Re: [dpdk-dev] [RFC][PATCH 2/5] pci: allow shared device instances.

[Radu Nicolau <radu.nicolau@intel.com>]

Hi


On 5/10/2017 10:09 AM, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
> Hi,
>
> 09/05/2017 16:57, Radu Nicolau:
>> Updated PCI initialization code to allow devices to be shared across multiple PMDs.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Radu Nicolau <radu.nicolau@intel.com>
> I was waiting the day when we have a device shared
> by two different interfaces.
> Note that some Mellanox and Chelsio devices already instantiate
> two ethdev ports per PCI device.
>
> Please explain your idea behind this "shared" flag.
> What is your exact need?
Currently for each pci device a look-up into a list of PMDs is 
performed, and when a match is found the system moves to the next 
device. Having this flag will allow a PMD to inform the system that 
there may be more matches, more PMDs that can be used for this 
particular device.
There is a difference when comparing to the devices you mentioned above, 
in this case the PMDs are totally different types, one network and one 
cryptodev PMD for each IXGBE network card.
> Do you think it is the best solution?
We evaluated different approaches and this is what we settled on. It 
might not be the best, if there are any suggestions of other ways to 
achieve this I would be thankful.