[dpdk-dev] Kernel Module dependency in DPDK 18.05-rc5 and earlier DPDK releases

[Kevin Wilson <wkevils@gmail.com>]

Hi,

I am facing the following issue in DPDK 18.05-rc5 (I saw it also with earlier
releases of DPDK from the last year). The issue is with defining
dependency on a kernel module in a PMD.
I want to develop a PMD which requiers that before running DPDK app which
uses this PMD, a specified kernel module is required to be insmoded.
I tried to add a call to RTE_PMD_REGISTER_KMOD_DEP in my PMD,
specifying a required
kernel module, and I expected that when calling a DPDK app which uses
this PMD it will shout that such a kernel module is not loaded, but this did not
happen.

So I took an existing kernel DPDK PMD (i40e), and I tried to add
dependency on the
link aggregation kernel module ("bonding.ko"). Again the same happened.

Am I missing something ?

I made two tries:
-RTE_PMD_REGISTER_KMOD_DEP(net_i40e, "* igb_uio | uio_pci_generic | vfio-pci");
+RTE_PMD_REGISTER_KMOD_DEP(net_i40e, "bonding");

And also
-RTE_PMD_REGISTER_KMOD_DEP(net_i40e, "* igb_uio | uio_pci_generic | vfio-pci");
+RTE_PMD_REGISTER_KMOD_DEP(net_i40e, "* bonding");

In both trials, I built the DPDK tree and ran testpmd, binding the i40e device
and using it with testpmd, and in both cases, bonding.ko was not loaded
(lsmod | grep bonding did not show anything).

In both cases, the testpmd app started OK, and no warning about
that bonding.ko was not loaded.

Any advise will be appreciated.

Regards,
KW