[RFC 0/8] Cleanup VFIO API and import Linux uAPI header

[Burakov, Anatoly]

On 9/3/2025 9:28 AM, David Marchand wrote:
> The VFIO headers have a number of issues:
> - showing to the world a lot of internal considerations,
> - defining macros with the VFIO_ namespace (confusing, and a source of
>    conflicts with the VFIO official uAPI),
> - wrapping around VFIO uAPI in case the kernel headers do not contain the
>    expected API (putting the burden on DPDK developers to find the right
>    way to detect the presence of a VFIO feature),
> - (somehow related to the previous point) supporting old version of the
>    Linux kernel while DPDK now requires a v5.4 Linux kernel at least,
> 
> This series proposes to cleanup those headers by hiding as much as
> possible internal macros and structures, then removing the explicit
> inclusion of linux/vfio.h from rte_vfio.h (pushing this inclusion to the
> application which may want to do some funny stuff with VFIO and should
> already include this header on its own) and finally importing the VFIO
> uAPI header from Linux v6.15 for internal consumption by DPDK
> components.
> 
> 

I've been working on something like this myself, so it'll be interesting 
to compare notes! I too found that refactoring VFIO is a nightmare due 
to how much stuff is exposed to external headers.

-- 
Thanks,
Anatoly