[dpdk-users] active_backup link bonding and mac address

[Kyle Larose <klarose@sandvine.com>]

Hey fellow DPDK users,

I have a question about the link bond pmd.

I am running  4 X710 interfaces in a link bond pmd for my application. In LACP mode, everything works fine. But, in active_backup mode, if the primary link fails, my application stops working. The reason is that I'm still sending packets with the original MAC address of the link bond pmd, which is that of the original primary slave. However, the new primary is not in promiscuous mode, so traffic coming back with that MAC address drops.

What should I be doing here:

1) Should I be listening for the changes in the state of the primary, and updating the MAC address I use to send? (I have it cached for efficiency)
2) Should the driver be placing the interface into promiscuous mode to allow for this, similar to what LACP does?
3) Should the driver be overwriting the MAC on egress, similar to what the tlb driver seems to do (in bond_ethdev_tx_burst_tlb)

I'm fine with #1, but it seems to break the goal of having the link bond pmd be transparent to the application.

Thanks,

Kyle