[dpdk-dev] Should we disallow running secondaries after primary has died?

[Burakov, Anatoly]

On 26-Jul-19 4:01 PM, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Jul 2019 10:53:58 +0100
> "Burakov, Anatoly" <anatoly.burakov at intel.com> wrote:
> 
>>>
>>> NP to disallow it.
>>> In fact, I think it would be easier for everyone just to drop current DPDK MP model,
>>> and keep just standalone DPDK instances.
>>
>> That's the dream, but i don't think it'll ever come to fruition, at
>> least not without a huge push from the community.
> 
> There are several net appliances that require primary/secondary model.
> I think initially during DPDK development it was sold as a feature to the
> Network vendors.
> 
> It might be possible to clamp down on what API's are supported by
> secondary process. For example, disallowing any control operations start/stop etc.
> 

We're getting slightly off topic here.

The original question was about whether we want to support a use case 
where a secondary can initialize after primary process has died, and if 
we don't, whether we want to 1) outright deny initialization, or 2) 
allow it, but document as unsupported and discourage it.

The only use case i can think of that would require it is proc-info app. 
Dumping stuff from a dead process can be useful for debugging, so 
perhaps we can agree to put a warning at EAL startup, saying that this 
is not supported, but still allow processes to initialize.

-- 
Thanks,
Anatoly