Re: [pci PATCH v8 0/4] Add support for unmanaged SR-IOV

[Randy Dunlap]

On 04/20/18 13:01, Alexander Duyck wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 10:23 AM, Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> On 04/20/18 09:28, Alexander Duyck wrote:
>>> This series is meant to add support for SR-IOV on devices when the VFs are
>>> not managed by the kernel. Examples of recent patches attempting to do this
>>> include:
>>> virto - https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/10241225/
>>> pci-stub - https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/10109935/
>>> vfio - https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/10103353/
>>> uio - https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/9974031/
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Somewhere in this patch series it would be nice to tell us what the heck
>> a "PF" is.  :)
>>
>> Thanks.
> 
> Sorry, I was kind of operating on the assumption of everyone
> understanding SR-IOV nomenclature.

Yes, I understood that. :)

> A "PF" is a PCIe Physical Function. When you bring up a PCIe device
> that supports SR-IOV it is the device that is there to begin with.
> 
> A "VF" is a PCIe Virtual Function. You could think of as a logical
> device that is spawned from the physical function using a combination
> of hardware configuration via the SR-IOV block in the PCIe extended
> configuration space and kernel/driver features.
> 
> There are also a number of online resources you could use to research
> SR-IOV further. Hope that helps to clarify some of this.
> 
> Thanks.

Thank you.


-- 
~Randy