Re: [dpdk-dev] [RFC PATCH 0/3] introduce IF proxy library

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

On Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 06:38:37PM +0100, Andrzej Ostruszka wrote:
> On 1/14/20 4:16 PM, Morten Brørup wrote:
> > Andrzej,
> 
> Hello Morten
> 
> > Basically you are adding a very small subset of the Linux IP stack> to interface with DPDK applications via callbacks.
> 
> Yes, at the moment this is limited - we'd prefer first to solicit
> some input from community.
> 
> > The library also seems to support interfacing to the route table,
> > so it is not "interface proxy" but "IP stack proxy".
> 
> True, to some extent - for example you can bring the interface up and
> down which has nothing to do with IP stack.  As for the name of the
> library - that is actually part where we are completely open.  The proxy
> represents port (thus the name) but that is not all, so any better name
> proposals are welcome.
> 
> > You already mention ARP table as future work. How about namespaces,
> > ip tables, and other advanced features... I foresee the Devil in the
> > details for any real use case.
> 
> Right now I don't know what other things are needed.  This idea is still
> early.  However imagine you'd like to use DPDK to speed up packet
> processing of IP stack - would you like to implement all the protocols
> that are needed?  Or just let the system handle the control path and
> handle the data path and sniff the control params from the system.
>
Like Morten, I'd be a bit concerned at the possible scope of the work if we
start pulling in functionality from the IP stack like ARP etc. To avoid
this becoming a massive effort, how useful would it be if we just limited
the scope to physical NIC setup only, and did not do anything above the l2
layer?