Currently, the set of flows that may be offloaded is very small compared to the overall capabilities of the OpenFlow support in OVS. In the majority of cases, if a user attempts to enable this flag they are unlikely to observe a performance increase, because for instance they lack the correct hardware; lack the correct kernel version; or their flow tables are too complex for the hardware to handle.
To moderate expectations around this feature, describe it as experimental. Over time, we expect that the functionality and usefulness of this feature will grow and we should be in a better shape to revisit the status of this functionality after it has had some time to mature. Signed-off-by: Joe Stringer <[email protected]> --- CC: Paul Blakey <[email protected]> CC: Roi Dayan <[email protected]> CC: Simon Horman <[email protected]> CC: Flavio Leitner <[email protected]> --- NEWS | 2 +- vswitchd/vswitch.xml | 5 +++++ 2 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS index a2f5a6dc8e54..4ea7e628e1fc 100644 --- a/NEWS +++ b/NEWS @@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ Post-v2.7.0 * Transparently pop and push Ethernet headers at transmit/reception of packets to/from L3 tunnels. - The BFD detection multiplier is now user-configurable. - - New support for HW offloading + - Add experimental support for hardware offloading * HW offloading is disabled by default. * HW offloading is done through the TC interface. diff --git a/vswitchd/vswitch.xml b/vswitchd/vswitch.xml index 9bb828faa8eb..500f05a24280 100644 --- a/vswitchd/vswitch.xml +++ b/vswitchd/vswitch.xml @@ -192,6 +192,11 @@ <p> Currently Open vSwitch supports hardware offloading on Linux systems. On other systems, this value is ignored. + This functionality is considered 'experimental'. Depending + on which OpenFlow matches and actions are configured, + which kernel version is used, and what hardware is + available, Open vSwitch may not be able to offload + functionality to hardware. </p> </column> -- 2.11.1 _______________________________________________ dev mailing list [email protected] https://mail.openvswitch.org/mailman/listinfo/ovs-dev
