[dpdk-dev] RFC - vdev_netvsc automatic blacklisting

[Stephen Hemminger]

On Tue, 11 Jun 2019 06:21:21 +0000
Matan Azrad <matan at mellanox.com> wrote:

> Hi Stephen
> 
> From: Stephen Hemminger
> > When using DPDK on Azure it is common to have one non-DPDK interface.
> > If that non-DPDK interface is present vdev_netvsc correctly skip it.
> > But if the non-DPDK has accelerated networking the Mellanox driver will still
> > get associated with DPDK (and break connectivity).
> > 
> > The current process is to tell users to do whitelist or blacklist the PCI
> > device(s) not used for DPDK. But vdev_netvsc already is doing a lot of looking
> > at devices and VF devices.
> > 
> > Could vdev_netvsc just do this automatically by setting devargs for the VF to
> > blacklist?  
> 
> 
> There is way to blacklist a device by setting it a rout\IP\IPv6, from the VDEV_NETVSC doc:
> "Not specifying either iface or mac makes this driver attach itself to all unrouted NetVSC interfaces found on the system. Specifying the device makes this driver attach itself to the device regardless the device routes."
> 
> So, we are expecting that used VFs will be with a rout and DPDK VFs will not be with a rout.
> 
> Doesn't it enough?
> 
> 
> Matan

I am talking about if eth0 has a route, it gets skipped but the associated MLX SR-IOV device
does not. When the MLX device is then configured for DPDK, it breaks it for use by kernel;
and therefore connectivity with the VM is lost.