From: Patrick Robb [mailto:probb@iol.unh.edu]
Sent: Thursday, 11 January 2024 20.02

On Thu, Jan 11, 2024 at 4:18 AM Morten Brørup <mb@smartsharesystems.com> wrote:

I wonder if any automated tests are using this specific kernel version, or if we are only testing using the distros' native kernels. @Aaron?

For UNH, we generally run from the distros' native kernels. Any exceptions are not for testing older kernel versions, so we don't have anything running from 4.14 in our testing right now. 

If running some automated testing for, say, the minimum supported kernel version at any point in time is a value to anyone, certainly they can speak up and we can discuss adding that.  

When the documentation specifies a minimum required kernel version, it implicitly claims that DPDK works with that kernel version.

So we should either test with the specified kernel version (which requires significant effort to set up, so I’m not going to ask for it!), or add a big fat disclaimer/warning that DPDK is not tested with the mentioned kernel version, and list the kernel versions actually tested.

As an appliance vendor, we build our systems from scratch, including the bootloader, kernel and file systems. We don’t use any of the distro stuff.

Having information about well tested kernel versions would be helpful when choosing kernel version for our appliances. I suppose other appliance vendors also use their own hardened/purpose-built kernel versions, and would consider this information useful for their decision process too.