Subject: Re: [net-next 08/15] i40e: Allow user to change input set mask for flow director

From: "Patil, Kiran" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 May 2016 19:47:26 -0700

On 4/26/2016 8:48 PM, David Miller wrote:
> From: Jeff Kirsher <[email-masked]>
> Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2016 13:55:41 -0700
>
>> From: Kiran Patil <[email-masked]>
>>
>> This patch implements feature, which allows user to change
>> input set mask for flow director using side-band channel.
>> This patch adds definition of FLOW_TYPE_MASK into the header file.
>> With this patch, user can now specify less than 4 tuple(src ip, dsp ip,
>> src port, dst port) for flow type TCP4/UDP4.
>>
>> Change-Id: I90052508f8c172c0da5a4b78b949704b4a59ea78
>> Signed-off-by: Kiran Patil <[email-masked]>
>> Tested-by: Andrew Bowers <[email-masked]>
>> Signed-off-by: Jeff Kirsher <[email-masked]>
>
> If you want to do this, you have to define the semantics generically
> in include/uapi/linux/ethtool.h so that other drivers can implement
> this too.
>
> Please don't ever implement private, driver specific, interpretations
> of the generic ethtool facilitites.
>
> The semantics and interpretations of the values must absolutely be
> consistent across all drivers in the tree.
>
> Otherwise the user experience is terrible.
>
> Thanks.
>
This is not new feature implemented in i40e driver. This is the original 
feature of ethtool which allows user to specify subset of tuple for 
setting up flow director.

i40e driver using it same way as ixgbe.

Please let us know if I misinterpreted your response.

Would you recommend that we re-submit patch with better patch 
description (indicating that it is not new feature but just enabling 
feature).

Thanks,
-- Kiran P.