From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: =?UTF-8?Q?Maciej_=C5=BBenczykowski?= Subject: Re: Let's do P4 Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2016 23:03:53 -0700 Message-ID: References: <20161029075328.GB1692@nanopsycho.orion> <20161029154903.25deb6db@jkicinski-Precision-T1700> <5814D25D.9070200@gmail.com> <20161030074458.GB1686@nanopsycho.orion> <20161030102649.GE1810@pox.localdomain> <20161030163836.GC1686@nanopsycho.orion> <20161030223903.GA6658@ast-mbp.hil-sfehihf.abq.wayport.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Cc: Jiri Pirko , Thomas Graf , John Fastabend , Jakub Kicinski , Linux NetDev , David Miller , Jamal Hadi Salim , roopa@cumulusnetworks.com, simon.horman@netronome.com, ast@kernel.org, daniel@iogearbox.net, prem@barefootnetworks.com, Hannes Frederic Sowa , Jiri Benc , Tom Herbert , mattyk@mellanox.com, idosch@mellanox.com, eladr@mellanox.com, yotamg@mellanox.com, nogahf@mellanox.com, ogerlitz@mellanox.com, "John W. Linville" , Andy Gospodarek , Florian Fainelli , dsa@cumulusnetworks.com, vivien.d To: Alexei Starovoitov Return-path: Received: from mail-yw0-f173.google.com ([209.85.161.173]:34067 "EHLO mail-yw0-f173.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1759544AbcJaGDz (ORCPT ); Mon, 31 Oct 2016 02:03:55 -0400 Received: by mail-yw0-f173.google.com with SMTP id w3so126908623ywg.1 for ; Sun, 30 Oct 2016 23:03:54 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <20161030223903.GA6658@ast-mbp.hil-sfehihf.abq.wayport.net> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: One thing to consider... Just because the compiler could be in the kernel, doesn't mean it has to be. One could envision a hotplug/modprobe like helper program that the kernel executes when it wants to translate from one encoding (say p4) to another (say [e]bpf). This keeps complexity (compiler) out of the kernel, while still allowing us to have the illusion of only one interface to sw/hw. And it has the nice benefit of allowing us to use existing compiler toolchains...