Re: [RFC v1 01/19] net/i40e: Add peer register/unregister to struct i40e_netdev_priv

From: Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@ziepe.ca>
To: Shiraz Saleem <shiraz.saleem@intel.com>
Cc: "Kirsher, Jeffrey T" <jeffrey.t.kirsher@intel.com>,
	"Ertman, David M" <david.m.ertman@intel.com>,
	"dledford@redhat.com" <dledford@redhat.com>,
	"davem@davemloft.net" <davem@davemloft.net>,
	"linux-rdma@vger.kernel.org" <linux-rdma@vger.kernel.org>,
	"netdev@vger.kernel.org" <netdev@vger.kernel.org>,
	"Ismail, Mustafa" <mustafa.ismail@intel.com>,
	"Patil, Kiran" <kiran.patil@intel.com>
Subject: Re: [RFC v1 01/19] net/i40e: Add peer register/unregister to struct i40e_netdev_priv
Date: Fri, 10 May 2019 15:17:17 -0300	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20190510181717.GG13038@ziepe.ca> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20190510133102.GA13780@ssaleem-MOBL4.amr.corp.intel.com>

On Fri, May 10, 2019 at 08:31:02AM -0500, Shiraz Saleem wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 13, 2019 at 07:28:41AM -0600, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> > 
> > > > Register a device driver to the driver core and wait for the driver
> > > > core to call that driver's probe method.
> > > 
> > > Yes, the LAN PF driver is the software component exposing and managing the
> > > bus, so it is the one who will call probe/remove of the peer driver (RDMA
> > > driver).  Although netdev notifiers based approach is needed if the RDMA
> > > driver was loaded first before the LAN PF driver (i40e or ice) is loaded.
> > 
> > Why would notifiers be needed? Driver core handles all these ordering
> > things. If you have a device_driver with no device it waits until a
> > device gets plugged in to call probe.
> > 
> 
> Hi Jason - Your feedback here is much appreciated and we have revisited our design based on it.
> The platform driver/device model is a good fit for us with the addition of RDMA capable devices
> to the virtual platform bus. Here are the highlights of design and how they address your concerns.
> 
> (1) irdma driver registers itself as a platform driver with its own probe()/remove() routines.
>     It will support RDMA capable platform devices from different Intel HW generations. 
> (2) The intel net driver will register RDMA capable devices on the platform bus.
> (3) Exposing a virtual bus type in the netdev driver is redundant and thus removed.
>     Additionally, it would require the bus object to be exported in order for irdma to register,
>     which doesnt allow irdma to be unified. 
> (4) In irdma bus probe(), we are able to reach each platform dev's associated net-specific
>     data including the netdev. 
> (5) There are no ordering dependencies between net-driver and irdma since it's managed by driver
>     core as you stated. Listening to netdev notifiers for attachment is no longer required and
>     thus removed.

This sounds a bount right, but you will want to run these details by
Greg KH. I think he will tell you to use the multi-function device
stuff, not a platform device.

Jason