Subject: QFE/HME merge [PSARC/2007/404 FastTrack timeout 07/18/2007] To: PSARC-ext@Sun.Com Cc: Garrett.Damore@Sun.COM Bcc: one-pager-list@sac.sfbay one-pager-log@sac.sfbay sac-bar@sac.sfbay I'm submitting the following on my own behalf; its another hme/qfe related case. Template Version: @(#)sac_nextcase 1.63 06/14/07 SMI This information is Copyright 2007 Sun Microsystems 1. Introduction 1.1. Project/Component Working Name: QFE/HME merge 1.2. Name of Document Author/Supplier: Author: Garrett D'Amore 1.3 Date of This Document: 10 July, 2007 4. Technical Description Background ---------- Sun currently ships an unbundled device driver for old quad-fast-ethernet boards (qfe). These devices are the same controller as the Happy Meal Ethernet (hme), but there are four of them to a NIC, stuck behind an Intel PCI bridge. (SBus qfe cards exist as well, and are also driven by the same Happy Meal Ethernet mac controller.) The only distinguishing feature of them is the presence of Fcode to change the device name to "SUNW,qfe". The qfe driver offered a few features that the old hme driver lacked: 802.3ad trunking was supported using the unbundled Sun Trunking product (but only between qfe ports), the qfe supported Sheffield-specific fault tolerance. (This was on the Netra ft1800, see PSARC 1997/146 for more detail.) Problem ------- As a result of the commitment of the updated GLDv3 hme driver (see PSARC 2007/319) hme on Solaris Nevada will have support for generic 802.3ad link aggregation, VLAN support, IP instances, network auto-magic and IP multipathing. The new hme driver also supports IP hardware checksum offload, and has several other more minor enhancements. (We expect that this new hme driver will be putback in build 70 or 71, an RTI should be filed the week of July 10.) It would be nice if qfe could have these same features, could have its source code be part of ON, and (since it is the same hardware!) use the same source code as hme. Propsal ------- We propose the following course of action: * move the bulk of hme into a common misc module (happymeal) * make hme a thin layer above "happymeal" misc module * create a new qfe driver in ON, which is also a thin layer above "happymeal" * qfe/hme will use Solaris IP multipathing (instead of sheffield-specific fault tolerance) * qfe will support Solaris/Nemo link aggregation * Sun Trunking will continue to be used (for now) with ce and gem gigabit NICs Customers will see the same issues with this transition that the hme and eri nemo conversions created; namely there will be some impact to kstats and ndd. (ndd users must use the style 1 /dev/hmeX node. some of the kstats will be moved or renamed to facilitate more standard Nemo kstat reporting.) These details are recorded fully in PSARC 2007/319. Sun Trunking Impact ------------------- Customers with existing Sun Trunking configurations will, on upgrade to Nevada (with this release) have their trunks destroyed, so that only a single NIC (the active Trunk head) is plumbed. Other former trunk members will not be plumbed. The customer will need to reconfigure link aggregation manually using dladm. (However, the customer will now be able to use a larger set of devices in trunks.) The reason for choosing this approach (as opposed to trying to automatically "convert" Sun Trunking configurations) is that the Nevada link aggregation facility introduces a new DLPI provider, aggr, such that customer configurations (such as /etc/hostname.* files) must be changed to reflect the new aggregate devices. For example, the old trunk "qfe0" maybe called "aggr0" after conversion to the new Nemo aggregation code. Attempting to discover all cases of use and automate the upgrade would probably work for most cases, but for some cases where we are unaware of the network configuration data, it is likely to cause more problems than just asking the customer to manually recreate their configuration. Additionally, with Nemo aggregation, the customer will now have new options to choose from different devices to aggregate. 6. Resources and Schedule 6.4. Steering Committee requested information 6.4.1. Consolidation C-team Name: ON 6.5. ARC review type: FastTrack 6.6. ARC Exposure: open