Re: [PATCH net-next 4/4] net: Add Open vSwitch kernel components.

On Fri, 2011-11-18 at 15:12 -0800, Jesse Gross wrote:
> Open vSwitch is a multilayer Ethernet switch targeted at virtualized
> environments.  In addition to supporting a variety of features
> expected in a traditional hardware switch, it enables fine-grained
> programmatic extension and flow-based control of the network.
> This control is useful in a wide variety of applications but is
> particularly important in multi-server virtualization deployments,
> which are often characterized by highly dynamic endpoints and the need
> to maintain logical abstractions for multiple tenants.
> 
> The Open vSwitch datapath provides an in-kernel fast path for packet
> forwarding.  It is complemented by a userspace daemon, ovs-vswitchd,
> which is able to accept configuration from a variety of sources and
> translate it into packet processing rules.
> 

So the last time we had a discussion on this on the list, we seemed
to agree that you could use the tc classifier-action infrastructure.
For simplicity, we agreed you will need to do a speacilized classifier.
You may need to add a few more actions. What happened since?

You are replicating a lot of code and semantic that exist (not just on
classifier actions). You could improve the exisiting infrastructure
instead. We are eventually going to have two competing interfaces as 
a result. You may only need 1 or 2 different classification schemes
today and try to justify you need it for simplicity - but in a few
months you'll need one more then another action and another and 
you'll keep adding to your infrastructure.

cheers,
jamal