RE: [RFC net-next 0/8] Introducing subdev bus and devlink extension

[Parav Pandit <parav@mellanox.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kirti Wankhede <kwankhede@nvidia.com>
> Sent: Thursday, March 7, 2019 3:08 PM
> To: Parav Pandit <parav@mellanox.com>; Jakub Kicinski
> <jakub.kicinski@netronome.com>
> Cc: Or Gerlitz <gerlitz.or@gmail.com>; netdev@vger.kernel.org; linux-
> kernel@vger.kernel.org; michal.lkml@markovi.net; davem@davemloft.net;
> gregkh@linuxfoundation.org; Jiri Pirko <jiri@mellanox.com>; Alex
> Williamson <alex.williamson@redhat.com>
> Subject: Re: [RFC net-next 0/8] Introducing subdev bus and devlink extension
> 
> 
> 
> On 3/8/2019 2:32 AM, Parav Pandit wrote:
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Kirti Wankhede <kwankhede@nvidia.com>
> >> Sent: Thursday, March 7, 2019 2:54 PM
> >> To: Parav Pandit <parav@mellanox.com>; Jakub Kicinski
> >> <jakub.kicinski@netronome.com>
> >> Cc: Or Gerlitz <gerlitz.or@gmail.com>; netdev@vger.kernel.org; linux-
> >> kernel@vger.kernel.org; michal.lkml@markovi.net;
> davem@davemloft.net;
> >> gregkh@linuxfoundation.org; Jiri Pirko <jiri@mellanox.com>; Alex
> >> Williamson <alex.williamson@redhat.com>
> >> Subject: Re: [RFC net-next 0/8] Introducing subdev bus and devlink
> >> extension
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> <snip>
> >>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Yes. I got my patches to adapt to mdev way. Will be posting RFC v2
> soon.
> >>>>> Will wait for a day to receive more comments/views from Greg and
> >> others.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> As I explained in this cover-letter and discussion, First use case
> >>>>> is to create and use mdevs in the host (and not in VM).
> >>>>> Later on, I am sure once we have mdevs available, VM users will
> >>>>> likely use
> >>>> it.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> So, mlx5_core driver will have two components as starting point.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> 1. drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlx5/core/mdev/mdev.c
> >>>>> This is mdev device life cycle driver which will do,
> >>>>> mdev_register_device()
> >>>> and implements mlx5_mdev_ops.
> >>>>>
> >>>> Ok. I would suggest not use mdev.c file name, may be add device
> >>>> name, something like mlx_mdev.c or vfio_mlx.c
> >>>>
> >>> mlx5/core is coding convention is not following to prefix mlx to its
> >>> 40+
> >> files.
> >>>
> >>> it uses actual subsystem or functionality name, such as, sriov.c
> >>> eswitch.c fw.c en_tc.c (en for Ethernet) lag.c so, mdev.c aligns to
> >>> rest of the 40+ files.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>> 2. drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlx5/core/mdev/mdev_driver.c
> >>>>> This is mdev device driver which does mdev_register_driver() and
> >>>>> probe() creates netdev by heavily reusing existing code of the PF
> device.
> >>>>> These drivers will not be placed under drivers/vfio/mdev, because
> >>>>> this is
> >>>> not a vfio driver.
> >>>>> This is fine, right?
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> I'm not too familiar with netdev, but can you create netdev on
> >>>> open() call on mlx mdev device? Then you don't have to write mdev
> >>>> device
> >> driver.
> >>>>
> >>> Who invokes open() and release()?
> >>> I believe it is the qemu would do open(), release, read/write/mmap?
> >>>
> >>> Assuming that is the case,
> >>> I think its incorrect to create netdev in open.
> >>> Because when we want to map the mdev to VM using above mdev calls,
> >>> we
> >> actually wont be creating netdev in host.
> >>> Instead, some queues etc will be setup as part of these calls.
> >>>
> >>> By default this created mdev is bound to vfio_mdev.
> >>> And once we unbind the device from this driver, we need to bind to
> >>> mlx5
> >> driver so that driver can create the netdev etc.
> >>>
> >>> Or did I get open() and friends call wrong?
> >>>
> >>
> >> In 'struct mdev_parent_ops' there are create() and remove(). When
> >> user creates mdev device by writing UUID to create sysfs, vendor
> >> driver's
> >> create() callback gets called. This should be used to allocate/commit
> > Yes. I am already past that stage.
> >
> >> resources from parent device and on remove() callback free those
> resources.
> >> So there is no need to bind mlx5 driver to that mdev device.
> >>
> > If we don't bind mlx5 driver, vfio_mdev driver is bound to it. Such driver
> won't create netdev.
> 
> Doesn't need to.
> 
> Create netdev from create() callback.
> 
I strongly believe this is incorrect way to use create() API.
Because,
mdev is mediated device from its primary pci device. It is not a protocol device.

It it also incorrect to tell user that vfio_mdev driver is bound to this mdev and mlx5_core driver creating netdev on top of mdev.

When we want to map this mdev to VM, what should create() do?
We will have to shift the code from create() to mdev_device_driver()->probe() to address a use case of selectively mapping a mdev to VM or to host and implement appropriate open/close etc functions for VM case.

So why not start correctly from the beginning?


> Thanks,
> Kirti
> 
> > Again, we do not want to map this mdev to a VM.
> > We want to consume it in the host where mdev is created.
> > So I am able to detach this mdev from vfio_mdev driver as usaual using
> > $ echo mdev_name > ../drivers/vfio_mdev/unbind
> >
> > Followed by binding it to mlx5_core driver.
> >
> > Below is sample output before binding it to mlx5_core driver.
> > When we bind with mlx5_core driver, that driver creates the netdev in
> host.
> > If user wants to map this mdev to VM, user won't bind to mlx5_core driver.
> instead he will bind to vfio driver and that does usual open/release/...
> >
> >
> > lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Mar  7 14:24
> > 69ea1551-d054-46e9-974d-8edae8f0aefe ->
> > ../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.2/0000:05:00.0/69ea1551-d054-46
> > e9-974d-8edae8f0aefe
> > [root@sw-mtx-036 net-next]# ls -l
> > /sys/bus/mdev/devices/69ea1551-d054-46e9-974d-8edae8f0aefe/
> > total 0
> > lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    0 Mar  7 14:24 driver ->
> ../../../../../bus/mdev/drivers/vfio_mdev
> > lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    0 Mar  7 14:24 iommu_group ->
> ../../../../../kernel/iommu_groups/0
> > lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    0 Mar  7 14:24 mdev_type ->
> ../mdev_supported_types/mlx5_core-mgmt
> > drwxr-xr-x 2 root root    0 Mar  7 14:24 power
> > --w------- 1 root root 4096 Mar  7 14:24 remove
> > lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root    0 Mar  7 14:24 subsystem -> ../../../../../bus/mdev
> > -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4096 Mar  7 14:24 uevent
> >
> >> open/release/read/write/mmap/ioctl are regular file operations for
> >> that mdev device.
> >>
> >
> >> Thanks,
> >> Kirti
> >