Jiri Pirko says:
====================
net: return offloaded stats as default and expose original sw stats
The problem we try to handle is about offloaded forwarded packets
which are not seen by kernel. Let me try to draw it:
port1 port2 (HW stats are counted here)
\ /
\ /
\ /
--(A)---- ASIC --(B)--
|
(C)
|
CPU (SW stats are counted here)
Now we have couple of flows for TX and RX (direction does not matter here):
1) port1->A->ASIC->C->CPU
For this flow, HW and SW stats are equal.
2) port1->A->ASIC->C->CPU->C->ASIC->B->port2
For this flow, HW and SW stats are equal.
3) port1->A->ASIC->B->port2
For this flow, SW stats are 0.
The purpose of this patchset is to provide facility for user to
find out the difference between flows 1+2 and 3. In other words, user
will be able to see the statistics for the slow-path (through kernel).
Also note that HW stats are what someone calls "accumulated" stats.
Every packet counted by SW is also counted by HW. Not the other way around.
As a default the accumulated stats (HW) will be exposed to user
so the userspace apps can react properly.
This patchset add the SW stats (flows 1+2) under offload related stats, so
in the future we can expose other offload related stat in a similar way.
---
v9->v10:
- patch 2/3
- removed unnecessary ()s as pointed out by Nik
v8->v9:
- patch 2/3
- add using of idxattr and prividx
v7->v8:
- patch 2/3
- move helping const from uapi to rtnetlink
- cancel driver xstat nesting if it is empty
v6->v7:
- patch 1/3:
- ndo interface changed to get the wanted stats type as an input.
- change commit message.
- patch 2/3:
- create a nesting for offloaded stat and put SW stats under it.
- change the ndo call to indicate which offload stats we wants.
- change commit message.
- patch 3/3:
- change ndo implementation to match the changes in the previous patches.
- change commit message.
v5->v6:
- patch 2/4 was dropped as requested by Roopa
- patch 1/3:
- comment changed to indicate that default stats are combined stats
- commit massage changed
- patch 2/3: (previously 3/4)
- SW stats return nothing if there is no SW stats ndo
v4->v5:
- updated cover letter
- patch3/4:
- using memcpy directly to copy stats as requested by DaveM
v3->v4:
- patch1/4:
- fixed "return ()" pointed out by EricD
- patch2/4:
- fixed if_nlmsg_size as pointed out by EricD
v2->v3:
- patch1/4:
- added dev_have_sw_stats helper
- patch2/4:
- avoided memcpy as requested by DaveM
- patch3/4:
- use new dev_have_sw_stats helper
v1->v2:
- patch3/4:
- fixed NULL initialization
====================
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>