netdev - Re: [PATCH 1/4 net-next] net: phy: add Generic Netlink Ethernet switch configuration API

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Date:	Tue, 22 Oct 2013 16:25:37 -0400
From:	Neil Horman <nhorman@...driver.com>
To:	Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@...il.com>
Cc:	John Fastabend <john.r.fastabend@...el.com>,
	netdev <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
	David Miller <davem@...emloft.net>,
	Sascha Hauer <s.hauer@...gutronix.de>,
	Felix Fietkau <nbd@...nwrt.org>,
	John Crispin <blogic@...nwrt.org>,
	Jonas Gorski <jogo@...nwrt.org>,
	Gary Thomas <gary@...assoc.com>,
	Jamal Hadi Salim <jhs@...atatu.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/4 net-next] net: phy: add Generic Netlink Ethernet
 switch configuration API

On Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 12:59:12PM -0700, Florian Fainelli wrote:
> 2013/10/22 John Fastabend <john.r.fastabend@...el.com>:
> > On 10/22/2013 11:23 AM, Florian Fainelli wrote:
> >>
> >> This patch adds an Ethernet Switch generic netlink configuration API
> >> which allows for doing the required configuration of managed Ethernet
> >> switches commonly found in Wireless/Cable/DSL routers in the market.
> >>
> >> Since this API is based on the Generic Netlink infrastructure it is very
> >> easy to extend a particular switch driver to support additional features
> >> and to adapt it to specific switches.
> >>
> >
> >> So far the API includes support for:
> >>
> >> - getting/setting a port VLAN id
> >> - getting/setting VLAN port membership
> >> - getting a port link status
> >> - getting a port statistics counters
> >> - resetting a switch device
> >> - applying a configuration to a switch device
> >>
> >
> > Did you consider exposing each physical switch port as a netdevice on
> > the host? I would assume your switch driver could do this.
> >
> > Then you can drop the port specific attributes (link status, stats, etc)
> > and use existing interfaces. The win being my tools work equally well on
> > your real switch as they do on my software switch. Also by exposing net
> > devices you provide a mechanism to send packets over the port and trap
> > control packets.
> 
> Well this is exactly what DSA does and which I do not like because it
> is completely overkill for most switches out there which are using
> 802.1q tags and do not prepend/append proprietary tags for internal
> traffic classification.
> 
> >
> > Next instead of creating a switch specific netlink API could you use
> > the existing FDB API? Again what I would like is for my existing
> > applications to run on the switch without having to rewrite them. For
> > example it would be great to have 'bridge fdb show dev myswitch' report
> > the correct tables for both the Sw bridge, a real switch bridge, and
> > for the embedded SR-IOV bridge case.
> 
> Ok, I know nothing about the FDB API, but will take a look and see if
> that sounds suitable for the embedded use cases.
> 
Further to Johns comments, why are you creating a new netlink protocol for this?
It seems that 90% of what you want to accomplish above is handled by rtnetlink.
As long as you write your driver properly, most of that should "just work".

Neil

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