[dpdk-dev] [PATCH v7 0/2] app/testpmd implement VXLAN/NVGRE Encap/Decap

[Mohammad Abdul Awal]

On 27/06/2018 12:45, Nelio Laranjeiro wrote:
> This series adds an easy and maintainable configuration version support for
> those two actions for 18.08 by using global variables in testpmd to store the
> necessary information for the tunnel encapsulation.  Those variables are used
> in conjunction of RTE_FLOW_ACTION_{VXLAN,NVGRE}_ENCAP action to create easily
> the action for flows.
>
> A common way to use it:
>
>   set vxlan ipv4 4 4 4 127.0.0.1 128.0.0.1 11:11:11:11:11:11 22:22:22:22:22:22
>   flow create 0 ingress pattern end actions vxlan_encap / queue index 0 / end
>
>   set vxlan ipv6 4 4 4 ::1 ::2222 11:11:11:11:11:11 22:22:22:22:22:22
>   flow create 0 ingress pattern end actions vxlan_encap / queue index 0 / end
>
>   set nvgre ipv4 4 127.0.0.1 128.0.0.1 11:11:11:11:11:11 22:22:22:22:22:22
>   flow create 0 ingress pattern end actions nvgre_encap / queue index 0 / end
>
>   set nvgre ipv6 4 ::1 ::2222 11:11:11:11:11:11 22:22:22:22:22:22
>   flow create 0 ingress pattern end actions nvgre_encap / queue index 0 / end
>
> This also replace the proposal done by Mohammad Abdul Awal [1] which handles
> in a more complex way for the same work.
>
> Note this API has already a modification planned for 18.11 [2] thus those
> series should have a limited life for a single release.
>
> [1] https://dpdk.org/ml/archives/dev/2018-May/101403.html
> [2] https://dpdk.org/ml/archives/dev/2018-June/103485.html
>
> Changes in v7:
>
> - add missing documentation added in v5 and removed in v6 by mistake.
>
> Changes in v6:
>
> - fix compilation under redhat 7.5 with gcc 4.8.5 20150623
>
> Changes in v5:
>
> - fix documentation generation.
> - add more explanation on how to generate several encapsulated flows.
>
> Changes in v4:
>
> - fix big endian issue on vni and tni.
> - add samples to the documentation.
> - set the VXLAN UDP source port to 0 by default to let the driver generate it
>    from the inner hash as described in the RFC 7348.
> - use default rte flow mask for each item.
>
> Changes in v3:
>
> - support VLAN in the outer encapsulation.
> - fix the documentation with missing arguments.
>
> Changes in v2:
>
> - add default IPv6 values for NVGRE encapsulation.
> - replace VXLAN to NVGRE in comments concerning NVGRE layer.
>
> Nelio Laranjeiro (2):
>    app/testpmd: add VXLAN encap/decap support
>    app/testpmd: add NVGRE encap/decap support
>
>   app/test-pmd/cmdline.c                      | 252 ++++++++++++++++++
>   app/test-pmd/cmdline_flow.c                 | 274 ++++++++++++++++++++
>   app/test-pmd/testpmd.c                      |  32 +++
>   app/test-pmd/testpmd.h                      |  32 +++
>   doc/guides/testpmd_app_ug/testpmd_funcs.rst |  82 ++++++
>   5 files changed, 672 insertions(+)


Hi,

I have one concern in terms of usability though.
In testpmd, the rte_flow command line options have auto-completion with 
"<item_name> <item_name_value>" format which make using the command very 
much user friendly.

For the command "set vxlan ipv4 4 4 4 127.0.0.1 128.0.0.1 
11:11:11:11:11:11 22:22:22:22:22:22", it does not look much user 
friendly to me. A user may easily lose track of sequence of 9 param 
items. It would be much user friendly if the options would be like below 
and has auto-completion.

set vxlan ip_ver <ip_ver-value> vni <vni-value> udp_src <udp_src-value> 
udp-dst <udp_dst-value> ip_src <ip_src-value> ip_dst <ip_dst-value> 
eth_src <eth_src-value> eth_dst <eth_dst-value>

This way an user may never feel confused. Can maintainers comment on 
this point please?

Regards,
Awal.