Sridhat and JP will give us the innards of the nextgen Intel Ethernet drivers.
ixd and idpf are Intel Ethernet drivers built around a common networking IP, spanning multiple product generations and form factors — discrete PCIe NICs, SoC NICs, SoC switches, and IPUs.
idpf is an open-specification, unified PF/VF driver implementing the IDPF PCIe programming interface. It has been upstream in the Linux kernel for several years, is shipped in x86/ARM distributions, and is widely deployed in Google Cloud.
ixd is a newer driver that combines control and data path functionality and leverages the switchdev framework to provision, configure, and manage devices that expose idpf-based data path functions.
The BoF will cover the architecture and design of both drivers, the challenges of supporting diverse device modes, and the strategy for refactoring idpf to share code between ixd and idpf. It will also explain the different PCI function types (PF/VF) and subfunctions exposed by the hardware, and how the drivers are loaded to support the various possible configurations.
Come and participate! More details:
https://netdevconf.info/0x1A/sessions/bof/next-generation-intel-ethernet-dri...
cheers, jamal