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Date:   Tue, 9 Jul 2019 16:18:17 +0200
From:   Jiri Pirko <jiri@resnulli.us>
To:     Michal Kubecek <mkubecek@suse.cz>
Cc:     netdev@vger.kernel.org, David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>,
        Jakub Kicinski <jakub.kicinski@netronome.com>,
        Andrew Lunn <andrew@lunn.ch>,
        Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@gmail.com>,
        John Linville <linville@tuxdriver.com>,
        Stephen Hemminger <stephen@networkplumber.org>,
        Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next v6 06/15] ethtool: netlink bitset handling
Message-ID: <20190709141817.GE2301@nanopsycho.orion>
References: <cover.1562067622.git.mkubecek@suse.cz>
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Thu, Jul 04, 2019 at 01:52:36PM CEST, mkubecek@suse.cz wrote:
>On Thu, Jul 04, 2019 at 10:04:35AM +0200, Jiri Pirko wrote:
>> Wed, Jul 03, 2019 at 08:18:51PM CEST, mkubecek@suse.cz wrote:
>> >On Wed, Jul 03, 2019 at 01:49:33PM +0200, Jiri Pirko wrote:
>> >> Tue, Jul 02, 2019 at 01:50:09PM CEST, mkubecek@suse.cz wrote:
>> >> >+Compact form: nested (bitset) atrribute contents:
>> >> >+
>> >> >+    ETHTOOL_A_BITSET_LIST	(flag)		no mask, only a list
>> >> >+    ETHTOOL_A_BITSET_SIZE	(u32)		number of significant bits
>> >> >+    ETHTOOL_A_BITSET_VALUE	(binary)	bitmap of bit values
>> >> >+    ETHTOOL_A_BITSET_MASK	(binary)	bitmap of valid bits
>> >> >+
>> >> >+Value and mask must have length at least ETHTOOL_A_BITSET_SIZE bits rounded up
>> >> >+to a multiple of 32 bits. They consist of 32-bit words in host byte order,
>> >> 
>> >> Looks like the blocks are similar to NLA_BITFIELD32. Why don't you user
>> >> nested array of NLA_BITFIELD32 instead?
>> >
>> >That would mean a layout like
>> >
>> >  4 bytes of attr header
>> >  4 bytes of value
>> >  4 bytes of mask
>> >  4 bytes of attr header
>> >  4 bytes of value
>> >  4 bytes of mask
>> >  ...
>> >
>> >i.e. interleaved headers, words of value and words of mask. Having value
>> >and mask contiguous looks cleaner to me. Also, I can quickly check the
>> >sizes without iterating through a (potentially long) array.
>> 
>> Yeah, if you are not happy with this, I suggest to introduce
>> NLA_BITFIELD with arbitrary size. That would be probably cleanest.
>
>There is still the question if it it should be implemented as a nested
>attribute which could look like the current compact form without the
>"list" flag (if there is no mask, it's a list). Or an unstructured data
>block consisting of u32 bit length and one or two bitmaps of
>corresponding length. I would prefer the nested attribute, netlink was
>designed to represent structured data, passing structures as binary goes
>against the design (just looked at VFINFO in rtnetlink few days ago,
>it's awful, IMHO).
>
>Either way, I would still prefer to have bitmaps represented as an array
>of 32-bit blocks in host byte order. This would be easy to handle in
>kernel both in places where we have u32 based bitmaps and unsigned long
>based ones. Other options seem less appealing:
>
>  - u8 based: only complicates processing
>  - u64 based: have to care about alignment
>  - unsigned long based: alignment and also problems with 64-bit kernel
>    vs. 32-bit userspace
>
>> >> This is quite complex and confusing. Having the same API for 2 APIs is
>> >> odd. The API should be crystal clear, easy to use.
>> >> 
>> >> Why can't you have 2 commands, one working with bit arrays only, one
>> >> working with strings? Something like:
>> >> X_GET
>> >>    ETHTOOL_A_BITS (nested)
>> >>       ETHTOOL_A_BIT_ARRAY (BITFIELD32)
>> >> X_NAMES_GET
>> >>    ETHTOOL_A_BIT_NAMES (nested)
>> >> 	ETHTOOL_A_BIT_INDEX
>> >> 	ETHTOOL_A_BIT_NAME
>> >> 
>> >> For set, you can also have multiple cmds:
>> >> X_SET  - to set many at once, by bit index
>> >>    ETHTOOL_A_BITS (nested)
>> >>       ETHTOOL_A_BIT_ARRAY (BITFIELD32)
>> >> X_ONE_SET   - to set one, by bit index
>> >>    ETHTOOL_A_BIT_INDEX
>> >>    ETHTOOL_A_BIT_VALUE
>> >> X_ONE_SET   - to set one, by name
>> >>    ETHTOOL_A_BIT_NAME
>> >>    ETHTOOL_A_BIT_VALUE
>> >
>> >This looks as if you assume there is nothing except the bitset in the
>> >message but that is not true. Even with your proposed breaking of
>> >current groups, you would still have e.g. 4 bitsets in reply to netdev
>> >features query, 3 in timestamping info GET request and often bitsets
>> >combined with other data (e.g. WoL modes and optional WoL password).
>> >If you wanted to further refine the message granularity to the level of
>> >single parameters, we might be out of message type ids already.
>> 
>> You can still have multiple bitsets(bitfields) in single message and
>> have separate cmd/cmds to get string-bit mapping. No need to mangle it.
>
>Let's take a look at what it means in practice, the command is
>
>  ethtool --set-prif-flags eth3 legacy-rx on
>
>on an ixgbe card. Currently, ethtool (from the github repository) does
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>ETHTOOL_CMD_SETTINGS_SET (K->U, 68 bytes)
>    ETHTOOL_A_HEADER
>        ETHTOOL_A_DEV_NAME = "eth3"
>    ETHTOOL_A_SETTINGS_PRIV_FLAGS
>        ETHTOOL_A_BITSET_BITS
>            ETHTOOL_A_BITS_BIT
>                ETHTOOL_A_BIT_NAME = "legacy-rx"
>                ETHTOOL_A_BIT_VALUE
>
>NLMSG_ERR (K->U, 36 bytes) err = 0
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>If we had only compact form (or some of the NLA_BITFIELD solutions we
>are talking about), you would need
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>ETHTOOL_CMD_STRSET_GET (U->K, 52 bytes)
>    ETHTOOL_A_HEADER
>        ETHTOOL_A_DEV_NAME = "eth3"
>    ETHTOOL_A_STRSET_STRINGSETS
>        ETHTOOL_A_STRINGSETS_STRINGSET
>            ETHTOOL_A_STRINGSET_ID = 2 (ETH_SS_PRIV_FLAGS)
>
>ETHTOOL_CMD_STRSET_GET_REPLY (K->U, 128 bytes)
>    ETHTOOL_A_HEADER
>        ETHTOOL_A_DEV_INDEX = 9
>        ETHTOOL_A_DEV_NAME = "eth3"
>    ETHTOOL_A_STRSET_STRINGSETS
>        ETHTOOL_A_STRINGSETS_STRINGSET
>            ETHTOOL_A_STRINGSET_ID = 2 (ETH_SS_PRIV_FLAGS)
>            ETHTOOL_A_STRINGSET_COUNT = 2
>            ETHTOOL_A_STRINGSET_STRINGS
>                ETHTOOL_A_STRINGS_STRING
>                    ETHTOOL_A_STRING_INDEX = 0
>                    ETHTOOL_A_STRING_VALUE = "legacy-rx"
>                ETHTOOL_A_STRINGS_STRING
>                    ETHTOOL_A_STRING_INDEX = 1
>                    ETHTOOL_A_STRING_VALUE = "vf-ipsec"
>
>NLMSG_ERR (K->U, 36 bytes) err = 0
>
>ETHTOOL_CMD_SETTINGS_SET (K->U, 64 bytes)
>    ETHTOOL_A_HEADER
>        ETHTOOL_A_DEV_NAME = "eth3"
>    ETHTOOL_A_SETTINGS_PRIV_FLAGS
>        ETHTOOL_A_BITSET_SIZE = 2
>        ETHTOOL_A_BITSET_VALUE = 00000001
>        ETHTOOL_A_BITSET_MASK = 00000001
>
>NLMSG_ERR (K->U, 36 bytes) err = 0
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>That's an extra roundtrip, lot more chat and the SETTINGS_SET message is
>only 4 bytes shorter in the end. And we can consider ourselves lucky
>this NIC has only two private flags. Or that we didn't need to enable or
>disable a netdev feature (56 bits) or link mode (69 bits and growing).
>
>We could reduce the overhead by allowing STRSET_GET query to only ask
>for specific string(s) but there would still be the extra roundtrip
>which I dislike in the ioctl interface. Florian also said in the v5
>discussion that he would like if it was possible to get names and data
>together in one request.

I understand. So how about avoid the bitfield all together and just
have array of either bits of strings or combinations?

ETHTOOL_CMD_SETTINGS_SET (U->K)
    ETHTOOL_A_HEADER
        ETHTOOL_A_DEV_NAME = "eth3"
    ETHTOOL_A_SETTINGS_PRIV_FLAGS
       ETHTOOL_A_SETTINGS_PRIV_FLAG
           ETHTOOL_A_FLAG_NAME = "legacy-rx"
	   ETHTOOL_A_FLAG_VALUE   (NLA_FLAG)

or the same with index instead of string

ETHTOOL_CMD_SETTINGS_SET (U->K)
    ETHTOOL_A_HEADER
        ETHTOOL_A_DEV_NAME = "eth3"
    ETHTOOL_A_SETTINGS_PRIV_FLAGS
        ETHTOOL_A_SETTINGS_PRIV_FLAG
            ETHTOOL_A_FLAG_INDEX = 0
 	    ETHTOOL_A_FLAG_VALUE   (NLA_FLAG)


For set you can combine both when you want to set multiple bits:

ETHTOOL_CMD_SETTINGS_SET (U->K)
    ETHTOOL_A_HEADER
        ETHTOOL_A_DEV_NAME = "eth3"
    ETHTOOL_A_SETTINGS_PRIV_FLAGS
        ETHTOOL_A_SETTINGS_PRIV_FLAG
            ETHTOOL_A_FLAG_INDEX = 2
 	    ETHTOOL_A_FLAG_VALUE   (NLA_FLAG)
        ETHTOOL_A_SETTINGS_PRIV_FLAG
            ETHTOOL_A_FLAG_INDEX = 8
 	    ETHTOOL_A_FLAG_VALUE   (NLA_FLAG)
        ETHTOOL_A_SETTINGS_PRIV_FLAG
            ETHTOOL_A_FLAG_NAME = "legacy-rx"
 	    ETHTOOL_A_FLAG_VALUE   (NLA_FLAG)


For get this might be a bit bigger message:

ETHTOOL_CMD_SETTINGS_GET_REPLY (K->U)
    ETHTOOL_A_HEADER
        ETHTOOL_A_DEV_NAME = "eth3"
    ETHTOOL_A_SETTINGS_PRIV_FLAGS
        ETHTOOL_A_SETTINGS_PRIV_FLAG
            ETHTOOL_A_FLAG_INDEX = 0
            ETHTOOL_A_FLAG_NAME = "legacy-rx"
 	    ETHTOOL_A_FLAG_VALUE   (NLA_FLAG)
        ETHTOOL_A_SETTINGS_PRIV_FLAG
            ETHTOOL_A_FLAG_INDEX = 1
            ETHTOOL_A_FLAG_NAME = "vf-ipsec"
 	    ETHTOOL_A_FLAG_VALUE   (NLA_FLAG)
        ETHTOOL_A_SETTINGS_PRIV_FLAG
            ETHTOOL_A_FLAG_INDEX = 8
            ETHTOOL_A_FLAG_NAME = "something-else"
 	    ETHTOOL_A_FLAG_VALUE   (NLA_FLAG)


>
>Michal