Re: [PATCH v2 2/2] kni: remove deprecated kernel network interface

[Bruce Richardson <bruce.richardson@intel.com>]

On Fri, Aug 04, 2023 at 03:19:43PM +0200, David Marchand wrote:
> Hello CI people,
> 
> On Tue, Aug 1, 2023 at 6:05 PM Stephen Hemminger
> <stephen@networkplumber.org> wrote:
> >  kernel/linux/kni/Kbuild                       |   6 -
> >  kernel/linux/kni/compat.h                     | 157 ----
> >  kernel/linux/kni/kni_dev.h                    | 137 ---
> >  kernel/linux/kni/kni_fifo.h                   |  87 --
> >  kernel/linux/kni/kni_misc.c                   | 719 --------------
> >  kernel/linux/kni/kni_net.c                    | 878 ------------------
> >  kernel/linux/kni/meson.build                  |  41 -
> >  kernel/linux/meson.build                      |   2 +-
> 
> This is a heads up for KNI removal in the *main* branch.
> 
> With this removal, there is no remaining out of tree Linux kernel module
> to compile/test in DPDK sources.  This means that jobs (like the one in
> UNH lab that was compile-testing KNI against the latest Linux kernel
> sources) can be disabled.
> 
> Important note: this mail does not ask for any change to LTS releases
> testing.  If KNI was built and tested with LTS releases, you should
> continue to do so.
> 
Given that there are no linux modules left, can we consider changing the
default setting of "enable_kmods" from "no" to "yes". For FreeBSD there are
no in-tree modules that can support DPDK, so the kernel modules for that OS
should always be built. The only reason for it being disabled was Linux,
but that seems unnecessary now.

Alternative: remove the option completely, and always build kernel modules
for FreeBSD (and any for Windows in future). If in future we add in more
Linux modules (which I can't see happening), add in an "enable_linux_kmods"
option instead to control that.

WDYT?

/Bruce