netdev - Re: [PATCH net 2/3] net/mlx5e: Prevent entering switchdev mode with inconsistent netns

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Message-ID: <5fa69070-59e8-4eba-877e-f0728088fd48@nvidia.com>
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2025 15:48:24 +0800
From: Jianbo Liu <jianbol@...dia.com>
To: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@...nel.org>
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>, Saeed Mahameed <saeedm@...dia.com>, "Leon
 Romanovsky" <leon@...nel.org>, Mark Bloch <mbloch@...dia.com>,
	<netdev@...r.kernel.org>, <linux-rdma@...r.kernel.org>,
	<linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, Gal Pressman <gal@...dia.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH net 2/3] net/mlx5e: Prevent entering switchdev mode with
 inconsistent netns



On 9/11/2025 8:48 AM, Jakub Kicinski wrote:
> On Wed, 10 Sep 2025 11:01:18 +0800 Jianbo Liu wrote:
>> On 9/10/2025 9:23 AM, Jakub Kicinski wrote:
>>> On Mon, 8 Sep 2025 13:07:05 +0300 Tariq Toukan wrote:
>>>> If the PF's netns has been moved and differs from the devlink's netns,
>>>> enabling switchdev mode would create an invalid state where
>>>> representors and PF exist in different namespaces.
>>>>
>>>> To prevent this inconsistent configuration,
>>>
>>> Could you explain clearly what is the problem with having different
>>> netdevs in different namespaces? From networking perspective it really
>>> doesn't matter.
>>
>> There is a requirement from customer who wants to manage openvswitch in
>> a container. But he can't complete the steps (changing eswitch and
>> configuring OVS) in the container if the netns are different.
> 
> You're preventing a configuration which you think is "bad" (for a
> reason unknown). How is _rejecting_ a config enabling you to fulfill
> some "customer requirement" which sounds like having all interfaces
> in a separate ns?
> 

My apologies, I wasn't clear. The problem is specific to the OVS control 
plane. ovs-vsctl cannot manage the switch if the PF uplink and VF 
representors are in different namespaces. When the PF is in a container 
while the devlink instance is bound to the host, enabling switchdev 
creates this exact split: the PF uplink stays in the container, while 
the VF representors are created on the host.

Our patch prevents this broken state by requiring the devlink namespace 
to be set to the container's namespace before switchdev can be enabled.

>> Besides, ibdev is dependent on netdev, there is refcnt issue if netdev
>> is moved to other netns but devlink netns is not changed by "devlink dev
>> reload netns" command.
> 
> shrug