[dpdk-dev] [PATCH v2 0/2] ethdev: add support for raw flow type for flow director

[Ferruh Yigit]

On 10/4/2017 6:56 PM, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
> 04/10/2017 19:44, Ferruh Yigit:
>> On 10/4/2017 5:57 PM, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
>>> 03/10/2017 21:02, Ferruh Yigit:
>>>> On 9/20/2017 9:42 AM, Kirill Rybalchenko wrote:
>>>>> For complex packets use raw flow type with pre-constructed packet buffer
>>>>> instead of creating a packet internally in PMD.
>>>
>>> Sorry for not catching this series before.
>>>
>>> As it has been said several times on this mailing list,
>>> the flow director API is deprecated.
>>> I think everybody here knows that it is going to be replaced
>>> by rte_flow.
>>>
>>> That's why it does not make sense to extend flow director.
>>> We are not going to update PMDs to support a new type
>>> of legacy flow director.
>>> Please focus your efforts on rte_flow.
>>
>> As far as I can see this is not to to extend flow director. But driver
>> uses this struct and adding a new feature into driver requires update in
>> this struct.
>>
>> I guess idea was for new filter functionalities PMD should use rte_flow,
>> that is the new shiny method we have, I see the point here. But I don't
>> see the point of making these structs under use completely immutable.
> 
> I don't know what is RTE_ETH_FLOW_RAW.
> Let's start by explaining it, how it is used by users,
> and why this struct is needed.

Let me answer as much as I get from patches, if something is missing or
wrong Kirill needs to correct it.

Driver (i40e) works with static pre-defined flow and pctypes. But new
feature DDP lets loading custom profiles and work with custom and
perhaps not yet defined flow and pctypes. So there are a few other
patches to make driver more dynamic.

For this case I40E_VALID_FLOW() fails with custom flow types, and
RTE_ETH_FLOW_RAW used as kind of (void *) to be able to work with new
dynamic types.

> Thanks
>