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 15:09:32 -0700
From:	Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@...il.com>
To:	Neil Horman <nhorman@...driver.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

2013/10/22 Neil Horman <nhorman@...driver.com>:
> 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".

This is not a new netlink protocol, but a generic netlink family. Why
would I extend rtnetlink to cover the remaining 10% which are not
going to be used on desktop and servers when a new generic netlink
family is cheap and can be selectively disabled in the kernel?
-- 
Florian
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