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Diffstat (limited to 'doc/guides/contributing/design.rst')
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/guides/contributing/design.rst | 14 |
1 files changed, 14 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/doc/guides/contributing/design.rst b/doc/guides/contributing/design.rst index bac3d1b4..88d3a433 100644 --- a/doc/guides/contributing/design.rst +++ b/doc/guides/contributing/design.rst @@ -158,3 +158,17 @@ cache bandwidth, memory bandwidth, etc) that depends on: branches are usually required. When processing a burst of packets that have been validated for header integrity, counting the number of bits set in a bitmask might be needed. + +PF and VF Considerations +------------------------ + +The primary goal of DPDK is to provide a userspace dataplane. Managing VFs from +a PF driver is a control plane feature and developers should generally rely on +the Linux Kernel for that. + +Developers should work with the Linux Kernel community to get the required +functionality upstream. PF functionality should only be added to DPDK for +testing and prototyping purposes while the kernel work is ongoing. It should +also be marked with an "EXPERIMENTAL" tag. If the functionality isn't +upstreamable then a case can be made to maintain the PF functionality in DPDK +without the EXPERIMENTAL tag. |