[systemd-devel] how to bind to other drivers using systemd

[Flavio Leitner]

On Mon, Sep 28, 2015 at 08:06:50PM +0200, Kay Sievers wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 27, 2015 at 11:37 PM, Flavio Leitner <fbl at sysclose.org> wrote:
> > I am looking for guidance on how to properly resolve driver binding
> > with systemd (which seems to me the best place to do that).
> 
> This seems to be a too exotic and niche use case, nothing
> general-purpose enough to implement high-level knobs in systemd.

These alternative drivers might be new yet, so there is no much around
them, but we need to start right to avoid problems in the future.

Accelerated userspace datapath is one use case that changes the default
NIC driver to UIO or VFIO driver. Then you use DPDK applications for
fast packet processing or use DPDK integrated Open vSwitch for switching.

Consider that Open Stack (WIP), Open Shift and maybe containers can use
the above setup, so isn't really a niche use case.  It's pretty much a
requirement for NFV projects as well.

> As you mention, you could use custom udev rules to actually bind a
> specific driver. I don't think we want anything more abstract in
> systemd.

The problem with that is we can't stop the service to roll back the
driver.  Or more importantly, create a dependency to, let's say,
start Open vSwitch only after the ports are bound to the right driver.
Or start an application that requires the NIC to be bound first.

Thanks,
fbl