[dpdk-dev] DPDK drivers should not use kernel version

Stephen Hemminger stephen at networkplumber.org
Wed Jun 21 18:28:43 CEST 2017


Looking at some other issues, I noticed that both the TAP and MLX5 device
drivers are looking at kernel version through uname.  Although this may
seem like a good way to deal with kernel API changes, it is not reliable.

Enterprise kernel distro vendors never change kernel version but do backport
features from later kernels. Therefore the behavior expected may change
even though kernel version doesn't change. Also kernel version does not
dictate that the expected feature (like flower) is in the kernel configuration.

I recommend this be looked for in all future submissions. Maybe even flagged
as error in DPDK version of checkpatch.

$ git blame drivers/net/mlx5/mlx5_ethdev.c | grep uname
3a49ffe38a950 (Shahaf Shuler                2017-02-09 14:29:54 +0200  895) 	if (uname(&utsname) == -1 ||
$ git blame drivers/net/tap/rte_eth_tap.c | grep uname
de96fe68ae959 (Pascal Mazon     2017-03-23 09:33:57 +0100 1169) 	if (uname(&utsname) == -1 ||



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