linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH net-next V4 02/14] documentation: networking: add shared devlink documentation

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Message-ID: <20251202101444.7f6d14a8@kernel.org>
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2025 10:14:44 -0800
From: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@...nel.org>
To: Jiri Pirko <jiri@...nulli.us>
Cc: Tariq Toukan <tariqt@...dia.com>, Eric Dumazet <edumazet@...gle.com>,
 Paolo Abeni <pabeni@...hat.com>, Andrew Lunn <andrew+netdev@...n.ch>,
 "David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>, Donald Hunter
 <donald.hunter@...il.com>, Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>, Saeed Mahameed
 <saeedm@...dia.com>, Leon Romanovsky <leon@...nel.org>, Mark Bloch
 <mbloch@...dia.com>, netdev@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
 linux-doc@...r.kernel.org, linux-rdma@...r.kernel.org, Gal Pressman
 <gal@...dia.com>, Moshe Shemesh <moshe@...dia.com>, Carolina Jubran
 <cjubran@...dia.com>, Cosmin Ratiu <cratiu@...dia.com>, Jiri Pirko
 <jiri@...dia.com>, Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@...radead.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next V4 02/14] documentation: networking: add shared
 devlink documentation

On Tue, 2 Dec 2025 08:43:49 +0100 Jiri Pirko wrote:
> Mon, Dec 01, 2025 at 10:49:54PM +0100, kuba@...nel.org wrote:
> >On Mon, 1 Dec 2025 11:50:08 +0100 Jiri Pirko wrote:  
> >> Correct. IFAIK there is one PF devlink instance per NUMA node.  
> >
> >You say "correct" and then disagree with what I'm saying. I said
> >ports because a port is a devlink object. Not a devlink instance.  
> 
> Okay, you mean devlink_port. You would like to see NUMA node leg as
> devlink_port? Having troubles to undestand exactly what you mean, lot of
> guessing on my side. Probably I'm slow, sorry.
> 
> But there is a PCI device per NUMA node leg. Not sure how to model it.
> Devink instances have 1:1 relationship with bus devices.
> 
> Care to draw a picture perhaps?
> 
> >> The shared instance on top would make sense to me. That was one of
> >> motivations to introduce it. Then this shared instance would hold
> >> netdev, vf representors etc.  
> >
> >I don't understand what the shared instance is representing and how
> >user is expect to find their way thru the maze of devlink instanced,
> >for real bus, aux bus, and now shared instanced.  
> 
> Well, I tried to desrtibe it in the documentation path, Not sure what is
> not clear :/
> 
> Nested devlinks expose the connections between devlink instances.

To be clear -- I understand how you're laying things out. My point is
not about that. My question is how can user make intuitive sense of this
mess of random object floating around. Every SW engineering problem can
be solved by another layer of abstraction, that's not the challenge. 
The challenge is to design those layers so that they make intuitive
sense (to people who don't spend their life programming against mlx FW
interfaces).