[dpdk-dev] RHEL 7 support

[dpdk-dev] RHEL 7 support

[Thomas Monjalon]

Hi,

I would like to open a discussion about RHEL 7 support in DPDK.
How long do we want to support it in new DPDK versions?
Can we drop RHEL 7 support starting DPDK 21.11?

If we decide to drop RHEL 7 support, does it mean we can generally use
standard C11 atomics?

What other benefits or impacts can you think about?

Re: [dpdk-dev] RHEL 7 support

[Honnappa Nagarahalli]

<snip>

> 
> Hi,
> 
> I would like to open a discussion about RHEL 7 support in DPDK.
> How long do we want to support it in new DPDK versions?
> Can we drop RHEL 7 support starting DPDK 21.11?
I think the concerns were from Redhat and Intel.

> 
> If we decide to drop RHEL 7 support, does it mean we can generally use
> standard C11 atomics?
What is the next RHEL version we support officially?
If we adopt C11 atomic APIs, we need to think about windows support too.

> 
> What other benefits or impacts can you think about?
> 

Re: [dpdk-dev] RHEL 7 support

[Kevin Traynor]

On 12/07/2021 18:34, Honnappa Nagarahalli wrote:
> <snip>
> 
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I would like to open a discussion about RHEL 7 support in DPDK.
>> How long do we want to support it in new DPDK versions?
>> Can we drop RHEL 7 support starting DPDK 21.11?
> I think the concerns were from Redhat and Intel.
> 

I think it's fine to drop from a DPDK distro package view. The DPDK
package in RHEL7 won't be updated to new main releases anymore.

It's not quite as clear for a user compiling their own DPDK. CentOS7 is
in maintenance mode until mid 2024 and will only get security or
critical fixes.

You could still have a user on CentOS7 compiling their own DPDK from the
latest tarballs. It feels like an unlikely combination but maybe someone
knows of a user like that.

As the distro version won't get latest software packages, it seems
reasonable that latest DPDK is not supported either, but there would
need to be some advance warning.

20.11 LTS will provide bugfix/security that should be ok on CentOS7
until Jan 2023.

>>
>> If we decide to drop RHEL 7 support, does it mean we can generally use
>> standard C11 atomics?
> What is the next RHEL version we support officially?

RHEL8 is supported.

> If we adopt C11 atomic APIs, we need to think about windows support too.
> 
>>
>> What other benefits or impacts can you think about?
>>
> 

Re: [dpdk-dev] RHEL 7 support

[Lance Richardson]

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On Tue, Jul 13, 2021 at 5:48 AM Kevin Traynor <ktraynor@redhat.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/07/2021 18:34, Honnappa Nagarahalli wrote:
> > <snip>
> >
> >>
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I would like to open a discussion about RHEL 7 support in DPDK.
> >> How long do we want to support it in new DPDK versions?
> >> Can we drop RHEL 7 support starting DPDK 21.11?
> > I think the concerns were from Redhat and Intel.
> >
>
> I think it's fine to drop from a DPDK distro package view. The DPDK
> package in RHEL7 won't be updated to new main releases anymore.
>
> It's not quite as clear for a user compiling their own DPDK. CentOS7 is
> in maintenance mode until mid 2024 and will only get security or
> critical fixes.
>
> You could still have a user on CentOS7 compiling their own DPDK from the
> latest tarballs. It feels like an unlikely combination but maybe someone
> knows of a user like that.
>
> As the distro version won't get latest software packages, it seems
> reasonable that latest DPDK is not supported either, but there would
> need to be some advance warning.
>
> 20.11 LTS will provide bugfix/security that should be ok on CentOS7
> until Jan 2023.
>
> >>
> >> If we decide to drop RHEL 7 support, does it mean we can generally use
> >> standard C11 atomics?
> > What is the next RHEL version we support officially?
>
> RHEL8 is supported.
>
> > If we adopt C11 atomic APIs, we need to think about windows support too.
> >
> >>
> >> What other benefits or impacts can you think about?
> >>
> >
>

Are the issues with continuing to support RHEL 7 all related to the default
gcc version in RHEL 7 (the structure initialization to {0} issue and lack of
<atomic.h> etc. apply to 4.8 but not 4.9+), or are there also lib/kernel issues?

The minimum supported gcc version is already documented to be 4.9+, which
seems to rule out RHEL 7 unless a newer version of gcc is used (which is
easy to do by installing one of the "software collection" toolset packages,
not sure if that is a valid option to suggest).

Re: [dpdk-dev] RHEL 7 support

[Ajit Khaparde]

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On Tue, Jul 13, 2021 at 2:48 AM Kevin Traynor <ktraynor@redhat.com> wrote:
>
> On 12/07/2021 18:34, Honnappa Nagarahalli wrote:
> > <snip>
> >
> >>
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I would like to open a discussion about RHEL 7 support in DPDK.
> >> How long do we want to support it in new DPDK versions?
> >> Can we drop RHEL 7 support starting DPDK 21.11?
> > I think the concerns were from Redhat and Intel.
> >
>
> I think it's fine to drop from a DPDK distro package view. The DPDK
> package in RHEL7 won't be updated to new main releases anymore.
>
> It's not quite as clear for a user compiling their own DPDK. CentOS7 is
> in maintenance mode until mid 2024 and will only get security or
> critical fixes.
>
> You could still have a user on CentOS7 compiling their own DPDK from the
> latest tarballs. It feels like an unlikely combination but maybe someone
> knows of a user like that.
>
> As the distro version won't get latest software packages, it seems
> reasonable that latest DPDK is not supported either, but there would
> need to be some advance warning.

+1
If RHEL7 and Centos7 are in maintenance mode,
I think it is fair to taper DPDK support as well.


>
> 20.11 LTS will provide bugfix/security that should be ok on CentOS7
> until Jan 2023.
>
> >>
> >> If we decide to drop RHEL 7 support, does it mean we can generally use
> >> standard C11 atomics?
> > What is the next RHEL version we support officially?
>
> RHEL8 is supported.
>
> > If we adopt C11 atomic APIs, we need to think about windows support too.
> >
> >>
> >> What other benefits or impacts can you think about?
> >>
> >
>

Re: [dpdk-dev] RHEL 7 support

[Tyler Retzlaff]

On Mon, Jul 12, 2021 at 05:34:21PM +0000, Honnappa Nagarahalli wrote:
> <snip>
> 
> > 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I would like to open a discussion about RHEL 7 support in DPDK.
> > How long do we want to support it in new DPDK versions?
> > Can we drop RHEL 7 support starting DPDK 21.11?
> I think the concerns were from Redhat and Intel.
> 
> > 
> > If we decide to drop RHEL 7 support, does it mean we can generally use
> > standard C11 atomics?
> What is the next RHEL version we support officially?
> If we adopt C11 atomic APIs, we need to think about windows support too.

fwiw i don't think there is an issue with windows support for
clang/mingw they implement C11 stdatomic.h

Re: [dpdk-dev] RHEL 7 support

[Tyler Retzlaff]

On Fri, Jul 09, 2021 at 08:33:28PM +0200, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I would like to open a discussion about RHEL 7 support in DPDK.
> How long do we want to support it in new DPDK versions?
> Can we drop RHEL 7 support starting DPDK 21.11?

did this thread/question ever reach conclusion?

> 
> If we decide to drop RHEL 7 support, does it mean we can generally use
> standard C11 atomics?

this is still desirable from the perspective of the windows port.

Re: [dpdk-dev] RHEL 7 support

[Bruce Richardson]

On Mon, Apr 11, 2022 at 01:23:13AM -0700, Tyler Retzlaff wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 09, 2021 at 08:33:28PM +0200, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I would like to open a discussion about RHEL 7 support in DPDK.
> > How long do we want to support it in new DPDK versions?
> > Can we drop RHEL 7 support starting DPDK 21.11?
> 
> did this thread/question ever reach conclusion?
> 

I asked around a bit and was informed that there are quite a few users who
are still using CentOS 7, and still need new DPDK to work on that. The fact
of CentOS 8 being EOL'ed at the end of 2021 has probably kept quite a few
users on v7 for now.

/Bruce