netdev - Re: Let's do P4

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:   Sun, 30 Oct 2016 23:03:53 -0700
From:   Maciej Żenczykowski <zenczykowski@...il.com>
To:     Alexei Starovoitov <alexei.starovoitov@...il.com>
Cc:     Jiri Pirko <jiri@...nulli.us>, Thomas Graf <tgraf@...g.ch>,
        John Fastabend <john.fastabend@...il.com>,
        Jakub Kicinski <kubakici@...pl>,
        Linux NetDev <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
        David Miller <davem@...emloft.net>,
        Jamal Hadi Salim <jhs@...atatu.com>,
        roopa@...ulusnetworks.com, simon.horman@...ronome.com,
        ast@...nel.org, daniel@...earbox.net, prem@...efootnetworks.com,
        Hannes Frederic Sowa <hannes@...essinduktion.org>,
        Jiri Benc <jbenc@...hat.com>,
        Tom Herbert <tom@...bertland.com>, mattyk@...lanox.com,
        idosch@...lanox.com, eladr@...lanox.com, yotamg@...lanox.com,
        nogahf@...lanox.com, ogerlitz@...lanox.com,
        "John W. Linville" <linville@...driver.com>,
        Andy Gospodarek <andy@...yhouse.net>,
        Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@...il.com>,
        dsa@...ulusnetworks.com, vivien.didelot@...oirfairelinux.com,
        andrew@...n.ch, ivecera@...hat.com
Subject: Re: Let's do P4

One thing to consider...

Just because the compiler could be in the kernel, doesn't mean it has to be.

One could envision a hotplug/modprobe like helper program that the
kernel executes
when it wants to translate from one encoding (say p4) to another (say [e]bpf).

This keeps complexity (compiler) out of the kernel, while still
allowing us to have
the illusion of only one interface to sw/hw.  And it has the nice
benefit of allowing us
to use existing compiler toolchains...