Subject: Re: [patch net-next RFC 10/12] nfp: flower: create port for flower vnic

From: Jiri Pirko <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2018 08:41:29 +0100

Sat, Mar 24, 2018 at 04:32:02AM CET, [email-masked] wrote:
>On Fri, 23 Mar 2018 07:29:41 +0100, Jiri Pirko wrote:
>> >This will associate the PF netdev with physical port, incl. all ethtool
>> >information.  Im not sure we want to do that.  phy_repr carries this
>> >functionality.  
>> 
>> I was not sure originally what this port is. Okay, what I would like to
>> see is another port flavour for "pf" and "vf". I guess that since the pf
>> has the same pci address, it would fall under the same devlink instance.
>> For vfs, which have each separate pci address, I would like to create
>> devlink instance for each and associate with one devlink port flavour
>> "vf".
>
>Why do we need a devlink instance and phys port name for vfs?  Just
>wondering..  It seems they should be covered by having different bus
>address.  For full coverage of all netdevs?

It is a matter of identification I believe. Pfs are under the same pci
address for nfp right? I think that user has to see then and
distinguish. For VFs and nfp, I agree this is probably not necessary, as
the pci address is different and there is also a different driver name.
But for mlx5 for example, the same driver name is shown for all netdevs
including VFs.