On Thu, 2012-12-06 at 23:01 +0200, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 06, 2012 at 08:53:59PM +0000, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> > On Thu, 2012-12-06 at 22:29 +0200, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> > > On Thu, Dec 06, 2012 at 08:03:14PM +0000, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> > [...]
> > > > Since this doesn't seem to be intended to have *any* connection with the
> > > > existing core networking feature called RFS, perhaps you could find a
> > > > different name for it.
> > > >
> > > > Ben.
> > >
> > >
> > > Ah I see what you mean. We started out calling this feature "multiqueue"
> > > Rusty suggested "RFS" since it gives similar functionality to RFS but in
> > > device: it has receive steering logic per flow as part of the device.
> >
> > The name is quite generic, but in the context of Linux it has so far
> > been used for a specific software feature and not as a generic name for
> > flow steering by hardware (or drivers). The existing documentation
> > (Documentation/networking/scaling.txt) states quite clearly that 'RFS'
> > means that specific software implementation (with optional driver
> > integration) and configuration interface.
> >
> > > Maybe simply adding a statement similar to the one above would be
> > > sufficient to avoid confusion?
> >
> > No, I don't think it's sufficient. We have documentation that says how
> > to configure 'RFS', and you're proposing to add a very similar feature
> > called 'RFS' that is configured differently. No matter how clearly you
> > distinguish them in new documentation, this will make the old
> > documentation confusing.
> >
> > Ben.
>
> I don't mind, renaming is just s/RFS/whatever/ away -
> how should hardware call this in your opinion?
If by 'this' you mean the use of perfect filters or a large hash table
to select the RX queue per flow, then 'flow steering'.
But that is usually combined with the fall-back of a simple mapping from
hash to queue ('RSS' or 'flow hashing') in case there is no specific
queue selection yet, which I can see tun has. And you're specifying
multiple transmit queues too. If you want a name for the whole set of
features involved, I don't see any better name than 'multiqueue'/'MQ'.
If you want a name for this specific flow steering mechanism, add some
distinguishing adjective(s) like 'virtual' or 'automatic'.
Ben.
--
Ben Hutchings, Staff Engineer, Solarflare
Not speaking for my employer; that's the marketing department's job.
They asked us to note that Solarflare product names are trademarked.
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