[Ksummit-discuss] [TOPIC] userspace infrastructure services

Stephen Hemminger stephen at networkplumber.org
Wed Aug 12 18:15:52 UTC 2015


I expected someone else to bring this topic up...

One thing that is happening is that there is lots of activity in moving core features
of the kernel into userspace (networking, storage, security). I don't want to get into
an argument over whether that is good or bad; but the problem from the kernel
point of view is that the existing API's are getting stretched to the boundary.

The area I am most familiar with is the DPDK which has to have its own UIO drivers
to work in all environments (get device into userspace). And then has to have its
own drivers to simulate network device (put device back into kernel).  This leads
to unmanageable ABI and development technical debt. I have heard that same thing
is planned for storage as well.

The question is should the kernel accommodate this by absorbing/integrating/fixing
this; or just let them suffer?


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