[dpdk-dev] i40e Non-Intel QSFP

[dpdk-dev] i40e Non-Intel QSFP

[Philip Clapham]

Hi,

While working with the i40e adaptor on dpdk-1.7.1 I've run into an issue
where it only supports Intel QSFPs. There is a compilation option of
CONFIG_RTE_LIBRTE_I40E_ALLOW_UNSUPPORTED_SFP which would seem to indicate
that this is possible, but the flag (or a derivative) isn't referenced
anywhere in the source code of the i40e. When using testpmd the ports
always show as 'down', and the QSFPs stay dark. Other devices
(XL710) successfully initialise and work.

There's also a compiler flag CONFIG_RTE_LIBRTE_IXGBE_ALLOW_UNSUPPORTED_SFP
(ixgbe) which sets the flag RTE_LIBRTE_IXGBE_ALLOW_UNSUPPORTED_SFP which is
used in lib/librte_pmd/ixgbe_ethdev.c to set a flag on the ixgbe_hw struct
of 'allow_unsupported_sfp'. This leads me to think that I'm looking in the
right places for this flag for the i40e, but that it's not there.

The intel i40e driver itself (from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/e1000/files/i40e%20stable/) also doesn't
appear to allow any support for non-Intel QSFPs, unlike the official ixgbe
driver which has a modprobe flag for allow_unsupported_sfp.

Can anybody confim my suspicions that i40e cannot be set to use non-intel
QSFPs, or provide any insight into whether that's likely to change?

Thanks very much,
Phil