Subject: Re: [patch net-next RFC 0/4] introduce infrastructure for support of switch chip datapath

From: Roopa Prabhu <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 09:54:17 -0700

On 3/26/14, 3:54 AM, Jamal Hadi Salim wrote:
> On 03/26/14 01:37, Roopa Prabhu wrote:
>> On 3/25/14, 1:11 PM, Florian Fainelli wrote:
>>> 2014-03-25 12:35 GMT-07:00 Neil Horman <[email-masked]>:
>
>> Sorry about getting on this thread late and possibly in the middle.
>> Agree on the idea of keeping the ports linked to the master switch dev
>> (or the 'conduit' to the switch chip) via private list instead of the
>> master-slave relationship proposed earlier.
>> By private i mean the netdev->priv linkage to the master switch dev and
>> not really keeping the ports from being exposed to the user.
>>
>> We think its better to keep the switch ports exposed as any other netdev
>> on linux.
>>   This approach will make the switch ports look exactly like a nic port
>> and all tools will continue to work seamlessly. The switch port
>> operations could internally be forwarded to the switch netdev (sw1 in
>> the above case).
>>
>> example:
>> $ip link set dev sw1p0 up
>> $ethtool -S sw1p0
>>
>
> I like the approach. I know the above is a simple version, but i am
> assuming you also mean i can do things like
> ip route add ...
> bridge fdb add ... (and if you like your brctl go ahead)
> bonding ...
>
yes, exactly.  We support this model on our boxes today.
User can bond switch ports on our box in the exact same way as he/she 
would bond two nic ports.
Our 'conduit to switch chip' reflects the corresponding lag 
configuration in the switch chip.
Same goes for bridging, routing, acls.

Thanks,
Roopa