Devlink Line card¶
Background¶
The devlink-linecard mechanism is targeted for manipulation of
line cards that serve as a detachable PHY modules for modular switch
system. Following operations are provided:
Get a list of supported line card types.
Provision of a slot with specific line card type.
Get and monitor of line card state and its change.
Line card according to the type may contain one or more gearboxes to mux the lanes with certain speed to multiple ports with lanes of different speed. Line card ensures N:M mapping between the switch ASIC modules and physical front panel ports.
Overview¶
Each line card devlink object is created by device driver, according to the physical line card slots available on the device.
Similar to splitter cable, where the device might have no way of detection of the splitter cable geometry, the device might not have a way to detect line card type. For that devices, concept of provisioning is introduced. It allows the user to:
Provision a line card slot with certain line card type
Device driver would instruct the ASIC to prepare all resources accordingly. The device driver would create all instances, namely devlink port and netdevices that reside on the line card, according to the line card type
Manipulate of line card entities even without line card being physically connected or powered-up
Setup splitter cable on line card ports
As on the ordinary ports, user may provision a splitter cable of a certain type, without the need to be physically connected to the port
Configure devlink ports and netdevices
Netdevice carrier is decided as follows:
Line card is not inserted or powered-down
The carrier is always down
Line card is inserted and powered up
The carrier is decided as for ordinary port netdevice
Line card state¶
The devlink-linecard mechanism supports the following line card states:
unprovisioned: Line card is not provisioned on the slot.
unprovisioning: Line card slot is currently being unprovisioned.
provisioning: Line card slot is currently in a process of being provisioned with a line card type.
provisioning_failed: Provisioning was not successful.
provisioned: Line card slot is provisioned with a type.
active: Line card is powered-up and active.
The following diagram provides a general overview of devlink-linecard
state transitions:
+-------------------------+
| |
+----------------------------------> unprovisioned |
| | |
| +--------|-------^--------+
| | |
| | |
| +--------v-------|--------+
| | |
| | provisioning |
| | |
| +------------|------------+
| |
| +-----------------------------+
| | |
| +------------v------------+ +------------v------------+ +-------------------------+
| | | | ----> |
+----- provisioning_failed | | provisioned | | active |
| | | | <---- |
| +------------^------------+ +------------|------------+ +-------------------------+
| | |
| | |
| | +------------v------------+
| | | |
| | | unprovisioning |
| | | |
| | +------------|------------+
| | |
| +-----------------------------+
| |
+-----------------------------------------------+
Example usage¶
$ devlink lc show [ DEV [ lc LC_INDEX ] ]
$ devlink lc set DEV lc LC_INDEX [ { type LC_TYPE | notype } ]
# Show current line card configuration and status for all slots:
$ devlink lc
# Set slot 8 to be provisioned with type "16x100G":
$ devlink lc set pci/0000:01:00.0 lc 8 type 16x100G
# Set slot 8 to be unprovisioned:
$ devlink lc set pci/0000:01:00.0 lc 8 notype