netdev - Re: [PATCH net-next 00/27] Remove VLAN CFI bit abuse

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Message-ID: <20161213171626.76e7dced@xeon-e3>
Date:   Tue, 13 Dec 2016 17:16:26 -0800
From:   Stephen Hemminger <stephen@...workplumber.org>
To:     Michał Mirosław <mirq-linux@...e.qmqm.pl>
Cc:     netdev@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next 00/27] Remove VLAN CFI bit abuse

On Tue, 13 Dec 2016 01:12:32 +0100 (CET)
Michał Mirosław <mirq-linux@...e.qmqm.pl> wrote:

> Dear NetDevs
> 
> This series removes an abuse of VLAN CFI bit in Linux networking stack.
> Currently Linux always clears the bit on outgoing traffic and presents
> it cleared to userspace (even via AF_PACKET/tcpdump when hw-accelerated).
> 
> This uses a new vlan_present bit in struct skbuff, and removes an assumption
> that vlan_proto != 0 when VLAN tag is present.
> 
> As I can't test most of the driver changes, please look at them carefully.
> 
> The series is supposed to be bisect-friendly and that requires temporary
> insertion of #define VLAN_TAG_PRESENT in BPF code to be able to split
> JIT changes per architecture.
> 
> Best Regards,
> Michał Mirosław

I wonder if CFI can every validly be non-zero in the modern world, on Hyper-V.
There are no token ring devices and that seems to be the only use case where CFI would
be non-zero. Unless someone is planning to reuse it a a protocol bit which seems
like a really bad idea.

Maybe the right thing is to keep hard coded as zero and not start adding
more untestable code conditions.

My recommendation would be get rid of VLAN_TAG_PRESENT, but don't preserve
CFI bit.