5 This document describes the **Distributed Switch Architecture (DSA)** subsystem
6 design principles, limitations, interactions with other subsystems, and how to
7 develop drivers for this subsystem as well as a TODO for developers interested
13 The Distributed Switch Architecture is a subsystem which was primarily designed
14 to support Marvell Ethernet switches (MV88E6xxx, a.k.a Linkstreet product line)
15 using Linux, but has since evolved to support other vendors as well.
17 The original philosophy behind this design was to be able to use unmodified
18 Linux tools such as bridge, iproute2, ifconfig to work transparently whether
19 they configured/queried a switch port network device or a regular network
22 An Ethernet switch is typically comprised of multiple front-panel ports, and one
23 or more CPU or management port. The DSA subsystem currently relies on the
24 presence of a management port connected to an Ethernet controller capable of
25 receiving Ethernet frames from the switch. This is a very common setup for all
26 kinds of Ethernet switches found in Small Home and Office products: routers,
27 gateways, or even top-of-the rack switches. This host Ethernet controller will
28 be later referred to as "master" and "cpu" in DSA terminology and code.
30 The D in DSA stands for Distributed, because the subsystem has been designed
31 with the ability to configure and manage cascaded switches on top of each other
32 using upstream and downstream Ethernet links between switches. These specific
33 ports are referred to as "dsa" ports in DSA terminology and code. A collection
34 of multiple switches connected to each other is called a "switch tree".
36 For each front-panel port, DSA will create specialized network devices which are
37 used as controlling and data-flowing endpoints for use by the Linux networking
38 stack. These specialized network interfaces are referred to as "slave" network
39 interfaces in DSA terminology and code.
41 The ideal case for using DSA is when an Ethernet switch supports a "switch tag"
42 which is a hardware feature making the switch insert a specific tag for each
43 Ethernet frames it received to/from specific ports to help the management
46 - what port is this frame coming from
47 - what was the reason why this frame got forwarded
48 - how to send CPU originated traffic to specific ports
50 The subsystem does support switches not capable of inserting/stripping tags, but
51 the features might be slightly limited in that case (traffic separation relies
52 on Port-based VLAN IDs).
54 Note that DSA does not currently create network interfaces for the "cpu" and
57 - the "cpu" port is the Ethernet switch facing side of the management
58 controller, and as such, would create a duplication of feature, since you
59 would get two interfaces for the same conduit: master netdev, and "cpu" netdev
61 - the "dsa" port(s) are just conduits between two or more switches, and as such
62 cannot really be used as proper network interfaces either, only the
63 downstream, or the top-most upstream interface makes sense with that model
65 Switch tagging protocols
66 ------------------------
68 DSA supports many vendor-specific tagging protocols, one software-defined
69 tagging protocol, and a tag-less mode as well (``DSA_TAG_PROTO_NONE``).
71 The exact format of the tag protocol is vendor specific, but in general, they
72 all contain something which:
74 - identifies which port the Ethernet frame came from/should be sent to
75 - provides a reason why this frame was forwarded to the management interface
77 All tagging protocols are in ``net/dsa/tag_*.c`` files and implement the
78 methods of the ``struct dsa_device_ops`` structure, which are detailed below.
80 Tagging protocols generally fall in one of three categories:
82 1. The switch-specific frame header is located before the Ethernet header,
83 shifting to the right (from the perspective of the DSA master's frame
84 parser) the MAC DA, MAC SA, EtherType and the entire L2 payload.
85 2. The switch-specific frame header is located before the EtherType, keeping
86 the MAC DA and MAC SA in place from the DSA master's perspective, but
87 shifting the 'real' EtherType and L2 payload to the right.
88 3. The switch-specific frame header is located at the tail of the packet,
89 keeping all frame headers in place and not altering the view of the packet
90 that the DSA master's frame parser has.
92 A tagging protocol may tag all packets with switch tags of the same length, or
93 the tag length might vary (for example packets with PTP timestamps might
94 require an extended switch tag, or there might be one tag length on TX and a
95 different one on RX). Either way, the tagging protocol driver must populate the
96 ``struct dsa_device_ops::needed_headroom`` and/or ``struct dsa_device_ops::needed_tailroom``
97 with the length in octets of the longest switch frame header/trailer. The DSA
98 framework will automatically adjust the MTU of the master interface to
99 accommodate for this extra size in order for DSA user ports to support the
100 standard MTU (L2 payload length) of 1500 octets. The ``needed_headroom`` and
101 ``needed_tailroom`` properties are also used to request from the network stack,
102 on a best-effort basis, the allocation of packets with enough extra space such
103 that the act of pushing the switch tag on transmission of a packet does not
104 cause it to reallocate due to lack of memory.
106 Even though applications are not expected to parse DSA-specific frame headers,
107 the format on the wire of the tagging protocol represents an Application Binary
108 Interface exposed by the kernel towards user space, for decoders such as
109 ``libpcap``. The tagging protocol driver must populate the ``proto`` member of
110 ``struct dsa_device_ops`` with a value that uniquely describes the
111 characteristics of the interaction required between the switch hardware and the
112 data path driver: the offset of each bit field within the frame header and any
113 stateful processing required to deal with the frames (as may be required for
116 From the perspective of the network stack, all switches within the same DSA
117 switch tree use the same tagging protocol. In case of a packet transiting a
118 fabric with more than one switch, the switch-specific frame header is inserted
119 by the first switch in the fabric that the packet was received on. This header
120 typically contains information regarding its type (whether it is a control
121 frame that must be trapped to the CPU, or a data frame to be forwarded).
122 Control frames should be decapsulated only by the software data path, whereas
123 data frames might also be autonomously forwarded towards other user ports of
124 other switches from the same fabric, and in this case, the outermost switch
125 ports must decapsulate the packet.
127 Note that in certain cases, it might be the case that the tagging format used
128 by a leaf switch (not connected directly to the CPU) to not be the same as what
129 the network stack sees. This can be seen with Marvell switch trees, where the
130 CPU port can be configured to use either the DSA or the Ethertype DSA (EDSA)
131 format, but the DSA links are configured to use the shorter (without Ethertype)
132 DSA frame header, in order to reduce the autonomous packet forwarding overhead.
133 It still remains the case that, if the DSA switch tree is configured for the
134 EDSA tagging protocol, the operating system sees EDSA-tagged packets from the
135 leaf switches that tagged them with the shorter DSA header. This can be done
136 because the Marvell switch connected directly to the CPU is configured to
137 perform tag translation between DSA and EDSA (which is simply the operation of
138 adding or removing the ``ETH_P_EDSA`` EtherType and some padding octets).
140 It is possible to construct cascaded setups of DSA switches even if their
141 tagging protocols are not compatible with one another. In this case, there are
142 no DSA links in this fabric, and each switch constitutes a disjoint DSA switch
143 tree. The DSA links are viewed as simply a pair of a DSA master (the out-facing
144 port of the upstream DSA switch) and a CPU port (the in-facing port of the
145 downstream DSA switch).
147 The tagging protocol of the attached DSA switch tree can be viewed through the
148 ``dsa/tagging`` sysfs attribute of the DSA master::
150 cat /sys/class/net/eth0/dsa/tagging
152 If the hardware and driver are capable, the tagging protocol of the DSA switch
153 tree can be changed at runtime. This is done by writing the new tagging
154 protocol name to the same sysfs device attribute as above (the DSA master and
155 all attached switch ports must be down while doing this).
157 It is desirable that all tagging protocols are testable with the ``dsa_loop``
158 mockup driver, which can be attached to any network interface. The goal is that
159 any network interface should be capable of transmitting the same packet in the
160 same way, and the tagger should decode the same received packet in the same way
161 regardless of the driver used for the switch control path, and the driver used
164 The transmission of a packet goes through the tagger's ``xmit`` function.
165 The passed ``struct sk_buff *skb`` has ``skb->data`` pointing at
166 ``skb_mac_header(skb)``, i.e. at the destination MAC address, and the passed
167 ``struct net_device *dev`` represents the virtual DSA user network interface
168 whose hardware counterpart the packet must be steered to (i.e. ``swp0``).
169 The job of this method is to prepare the skb in a way that the switch will
170 understand what egress port the packet is for (and not deliver it towards other
171 ports). Typically this is fulfilled by pushing a frame header. Checking for
172 insufficient size in the skb headroom or tailroom is unnecessary provided that
173 the ``needed_headroom`` and ``needed_tailroom`` properties were filled out
174 properly, because DSA ensures there is enough space before calling this method.
176 The reception of a packet goes through the tagger's ``rcv`` function. The
177 passed ``struct sk_buff *skb`` has ``skb->data`` pointing at
178 ``skb_mac_header(skb) + ETH_ALEN`` octets, i.e. to where the first octet after
179 the EtherType would have been, were this frame not tagged. The role of this
180 method is to consume the frame header, adjust ``skb->data`` to really point at
181 the first octet after the EtherType, and to change ``skb->dev`` to point to the
182 virtual DSA user network interface corresponding to the physical front-facing
183 switch port that the packet was received on.
185 Since tagging protocols in category 1 and 2 break software (and most often also
186 hardware) packet dissection on the DSA master, features such as RPS (Receive
187 Packet Steering) on the DSA master would be broken. The DSA framework deals
188 with this by hooking into the flow dissector and shifting the offset at which
189 the IP header is to be found in the tagged frame as seen by the DSA master.
190 This behavior is automatic based on the ``overhead`` value of the tagging
191 protocol. If not all packets are of equal size, the tagger can implement the
192 ``flow_dissect`` method of the ``struct dsa_device_ops`` and override this
193 default behavior by specifying the correct offset incurred by each individual
194 RX packet. Tail taggers do not cause issues to the flow dissector.
196 Due to various reasons (most common being category 1 taggers being associated
197 with DSA-unaware masters, mangling what the master perceives as MAC DA), the
198 tagging protocol may require the DSA master to operate in promiscuous mode, to
199 receive all frames regardless of the value of the MAC DA. This can be done by
200 setting the ``promisc_on_master`` property of the ``struct dsa_device_ops``.
201 Note that this assumes a DSA-unaware master driver, which is the norm.
203 Hardware manufacturers are strongly discouraged to do this, but some tagging
204 protocols might not provide source port information on RX for all packets, but
205 e.g. only for control traffic (link-local PDUs). In this case, by implementing
206 the ``filter`` method of ``struct dsa_device_ops``, the tagger might select
207 which packets are to be redirected on RX towards the virtual DSA user network
208 interfaces, and which are to be left in the DSA master's RX data path.
210 It might also happen (although silicon vendors are strongly discouraged to
211 produce hardware like this) that a tagging protocol splits the switch-specific
212 information into a header portion and a tail portion, therefore not falling
213 cleanly into any of the above 3 categories. DSA does not support this
216 Master network devices
217 ----------------------
219 Master network devices are regular, unmodified Linux network device drivers for
220 the CPU/management Ethernet interface. Such a driver might occasionally need to
221 know whether DSA is enabled (e.g.: to enable/disable specific offload features),
222 but the DSA subsystem has been proven to work with industry standard drivers:
223 ``e1000e,`` ``mv643xx_eth`` etc. without having to introduce modifications to these
224 drivers. Such network devices are also often referred to as conduit network
225 devices since they act as a pipe between the host processor and the hardware
228 Networking stack hooks
229 ----------------------
231 When a master netdev is used with DSA, a small hook is placed in the
232 networking stack is in order to have the DSA subsystem process the Ethernet
233 switch specific tagging protocol. DSA accomplishes this by registering a
234 specific (and fake) Ethernet type (later becoming ``skb->protocol``) with the
235 networking stack, this is also known as a ``ptype`` or ``packet_type``. A typical
236 Ethernet Frame receive sequence looks like this:
238 Master network device (e.g.: e1000e):
240 1. Receive interrupt fires:
242 - receive function is invoked
243 - basic packet processing is done: getting length, status etc.
244 - packet is prepared to be processed by the Ethernet layer by calling
247 2. net/ethernet/eth.c::
249 eth_type_trans(skb, dev)
250 if (dev->dsa_ptr != NULL)
251 -> skb->protocol = ETH_P_XDSA
253 3. drivers/net/ethernet/\*::
255 netif_receive_skb(skb)
256 -> iterate over registered packet_type
257 -> invoke handler for ETH_P_XDSA, calls dsa_switch_rcv()
262 -> invoke switch tag specific protocol handler in 'net/dsa/tag_*.c'
266 - inspect and strip switch tag protocol to determine originating port
267 - locate per-port network device
268 - invoke ``eth_type_trans()`` with the DSA slave network device
269 - invoked ``netif_receive_skb()``
271 Past this point, the DSA slave network devices get delivered regular Ethernet
272 frames that can be processed by the networking stack.
274 Slave network devices
275 ---------------------
277 Slave network devices created by DSA are stacked on top of their master network
278 device, each of these network interfaces will be responsible for being a
279 controlling and data-flowing end-point for each front-panel port of the switch.
280 These interfaces are specialized in order to:
282 - insert/remove the switch tag protocol (if it exists) when sending traffic
283 to/from specific switch ports
284 - query the switch for ethtool operations: statistics, link state,
285 Wake-on-LAN, register dumps...
286 - external/internal PHY management: link, auto-negotiation etc.
288 These slave network devices have custom net_device_ops and ethtool_ops function
289 pointers which allow DSA to introduce a level of layering between the networking
290 stack/ethtool, and the switch driver implementation.
292 Upon frame transmission from these slave network devices, DSA will look up which
293 switch tagging protocol is currently registered with these network devices, and
294 invoke a specific transmit routine which takes care of adding the relevant
295 switch tag in the Ethernet frames.
297 These frames are then queued for transmission using the master network device
298 ``ndo_start_xmit()`` function, since they contain the appropriate switch tag, the
299 Ethernet switch will be able to process these incoming frames from the
300 management interface and delivers these frames to the physical switch port.
302 Graphical representation
303 ------------------------
305 Summarized, this is basically how DSA looks like from a network device
309 opens and binds socket
312 +-----------v--|--------------------+
313 |+------+ +------+ +------+ +------+|
314 || swp0 | | swp1 | | swp2 | | swp3 ||
315 |+------+-+------+-+------+-+------+|
316 | DSA switch driver |
317 +-----------------------------------+
319 Tag added by | | Tag consumed by
320 switch driver | | switch driver
322 +-----------------------------------+
323 | Unmodified host interface driver | Software
324 --------+-----------------------------------+------------
325 | Host interface (eth0) | Hardware
326 +-----------------------------------+
328 Tag consumed by | | Tag added by
329 switch hardware | | switch hardware
331 +-----------------------------------+
333 |+------+ +------+ +------+ +------+|
334 || swp0 | | swp1 | | swp2 | | swp3 ||
335 ++------+-+------+-+------+-+------++
340 In order to be able to read to/from a switch PHY built into it, DSA creates a
341 slave MDIO bus which allows a specific switch driver to divert and intercept
342 MDIO reads/writes towards specific PHY addresses. In most MDIO-connected
343 switches, these functions would utilize direct or indirect PHY addressing mode
344 to return standard MII registers from the switch builtin PHYs, allowing the PHY
345 library and/or to return link status, link partner pages, auto-negotiation
348 For Ethernet switches which have both external and internal MDIO busses, the
349 slave MII bus can be utilized to mux/demux MDIO reads and writes towards either
350 internal or external MDIO devices this switch might be connected to: internal
351 PHYs, external PHYs, or even external switches.
356 DSA data structures are defined in ``include/net/dsa.h`` as well as
357 ``net/dsa/dsa_priv.h``:
359 - ``dsa_chip_data``: platform data configuration for a given switch device,
360 this structure describes a switch device's parent device, its address, as
361 well as various properties of its ports: names/labels, and finally a routing
362 table indication (when cascading switches)
364 - ``dsa_platform_data``: platform device configuration data which can reference
365 a collection of dsa_chip_data structure if multiples switches are cascaded,
366 the master network device this switch tree is attached to needs to be
369 - ``dsa_switch_tree``: structure assigned to the master network device under
370 ``dsa_ptr``, this structure references a dsa_platform_data structure as well as
371 the tagging protocol supported by the switch tree, and which receive/transmit
372 function hooks should be invoked, information about the directly attached
373 switch is also provided: CPU port. Finally, a collection of dsa_switch are
374 referenced to address individual switches in the tree.
376 - ``dsa_switch``: structure describing a switch device in the tree, referencing
377 a ``dsa_switch_tree`` as a backpointer, slave network devices, master network
378 device, and a reference to the backing``dsa_switch_ops``
380 - ``dsa_switch_ops``: structure referencing function pointers, see below for a
386 Lack of CPU/DSA network devices
387 -------------------------------
389 DSA does not currently create slave network devices for the CPU or DSA ports, as
390 described before. This might be an issue in the following cases:
392 - inability to fetch switch CPU port statistics counters using ethtool, which
393 can make it harder to debug MDIO switch connected using xMII interfaces
395 - inability to configure the CPU port link parameters based on the Ethernet
396 controller capabilities attached to it: http://patchwork.ozlabs.org/patch/509806/
398 - inability to configure specific VLAN IDs / trunking VLANs between switches
399 when using a cascaded setup
401 Common pitfalls using DSA setups
402 --------------------------------
404 Once a master network device is configured to use DSA (dev->dsa_ptr becomes
405 non-NULL), and the switch behind it expects a tagging protocol, this network
406 interface can only exclusively be used as a conduit interface. Sending packets
407 directly through this interface (e.g.: opening a socket using this interface)
408 will not make us go through the switch tagging protocol transmit function, so
409 the Ethernet switch on the other end, expecting a tag will typically drop this
412 Interactions with other subsystems
413 ==================================
415 DSA currently leverages the following subsystems:
417 - MDIO/PHY library: ``drivers/net/phy/phy.c``, ``mdio_bus.c``
418 - Switchdev:``net/switchdev/*``
419 - Device Tree for various of_* functions
420 - Devlink: ``net/core/devlink.c``
425 Slave network devices exposed by DSA may or may not be interfacing with PHY
426 devices (``struct phy_device`` as defined in ``include/linux/phy.h)``, but the DSA
427 subsystem deals with all possible combinations:
429 - internal PHY devices, built into the Ethernet switch hardware
430 - external PHY devices, connected via an internal or external MDIO bus
431 - internal PHY devices, connected via an internal MDIO bus
432 - special, non-autonegotiated or non MDIO-managed PHY devices: SFPs, MoCA; a.k.a
435 The PHY configuration is done by the ``dsa_slave_phy_setup()`` function and the
436 logic basically looks like this:
438 - if Device Tree is used, the PHY device is looked up using the standard
439 "phy-handle" property, if found, this PHY device is created and registered
440 using ``of_phy_connect()``
442 - if Device Tree is used, and the PHY device is "fixed", that is, conforms to
443 the definition of a non-MDIO managed PHY as defined in
444 ``Documentation/devicetree/bindings/net/fixed-link.txt``, the PHY is registered
445 and connected transparently using the special fixed MDIO bus driver
447 - finally, if the PHY is built into the switch, as is very common with
448 standalone switch packages, the PHY is probed using the slave MII bus created
455 DSA directly utilizes SWITCHDEV when interfacing with the bridge layer, and
456 more specifically with its VLAN filtering portion when configuring VLANs on top
457 of per-port slave network devices. As of today, the only SWITCHDEV objects
458 supported by DSA are the FDB and VLAN objects.
463 DSA registers one devlink device per physical switch in the fabric.
464 For each devlink device, every physical port (i.e. user ports, CPU ports, DSA
465 links or unused ports) is exposed as a devlink port.
467 DSA drivers can make use of the following devlink features:
469 - Regions: debugging feature which allows user space to dump driver-defined
470 areas of hardware information in a low-level, binary format. Both global
471 regions as well as per-port regions are supported. It is possible to export
472 devlink regions even for pieces of data that are already exposed in some way
473 to the standard iproute2 user space programs (ip-link, bridge), like address
474 tables and VLAN tables. For example, this might be useful if the tables
475 contain additional hardware-specific details which are not visible through
476 the iproute2 abstraction, or it might be useful to inspect these tables on
477 the non-user ports too, which are invisible to iproute2 because no network
478 interface is registered for them.
479 - Params: a feature which enables user to configure certain low-level tunable
480 knobs pertaining to the device. Drivers may implement applicable generic
481 devlink params, or may add new device-specific devlink params.
482 - Resources: a monitoring feature which enables users to see the degree of
483 utilization of certain hardware tables in the device, such as FDB, VLAN, etc.
484 - Shared buffers: a QoS feature for adjusting and partitioning memory and frame
485 reservations per port and per traffic class, in the ingress and egress
486 directions, such that low-priority bulk traffic does not impede the
487 processing of high-priority critical traffic.
489 For more details, consult ``Documentation/networking/devlink/``.
494 DSA features a standardized binding which is documented in
495 ``Documentation/devicetree/bindings/net/dsa/dsa.txt``. PHY/MDIO library helper
496 functions such as ``of_get_phy_mode()``, ``of_phy_connect()`` are also used to query
497 per-port PHY specific details: interface connection, MDIO bus location etc..
502 DSA switch drivers need to implement a dsa_switch_ops structure which will
503 contain the various members described below.
505 ``register_switch_driver()`` registers this dsa_switch_ops in its internal list
506 of drivers to probe for. ``unregister_switch_driver()`` does the exact opposite.
508 Unless requested differently by setting the priv_size member accordingly, DSA
509 does not allocate any driver private context space.
514 - ``tag_protocol``: this is to indicate what kind of tagging protocol is supported,
515 should be a valid value from the ``dsa_tag_protocol`` enum
517 - ``probe``: probe routine which will be invoked by the DSA platform device upon
518 registration to test for the presence/absence of a switch device. For MDIO
519 devices, it is recommended to issue a read towards internal registers using
520 the switch pseudo-PHY and return whether this is a supported device. For other
521 buses, return a non-NULL string
523 - ``setup``: setup function for the switch, this function is responsible for setting
524 up the ``dsa_switch_ops`` private structure with all it needs: register maps,
525 interrupts, mutexes, locks etc.. This function is also expected to properly
526 configure the switch to separate all network interfaces from each other, that
527 is, they should be isolated by the switch hardware itself, typically by creating
528 a Port-based VLAN ID for each port and allowing only the CPU port and the
529 specific port to be in the forwarding vector. Ports that are unused by the
530 platform should be disabled. Past this function, the switch is expected to be
531 fully configured and ready to serve any kind of request. It is recommended
532 to issue a software reset of the switch during this setup function in order to
533 avoid relying on what a previous software agent such as a bootloader/firmware
534 may have previously configured.
536 PHY devices and link management
537 -------------------------------
539 - ``get_phy_flags``: Some switches are interfaced to various kinds of Ethernet PHYs,
540 if the PHY library PHY driver needs to know about information it cannot obtain
541 on its own (e.g.: coming from switch memory mapped registers), this function
542 should return a 32-bits bitmask of "flags", that is private between the switch
543 driver and the Ethernet PHY driver in ``drivers/net/phy/\*``.
545 - ``phy_read``: Function invoked by the DSA slave MDIO bus when attempting to read
546 the switch port MDIO registers. If unavailable, return 0xffff for each read.
547 For builtin switch Ethernet PHYs, this function should allow reading the link
548 status, auto-negotiation results, link partner pages etc..
550 - ``phy_write``: Function invoked by the DSA slave MDIO bus when attempting to write
551 to the switch port MDIO registers. If unavailable return a negative error
554 - ``adjust_link``: Function invoked by the PHY library when a slave network device
555 is attached to a PHY device. This function is responsible for appropriately
556 configuring the switch port link parameters: speed, duplex, pause based on
557 what the ``phy_device`` is providing.
559 - ``fixed_link_update``: Function invoked by the PHY library, and specifically by
560 the fixed PHY driver asking the switch driver for link parameters that could
561 not be auto-negotiated, or obtained by reading the PHY registers through MDIO.
562 This is particularly useful for specific kinds of hardware such as QSGMII,
563 MoCA or other kinds of non-MDIO managed PHYs where out of band link
564 information is obtained
569 - ``get_strings``: ethtool function used to query the driver's strings, will
570 typically return statistics strings, private flags strings etc.
572 - ``get_ethtool_stats``: ethtool function used to query per-port statistics and
573 return their values. DSA overlays slave network devices general statistics:
574 RX/TX counters from the network device, with switch driver specific statistics
577 - ``get_sset_count``: ethtool function used to query the number of statistics items
579 - ``get_wol``: ethtool function used to obtain Wake-on-LAN settings per-port, this
580 function may, for certain implementations also query the master network device
581 Wake-on-LAN settings if this interface needs to participate in Wake-on-LAN
583 - ``set_wol``: ethtool function used to configure Wake-on-LAN settings per-port,
584 direct counterpart to set_wol with similar restrictions
586 - ``set_eee``: ethtool function which is used to configure a switch port EEE (Green
587 Ethernet) settings, can optionally invoke the PHY library to enable EEE at the
588 PHY level if relevant. This function should enable EEE at the switch port MAC
589 controller and data-processing logic
591 - ``get_eee``: ethtool function which is used to query a switch port EEE settings,
592 this function should return the EEE state of the switch port MAC controller
593 and data-processing logic as well as query the PHY for its currently configured
596 - ``get_eeprom_len``: ethtool function returning for a given switch the EEPROM
599 - ``get_eeprom``: ethtool function returning for a given switch the EEPROM contents
601 - ``set_eeprom``: ethtool function writing specified data to a given switch EEPROM
603 - ``get_regs_len``: ethtool function returning the register length for a given
606 - ``get_regs``: ethtool function returning the Ethernet switch internal register
607 contents. This function might require user-land code in ethtool to
608 pretty-print register values and registers
613 - ``suspend``: function invoked by the DSA platform device when the system goes to
614 suspend, should quiesce all Ethernet switch activities, but keep ports
615 participating in Wake-on-LAN active as well as additional wake-up logic if
618 - ``resume``: function invoked by the DSA platform device when the system resumes,
619 should resume all Ethernet switch activities and re-configure the switch to be
620 in a fully active state
622 - ``port_enable``: function invoked by the DSA slave network device ndo_open
623 function when a port is administratively brought up, this function should be
624 fully enabling a given switch port. DSA takes care of marking the port with
625 ``BR_STATE_BLOCKING`` if the port is a bridge member, or ``BR_STATE_FORWARDING`` if it
626 was not, and propagating these changes down to the hardware
628 - ``port_disable``: function invoked by the DSA slave network device ndo_close
629 function when a port is administratively brought down, this function should be
630 fully disabling a given switch port. DSA takes care of marking the port with
631 ``BR_STATE_DISABLED`` and propagating changes to the hardware if this port is
632 disabled while being a bridge member
637 - ``port_bridge_join``: bridge layer function invoked when a given switch port is
638 added to a bridge, this function should be doing the necessary at the switch
639 level to permit the joining port from being added to the relevant logical
640 domain for it to ingress/egress traffic with other members of the bridge.
642 - ``port_bridge_leave``: bridge layer function invoked when a given switch port is
643 removed from a bridge, this function should be doing the necessary at the
644 switch level to deny the leaving port from ingress/egress traffic from the
645 remaining bridge members. When the port leaves the bridge, it should be aged
646 out at the switch hardware for the switch to (re) learn MAC addresses behind
649 - ``port_stp_state_set``: bridge layer function invoked when a given switch port STP
650 state is computed by the bridge layer and should be propagated to switch
651 hardware to forward/block/learn traffic. The switch driver is responsible for
652 computing a STP state change based on current and asked parameters and perform
653 the relevant ageing based on the intersection results
655 - ``port_bridge_flags``: bridge layer function invoked when a port must
656 configure its settings for e.g. flooding of unknown traffic or source address
657 learning. The switch driver is responsible for initial setup of the
658 standalone ports with address learning disabled and egress flooding of all
659 types of traffic, then the DSA core notifies of any change to the bridge port
660 flags when the port joins and leaves a bridge. DSA does not currently manage
661 the bridge port flags for the CPU port. The assumption is that address
662 learning should be statically enabled (if supported by the hardware) on the
663 CPU port, and flooding towards the CPU port should also be enabled, due to a
664 lack of an explicit address filtering mechanism in the DSA core.
666 Bridge VLAN filtering
667 ---------------------
669 - ``port_vlan_filtering``: bridge layer function invoked when the bridge gets
670 configured for turning on or off VLAN filtering. If nothing specific needs to
671 be done at the hardware level, this callback does not need to be implemented.
672 When VLAN filtering is turned on, the hardware must be programmed with
673 rejecting 802.1Q frames which have VLAN IDs outside of the programmed allowed
674 VLAN ID map/rules. If there is no PVID programmed into the switch port,
675 untagged frames must be rejected as well. When turned off the switch must
676 accept any 802.1Q frames irrespective of their VLAN ID, and untagged frames are
679 - ``port_vlan_add``: bridge layer function invoked when a VLAN is configured
680 (tagged or untagged) for the given switch port. If the operation is not
681 supported by the hardware, this function should return ``-EOPNOTSUPP`` to
682 inform the bridge code to fallback to a software implementation.
684 - ``port_vlan_del``: bridge layer function invoked when a VLAN is removed from the
687 - ``port_vlan_dump``: bridge layer function invoked with a switchdev callback
688 function that the driver has to call for each VLAN the given port is a member
689 of. A switchdev object is used to carry the VID and bridge flags.
691 - ``port_fdb_add``: bridge layer function invoked when the bridge wants to install a
692 Forwarding Database entry, the switch hardware should be programmed with the
693 specified address in the specified VLAN Id in the forwarding database
694 associated with this VLAN ID. If the operation is not supported, this
695 function should return ``-EOPNOTSUPP`` to inform the bridge code to fallback to
696 a software implementation.
698 .. note:: VLAN ID 0 corresponds to the port private database, which, in the context
699 of DSA, would be its port-based VLAN, used by the associated bridge device.
701 - ``port_fdb_del``: bridge layer function invoked when the bridge wants to remove a
702 Forwarding Database entry, the switch hardware should be programmed to delete
703 the specified MAC address from the specified VLAN ID if it was mapped into
704 this port forwarding database
706 - ``port_fdb_dump``: bridge layer function invoked with a switchdev callback
707 function that the driver has to call for each MAC address known to be behind
708 the given port. A switchdev object is used to carry the VID and FDB info.
710 - ``port_mdb_add``: bridge layer function invoked when the bridge wants to install
711 a multicast database entry. If the operation is not supported, this function
712 should return ``-EOPNOTSUPP`` to inform the bridge code to fallback to a
713 software implementation. The switch hardware should be programmed with the
714 specified address in the specified VLAN ID in the forwarding database
715 associated with this VLAN ID.
717 .. note:: VLAN ID 0 corresponds to the port private database, which, in the context
718 of DSA, would be its port-based VLAN, used by the associated bridge device.
720 - ``port_mdb_del``: bridge layer function invoked when the bridge wants to remove a
721 multicast database entry, the switch hardware should be programmed to delete
722 the specified MAC address from the specified VLAN ID if it was mapped into
723 this port forwarding database.
725 - ``port_mdb_dump``: bridge layer function invoked with a switchdev callback
726 function that the driver has to call for each MAC address known to be behind
727 the given port. A switchdev object is used to carry the VID and MDB info.
732 Link aggregation is implemented in the Linux networking stack by the bonding
733 and team drivers, which are modeled as virtual, stackable network interfaces.
734 DSA is capable of offloading a link aggregation group (LAG) to hardware that
735 supports the feature, and supports bridging between physical ports and LAGs,
736 as well as between LAGs. A bonding/team interface which holds multiple physical
737 ports constitutes a logical port, although DSA has no explicit concept of a
738 logical port at the moment. Due to this, events where a LAG joins/leaves a
739 bridge are treated as if all individual physical ports that are members of that
740 LAG join/leave the bridge. Switchdev port attributes (VLAN filtering, STP
741 state, etc) and objects (VLANs, MDB entries) offloaded to a LAG as bridge port
742 are treated similarly: DSA offloads the same switchdev object / port attribute
743 on all members of the LAG. Static bridge FDB entries on a LAG are not yet
744 supported, since the DSA driver API does not have the concept of a logical port
747 - ``port_lag_join``: function invoked when a given switch port is added to a
748 LAG. The driver may return ``-EOPNOTSUPP``, and in this case, DSA will fall
749 back to a software implementation where all traffic from this port is sent to
751 - ``port_lag_leave``: function invoked when a given switch port leaves a LAG
752 and returns to operation as a standalone port.
753 - ``port_lag_change``: function invoked when the link state of any member of
754 the LAG changes, and the hashing function needs rebalancing to only make use
755 of the subset of physical LAG member ports that are up.
757 Drivers that benefit from having an ID associated with each offloaded LAG
758 can optionally populate ``ds->num_lag_ids`` from the ``dsa_switch_ops::setup``
759 method. The LAG ID associated with a bonding/team interface can then be
760 retrieved by a DSA switch driver using the ``dsa_lag_id`` function.
765 The Media Redundancy Protocol is a topology management protocol optimized for
766 fast fault recovery time for ring networks, which has some components
767 implemented as a function of the bridge driver. MRP uses management PDUs
768 (Test, Topology, LinkDown/Up, Option) sent at a multicast destination MAC
769 address range of 01:15:4e:00:00:0x and with an EtherType of 0x88e3.
770 Depending on the node's role in the ring (MRM: Media Redundancy Manager,
771 MRC: Media Redundancy Client, MRA: Media Redundancy Automanager), certain MRP
772 PDUs might need to be terminated locally and others might need to be forwarded.
773 An MRM might also benefit from offloading to hardware the creation and
774 transmission of certain MRP PDUs (Test).
776 Normally an MRP instance can be created on top of any network interface,
777 however in the case of a device with an offloaded data path such as DSA, it is
778 necessary for the hardware, even if it is not MRP-aware, to be able to extract
779 the MRP PDUs from the fabric before the driver can proceed with the software
780 implementation. DSA today has no driver which is MRP-aware, therefore it only
781 listens for the bare minimum switchdev objects required for the software assist
782 to work properly. The operations are detailed below.
784 - ``port_mrp_add`` and ``port_mrp_del``: notifies driver when an MRP instance
785 with a certain ring ID, priority, primary port and secondary port is
787 - ``port_mrp_add_ring_role`` and ``port_mrp_del_ring_role``: function invoked
788 when an MRP instance changes ring roles between MRM or MRC. This affects
789 which MRP PDUs should be trapped to software and which should be autonomously
792 IEC 62439-3 (HSR/PRP)
793 ---------------------
795 The Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP) is a network redundancy protocol which
796 works by duplicating and sequence numbering packets through two independent L2
797 networks (which are unaware of the PRP tail tags carried in the packets), and
798 eliminating the duplicates at the receiver. The High-availability Seamless
799 Redundancy (HSR) protocol is similar in concept, except all nodes that carry
800 the redundant traffic are aware of the fact that it is HSR-tagged (because HSR
801 uses a header with an EtherType of 0x892f) and are physically connected in a
802 ring topology. Both HSR and PRP use supervision frames for monitoring the
803 health of the network and for discovery of other nodes.
805 In Linux, both HSR and PRP are implemented in the hsr driver, which
806 instantiates a virtual, stackable network interface with two member ports.
807 The driver only implements the basic roles of DANH (Doubly Attached Node
808 implementing HSR) and DANP (Doubly Attached Node implementing PRP); the roles
809 of RedBox and QuadBox are not implemented (therefore, bridging a hsr network
810 interface with a physical switch port does not produce the expected result).
812 A driver which is able of offloading certain functions of a DANP or DANH should
813 declare the corresponding netdev features as indicated by the documentation at
814 ``Documentation/networking/netdev-features.rst``. Additionally, the following
815 methods must be implemented:
817 - ``port_hsr_join``: function invoked when a given switch port is added to a
818 DANP/DANH. The driver may return ``-EOPNOTSUPP`` and in this case, DSA will
819 fall back to a software implementation where all traffic from this port is
821 - ``port_hsr_leave``: function invoked when a given switch port leaves a
822 DANP/DANH and returns to normal operation as a standalone port.
827 Making SWITCHDEV and DSA converge towards an unified codebase
828 -------------------------------------------------------------
830 SWITCHDEV properly takes care of abstracting the networking stack with offload
831 capable hardware, but does not enforce a strict switch device driver model. On
832 the other DSA enforces a fairly strict device driver model, and deals with most
833 of the switch specific. At some point we should envision a merger between these
834 two subsystems and get the best of both worlds.
839 - allowing more than one CPU/management interface:
840 http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.linux.network/365657
projects / linux-2.6-microblaze.git / blob