[dpdk-dev] [PATCH 2/2] net/vhost: support mrg-rxbuf disabling

[Matan Azrad]

From: Maxime Coquelin 
> >>>> For functional reasons, I agree. So I that's why I agree with your
> >>>> tso patch as the application has to support it, but that's not the
> >>>> case of the mergeable buffers features.
> >>>
> >>> Performance reasons are not good enough?
> >>
> >> No, that's not what I mean.
> >> I mean that the application should be able to disable a feature when
> >> it does not meet the functional requirement.
> >>
> >> For performance tuning, the qemu way is available, and enough.
> >>
> >
> > I think that this is the point we are not agree on.
> >
> > I think that application may want to disable the feature in some cases
> > because of performance reasons (maybe others too), And in some other
> cases to work with the feature.
> >
> > So, it makes sense IMO to let the application to decide what it wants
> without any concern about the QEMU configuration.
> >
> > Why to not allow to the PMD user to do it by the application (using prob
> parameters)?
> 
> I think we should restrict the Virtio features from the Vhost PMD parameter
> at as min as possible, only to ensure compatibility with the application
> (iommu, postcopy, tso, ...). One problem I see with providing the possibility
> to change any Virtio feature at runtime is reconnection.
> 
> For example, you start your application with enabling mergeable buffers,
> stop it and restart it without the feature enabled by the application.
> As the negotiation with the driver is not done again at reconnect time, Qemu
> will fail.

Looks like you are describing a new issue in the vhost PMD, it must close the connection when the PMD is closed\removed.
So, every probe(hotplug add) it will start from scratch.