1 .. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
2 .. include:: <isonum.txt>
4 ===============================================
5 Ethernet switch device driver model (switchdev)
6 ===============================================
13 The Ethernet switch device driver model (switchdev) is an in-kernel driver
14 model for switch devices which offload the forwarding (data) plane from the
17 Figure 1 is a block diagram showing the components of the switchdev model for
18 an example setup using a data-center-class switch ASIC chip. Other setups
19 with SR-IOV or soft switches, such as OVS, are possible.
27 +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
30 +--------------+-------------------------------+
34 +----------------------------------------------+
37 sw1p1 + sw1p3 + sw1p5 + eth1
40 +--+----+----+----+----+----+---+ +-----+-----+
41 | Switch driver | | mgmt |
42 | (this document) | | driver |
44 +--------------+----------------+ +-----------+
46 kernel | HW bus (eg PCI)
47 +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
49 +--------------+----------------+
50 | Switch device (sw1) |
52 | | v offloaded data path | mgmt port
54 +--|----|----+----+----+----+---+
70 #include <linux/netdevice.h>
71 #include <net/switchdev.h>
77 Use "depends NET_SWITCHDEV" in driver's Kconfig to ensure switchdev model
78 support is built for driver.
84 On switchdev driver initialization, the driver will allocate and register a
85 struct net_device (using register_netdev()) for each enumerated physical switch
86 port, called the port netdev. A port netdev is the software representation of
87 the physical port and provides a conduit for control traffic to/from the
88 controller (the kernel) and the network, as well as an anchor point for higher
89 level constructs such as bridges, bonds, VLANs, tunnels, and L3 routers. Using
90 standard netdev tools (iproute2, ethtool, etc), the port netdev can also
91 provide to the user access to the physical properties of the switch port such
92 as PHY link state and I/O statistics.
94 There is (currently) no higher-level kernel object for the switch beyond the
95 port netdevs. All of the switchdev driver ops are netdev ops or switchdev ops.
97 A switch management port is outside the scope of the switchdev driver model.
98 Typically, the management port is not participating in offloaded data plane and
99 is loaded with a different driver, such as a NIC driver, on the management port
105 The switchdev driver must implement the net_device operation
106 ndo_get_port_parent_id for each port netdev, returning the same physical ID for
107 each port of a switch. The ID must be unique between switches on the same
108 system. The ID does not need to be unique between switches on different
111 The switch ID is used to locate ports on a switch and to know if aggregated
112 ports belong to the same switch.
117 Udev rules should be used for port netdev naming, using some unique attribute
118 of the port as a key, for example the port MAC address or the port PHYS name.
119 Hard-coding of kernel netdev names within the driver is discouraged; let the
120 kernel pick the default netdev name, and let udev set the final name based on a
123 Using port PHYS name (ndo_get_phys_port_name) for the key is particularly
124 useful for dynamically-named ports where the device names its ports based on
125 external configuration. For example, if a physical 40G port is split logically
126 into 4 10G ports, resulting in 4 port netdevs, the device can give a unique
127 name for each port using port PHYS name. The udev rule would be::
129 SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", ATTR{phys_switch_id}=="<phys_switch_id>", \
130 ATTR{phys_port_name}!="", NAME="swX$attr{phys_port_name}"
132 Suggested naming convention is "swXpYsZ", where X is the switch name or ID, Y
133 is the port name or ID, and Z is the sub-port name or ID. For example, sw1p1s0
134 would be sub-port 0 on port 1 on switch 1.
141 If the switchdev driver (and device) only supports offloading of the default
142 network namespace (netns), the driver should set this feature flag to prevent
143 the port netdev from being moved out of the default netns. A netns-aware
144 driver/device would not set this flag and be responsible for partitioning
145 hardware to preserve netns containment. This means hardware cannot forward
146 traffic from a port in one namespace to another port in another namespace.
151 The port netdevs representing the physical switch ports can be organized into
152 higher-level switching constructs. The default construct is a standalone
153 router port, used to offload L3 forwarding. Two or more ports can be bonded
154 together to form a LAG. Two or more ports (or LAGs) can be bridged to bridge
155 L2 networks. VLANs can be applied to sub-divide L2 networks. L2-over-L3
156 tunnels can be built on ports. These constructs are built using standard Linux
157 tools such as the bridge driver, the bonding/team drivers, and netlink-based
158 tools such as iproute2.
160 The switchdev driver can know a particular port's position in the topology by
161 monitoring NETDEV_CHANGEUPPER notifications. For example, a port moved into a
162 bond will see it's upper master change. If that bond is moved into a bridge,
163 the bond's upper master will change. And so on. The driver will track such
164 movements to know what position a port is in in the overall topology by
165 registering for netdevice events and acting on NETDEV_CHANGEUPPER.
167 L2 Forwarding Offload
168 ---------------------
170 The idea is to offload the L2 data forwarding (switching) path from the kernel
171 to the switchdev device by mirroring bridge FDB entries down to the device. An
172 FDB entry is the {port, MAC, VLAN} tuple forwarding destination.
174 To offloading L2 bridging, the switchdev driver/device should support:
176 - Static FDB entries installed on a bridge port
177 - Notification of learned/forgotten src mac/vlans from device
178 - STP state changes on the port
179 - VLAN flooding of multicast/broadcast and unknown unicast packets
184 The switchdev driver should implement ndo_fdb_add, ndo_fdb_del and ndo_fdb_dump
185 to support static FDB entries installed to the device. Static bridge FDB
186 entries are installed, for example, using iproute2 bridge cmd::
188 bridge fdb add ADDR dev DEV [vlan VID] [self]
190 The driver should use the helper switchdev_port_fdb_xxx ops for ndo_fdb_xxx
191 ops, and handle add/delete/dump of SWITCHDEV_OBJ_ID_PORT_FDB object using
192 switchdev_port_obj_xxx ops.
194 XXX: what should be done if offloading this rule to hardware fails (for
195 example, due to full capacity in hardware tables) ?
197 Note: by default, the bridge does not filter on VLAN and only bridges untagged
198 traffic. To enable VLAN support, turn on VLAN filtering::
200 echo 1 >/sys/class/net/<bridge>/bridge/vlan_filtering
202 Notification of Learned/Forgotten Source MAC/VLANs
203 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
205 The switch device will learn/forget source MAC address/VLAN on ingress packets
206 and notify the switch driver of the mac/vlan/port tuples. The switch driver,
207 in turn, will notify the bridge driver using the switchdev notifier call::
209 err = call_switchdev_notifiers(val, dev, info, extack);
211 Where val is SWITCHDEV_FDB_ADD when learning and SWITCHDEV_FDB_DEL when
212 forgetting, and info points to a struct switchdev_notifier_fdb_info. On
213 SWITCHDEV_FDB_ADD, the bridge driver will install the FDB entry into the
214 bridge's FDB and mark the entry as NTF_EXT_LEARNED. The iproute2 bridge
215 command will label these entries "offload"::
218 52:54:00:12:35:01 dev sw1p1 master br0 permanent
219 00:02:00:00:02:00 dev sw1p1 master br0 offload
220 00:02:00:00:02:00 dev sw1p1 self
221 52:54:00:12:35:02 dev sw1p2 master br0 permanent
222 00:02:00:00:03:00 dev sw1p2 master br0 offload
223 00:02:00:00:03:00 dev sw1p2 self
224 33:33:00:00:00:01 dev eth0 self permanent
225 01:00:5e:00:00:01 dev eth0 self permanent
226 33:33:ff:00:00:00 dev eth0 self permanent
227 01:80:c2:00:00:0e dev eth0 self permanent
228 33:33:00:00:00:01 dev br0 self permanent
229 01:00:5e:00:00:01 dev br0 self permanent
230 33:33:ff:12:35:01 dev br0 self permanent
232 Learning on the port should be disabled on the bridge using the bridge command::
234 bridge link set dev DEV learning off
236 Learning on the device port should be enabled, as well as learning_sync::
238 bridge link set dev DEV learning on self
239 bridge link set dev DEV learning_sync on self
241 Learning_sync attribute enables syncing of the learned/forgotten FDB entry to
242 the bridge's FDB. It's possible, but not optimal, to enable learning on the
243 device port and on the bridge port, and disable learning_sync.
245 To support learning, the driver implements switchdev op
246 switchdev_port_attr_set for SWITCHDEV_ATTR_PORT_ID_{PRE}_BRIDGE_FLAGS.
251 The bridge will skip ageing FDB entries marked with NTF_EXT_LEARNED and it is
252 the responsibility of the port driver/device to age out these entries. If the
253 port device supports ageing, when the FDB entry expires, it will notify the
254 driver which in turn will notify the bridge with SWITCHDEV_FDB_DEL. If the
255 device does not support ageing, the driver can simulate ageing using a
256 garbage collection timer to monitor FDB entries. Expired entries will be
257 notified to the bridge using SWITCHDEV_FDB_DEL. See rocker driver for
258 example of driver running ageing timer.
260 To keep an NTF_EXT_LEARNED entry "alive", the driver should refresh the FDB
261 entry by calling call_switchdev_notifiers(SWITCHDEV_FDB_ADD, ...). The
262 notification will reset the FDB entry's last-used time to now. The driver
263 should rate limit refresh notifications, for example, no more than once a
264 second. (The last-used time is visible using the bridge -s fdb option).
266 STP State Change on Port
267 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
269 Internally or with a third-party STP protocol implementation (e.g. mstpd), the
270 bridge driver maintains the STP state for ports, and will notify the switch
271 driver of STP state change on a port using the switchdev op
272 switchdev_attr_port_set for SWITCHDEV_ATTR_PORT_ID_STP_UPDATE.
274 State is one of BR_STATE_*. The switch driver can use STP state updates to
275 update ingress packet filter list for the port. For example, if port is
276 DISABLED, no packets should pass, but if port moves to BLOCKED, then STP BPDUs
277 and other IEEE 01:80:c2:xx:xx:xx link-local multicast packets can pass.
279 Note that STP BDPUs are untagged and STP state applies to all VLANs on the port
280 so packet filters should be applied consistently across untagged and tagged
286 For a given L2 VLAN domain, the switch device should flood multicast/broadcast
287 and unknown unicast packets to all ports in domain, if allowed by port's
288 current STP state. The switch driver, knowing which ports are within which
289 vlan L2 domain, can program the switch device for flooding. The packet may
290 be sent to the port netdev for processing by the bridge driver. The
291 bridge should not reflood the packet to the same ports the device flooded,
292 otherwise there will be duplicate packets on the wire.
294 To avoid duplicate packets, the switch driver should mark a packet as already
295 forwarded by setting the skb->offload_fwd_mark bit. The bridge driver will mark
296 the skb using the ingress bridge port's mark and prevent it from being forwarded
297 through any bridge port with the same mark.
299 It is possible for the switch device to not handle flooding and push the
300 packets up to the bridge driver for flooding. This is not ideal as the number
301 of ports scale in the L2 domain as the device is much more efficient at
302 flooding packets that software.
304 If supported by the device, flood control can be offloaded to it, preventing
305 certain netdevs from flooding unicast traffic for which there is no FDB entry.
310 In order to support IGMP snooping, the port netdevs should trap to the bridge
311 driver all IGMP join and leave messages.
312 The bridge multicast module will notify port netdevs on every multicast group
313 changed whether it is static configured or dynamically joined/leave.
314 The hardware implementation should be forwarding all registered multicast
315 traffic groups only to the configured ports.
320 Offloading L3 routing requires that device be programmed with FIB entries from
321 the kernel, with the device doing the FIB lookup and forwarding. The device
322 does a longest prefix match (LPM) on FIB entries matching route prefix and
323 forwards the packet to the matching FIB entry's nexthop(s) egress ports.
325 To program the device, the driver has to register a FIB notifier handler
326 using register_fib_notifier. The following events are available:
328 =================== ===================================================
329 FIB_EVENT_ENTRY_ADD used for both adding a new FIB entry to the device,
330 or modifying an existing entry on the device.
331 FIB_EVENT_ENTRY_DEL used for removing a FIB entry
333 FIB_EVENT_RULE_DEL used to propagate FIB rule changes
334 =================== ===================================================
336 FIB_EVENT_ENTRY_ADD and FIB_EVENT_ENTRY_DEL events pass::
338 struct fib_entry_notifier_info {
339 struct fib_notifier_info info; /* must be first */
349 to add/modify/delete IPv4 dst/dest_len prefix on table tb_id. The ``*fi``
350 structure holds details on the route and route's nexthops. ``*dev`` is one
351 of the port netdevs mentioned in the route's next hop list.
353 Routes offloaded to the device are labeled with "offload" in the ip route
357 default via 192.168.0.2 dev eth0
358 11.0.0.0/30 dev sw1p1 proto kernel scope link src 11.0.0.2 offload
359 11.0.0.4/30 via 11.0.0.1 dev sw1p1 proto zebra metric 20 offload
360 11.0.0.8/30 dev sw1p2 proto kernel scope link src 11.0.0.10 offload
361 11.0.0.12/30 via 11.0.0.9 dev sw1p2 proto zebra metric 20 offload
362 12.0.0.2 proto zebra metric 30 offload
363 nexthop via 11.0.0.1 dev sw1p1 weight 1
364 nexthop via 11.0.0.9 dev sw1p2 weight 1
365 12.0.0.3 via 11.0.0.1 dev sw1p1 proto zebra metric 20 offload
366 12.0.0.4 via 11.0.0.9 dev sw1p2 proto zebra metric 20 offload
367 192.168.0.0/24 dev eth0 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.0.15
369 The "offload" flag is set in case at least one device offloads the FIB entry.
371 XXX: add/mod/del IPv6 FIB API
376 The FIB entry's nexthop list contains the nexthop tuple (gateway, dev), but for
377 the switch device to forward the packet with the correct dst mac address, the
378 nexthop gateways must be resolved to the neighbor's mac address. Neighbor mac
379 address discovery comes via the ARP (or ND) process and is available via the
380 arp_tbl neighbor table. To resolve the routes nexthop gateways, the driver
381 should trigger the kernel's neighbor resolution process. See the rocker
382 driver's rocker_port_ipv4_resolve() for an example.
384 The driver can monitor for updates to arp_tbl using the netevent notifier
385 NETEVENT_NEIGH_UPDATE. The device can be programmed with resolved nexthops
386 for the routes as arp_tbl updates. The driver implements ndo_neigh_destroy
387 to know when arp_tbl neighbor entries are purged from the port.