On 11/07/2017 03:17 PM, Andrew Lunn wrote:

On Tue, Nov 07, 2017 at 05:37:32PM -0500, Vivien Didelot wrote:

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Hi Andrew,

Andrew Lunn [off-list ref] writes:

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In a switch case, they all translate to programming a MDB entry for
a given switch port, right?

No, in fact it is the exact opposite.

Yes, they do. The proof is you call dsa_port_mdb_add.

Note that i always say switchdev.

switchdev has no concept of the CPU port. All switchdev has is the
concept of the external ports.

Correct.

So when there is a join on the br0 interface, the bridge code will
iterative over each port in the bridge, and make a switchdev call to
each of the external ports in the bridge asking it to forward
multicast traffic for a group to the host.

Right, and that makes sense thus far.

Now, deep down in DSA, we can translate this to a dsa_port_mdb_add, on
the CPU port. And we do that for every call the bridge makes for each
of the external ports in the bridge.

Right, and we should actually do that, because this is a DSA specific
detail: that there is a separate management port that needs specific
treatment here.

However, a pure switchdev device won't do that. It does not have a CPU
port. It probably needs to add a match/action rule to its tables for
the actual external port saying to forward the frame out the slow
path.

Right, that's why DSA builds on top of switchdev for most notifications
and also generate its own for things that are inherently DSA specific.

quoted

Still, what I see here _from a switch driver point of view_ is either
program an MDB entry on a user port, or on its CPU port.

I agree with this, if you make one change:

_from a DSA switch driver point of view_

However, in the general case, this is not true. We need an API which
works for Mellonex and Netranome as well, systems without a CPU port.

We can have the exact same type of notification being sent today and
with your changes target the bridge network devices, any other driver
other than DSA which implements switchdev should just ignore that
notification when they cannot resolve this network device to something
that makes sense for their HW. In fact, Jiri and Ido (which should
probably be copied on this patch series, along with Nikolay) was adamant
to the idea:

https://lists.linux-foundation.org/pipermail/bridge/2016-November/010124.html

The usual model for notifications is that if you can interpret and act
on them, great, if you can't do nothing.
-- 
Florian