to be implemented for the probe policy item, these
> patches were developed to help mitigate this issue.
> 
> This control framework allows to expand the rte_bus API without breaking
> its ABI. It is meant to be used with configuration elements that may
> only be valid for a few buses, while the others would remain untouched
> and unaware of the evolution.
> 
> A central control operator is used, similarly to the working of rte_flow
> API in the ether layer. Each driver thus chooses to expose a set of
> operators relevant to its implementation. The caller is then free to use
> those if they are available.

I like the overall idea - similar to an ioctl.
It would help extend the control knobs of buses (drivers?) without 
adding additional dependency on ABI/API.

+1

> 
> Both Probe mode and IOVA mode operators are implemented for the PCI bus. >
[...]