Re: [E1000-devel] [PATCH 1/2] if_link: Add VF multicast promiscuous mode control

["Bjørn Mork" <bjorn@mork.no>]

"Skidmore, Donald C" <donald.c.skidmore@intel.com> writes:

> My hang up is more related to: without the nob to enable it (off by
> default) we are letting one VF dictate policy for all the other VFs
> and the PF.  If one VF needs to be in promiscuous multicast so is
> everyone else.  Their stacks now needs to deal with all the extra
> multicast packets.  As you point out this might not be a direct
> concern for isolation in that the VM could have 'chosen' to join any
> Multicast group and seen this traffic.  My concern over isolation is
> one VF has chosen that all the other VM now have to see this multicast
> traffic.

Apologies if this question is stupid, but I just have to ask about stuff
I don't understand...

Looking at the proposed implementation, the promiscous multicast flag
seems to be a per-VF flag:

+int ixgbe_ndo_set_vf_mc_promisc(struct net_device *netdev, int vf, bool setting)
+{
+	struct ixgbe_adapter *adapter = netdev_priv(netdev);
+	struct ixgbe_hw *hw = &adapter->hw;
+	u32 vmolr;
+
+	if (vf >= adapter->num_vfs)
+		return -EINVAL;
+
+	adapter->vfinfo[vf].mc_promisc_enabled = setting;
+
+	vmolr = IXGBE_READ_REG(hw, IXGBE_VMOLR(vf));
+	if (setting) {
+		e_info(drv, "VF %u: enabling multicast promiscuous\n", vf);
+		vmolr |= IXGBE_VMOLR_MPE;
+	} else {
+		e_info(drv, "VF %u: disabling multicast promiscuous\n", vf);
+		vmolr &= ~IXGBE_VMOLR_MPE;
+	}
+
+	IXGBE_WRITE_REG(hw, IXGBE_VMOLR(vf), vmolr);
+
+	return 0;
+}
+

I haven't read the data sheet, but I took a quick look at the excellent
high level driver docs:
http://www.intel.com/content/dam/doc/design-guide/82599-sr-iov-driver-companion-guide.pdf

It mentions "Multicast Promiscuous Enable" in its "Thoughts for
Customization" section:

 7.1 Multicast Promiscuous Enable

 The controller has provisions to allow each VF to be put into Multicast
 Promiscuous mode.  The Intel reference driver does not configure this
 option .

 The capability can be enabled/disabled by manipulating the MPE field
 (bit 28) of the PF VF L2 Control Register (PFVML2FLT – 0x0F000)

and showing a section from the data sheet describing the
"PF VM L2 Control Register - PFVML2FLT[n]  (0x0F000 + 4 * n, n=0...63; RW)"

To me it looks like enabling Promiscuos Multicast for a VF won't affect
any other VF at all.  Is this really not the case?



Bjørn