[PATCH v1 net-next 0/4] vmxnet3: upgrade to version 9

From: Ronak Doshi
Date: Tue May 28 2024 - 19:55:50 EST


vmxnet3 emulation has recently added timestamping feature which allows the
hypervisor (ESXi) to calculate latency from guest virtual NIC driver to all
the way up to the physical NIC. This patch series extends vmxnet3 driver
to leverage these new feature.

Compatibility is maintained using existing vmxnet3 versioning mechanism as
follows:
- new features added to vmxnet3 emulation are associated with new vmxnet3
version viz. vmxnet3 version 9.
- emulation advertises all the versions it supports to the driver.
- during initialization, vmxnet3 driver picks the highest version number
supported by both the emulation and the driver and configures emulation
to run at that version.

In particular, following changes are introduced:

Patch 1:
This patch introduces utility macros for vmxnet3 version 9 comparison
and updates Copyright information.

Patch 2:
This patch adds support to timestamp the packets so as to allow latency
measurement in the ESXi.

Patch 3:
This patch adds support to disable certain offloads on the device based
on the request specified by the user in the VM configuration.

Patch 4:
With all vmxnet3 version 9 changes incorporated in the vmxnet3 driver,
with this patch, the driver can configure emulation to run at vmxnet3
version 9.

Changes in v1:
- make latency measurement and rdpmc read x86 specific in patch 2.
- use BIT macro.

Ronak Doshi (4):
vmxnet3: prepare for version 9 changes
vmxnet3: add latency measurement support in vmxnet3
vmxnet3: add command to allow disabling of offloads
vmxnet3: update to version 9

drivers/net/vmxnet3/Makefile | 2 +-
drivers/net/vmxnet3/vmxnet3_defs.h | 61 +++++++++-
drivers/net/vmxnet3/vmxnet3_drv.c | 222 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++-------
drivers/net/vmxnet3/vmxnet3_ethtool.c | 10 +-
drivers/net/vmxnet3/vmxnet3_int.h | 33 ++++-
5 files changed, 279 insertions(+), 49 deletions(-)

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2.11.0