ABI and API Deprecation
=======================
-See the :doc:`guidelines document for details of the ABI policy </contributing/versioning>`.
-API and ABI deprecation notices are to be posted here.
-
+See the guidelines document for details of the :doc:`ABI policy
+<../contributing/abi_policy>`. API and ABI deprecation notices are to be posted
+here.
Deprecation Notices
-------------------
* meson: The minimum supported version of meson for configuring and building
DPDK will be increased to v0.47.1 (from 0.41) from DPDK 19.05 onwards. For
those users with a version earlier than 0.47.1, an updated copy of meson
- can be got using the ``pip``, or ``pip3``, tool for downloading python
- packages.
+ can be got using the ``pip3`` tool (or ``python3 -m pip``) for downloading
+ python packages.
* kvargs: The function ``rte_kvargs_process`` will get a new parameter
for returning key match count. It will ease handling of no-match case.
+* eal: To be more inclusive in choice of naming, the DPDK project
+ will replace uses of master/slave in the API's and command line arguments.
+
+ References to master/slave in relation to lcore will be renamed
+ to initial/worker. The function ``rte_get_master_lcore()``
+ will be renamed to ``rte_get_initial_lcore()``.
+ For the 20.11 release, both names will be present and the
+ old function will be marked with the deprecated tag.
+ The old function will be removed in a future version.
+
+ The iterator for worker lcores will also change:
+ ``RTE_LCORE_FOREACH_SLAVE`` will be replaced with
+ ``RTE_LCORE_FOREACH_WORKER``.
+
+ The ``master-lcore`` argument to testpmd will be replaced
+ with ``initial-lcore``. The old ``master-lcore`` argument
+ will produce a runtime notification in 20.11 release, and
+ be removed completely in a future release.
+
+* eal: The terms blacklist and whitelist to describe devices used
+ by DPDK will be replaced in the 20.11 relase.
+ This will apply to command line arguments as well as macros.
+
+ The macro ``RTE_DEV_BLACKLISTED`` will be replaced with ``RTE_DEV_EXCLUDED``
+ and ``RTE_DEV_WHITELISTED`` will be replaced with ``RTE_DEV_INCLUDED``
+ ``RTE_BUS_SCAN_BLACKLIST`` and ``RTE_BUS_SCAN_WHITELIST`` will be
+ replaced with ``RTE_BUS_SCAN_EXCLUDED`` and ``RTE_BUS_SCAN_INCLUDED``
+ respectively. Likewise ``RTE_DEVTYPE_BLACKLISTED_PCI`` and
+ ``RTE_DEVTYPE_WHITELISTED_PCI`` will be replaced with
+ ``RTE_DEVTYPE_EXCLUDED`` and ``RTE_DEVTYPE_INCLUDED``.
+
+ The old macros will be marked as deprecated in 20.11 and any
+ usage will cause a compile warning. They will be removed in
+ a future release.
+
+ The command line arguments to ``rte_eal_init`` will change from
+ ``-b, --pci-blacklist`` to ``-x, --exclude`` and
+ ``-w, --pci-whitelist`` to ``-i, --include``.
+ The old command line arguments will continue to be accepted in 20.11
+ but will cause a runtime warning message. The old arguments will
+ be removed in a future release.
+
* eal: The function ``rte_eal_remote_launch`` will return new error codes
after read or write error on the pipe, instead of calling ``rte_panic``.
-* eal: both declaring and identifying devices will be streamlined in v18.11.
- New functions will appear to query a specific port from buses, classes of
- device and device drivers. Device declaration will be made coherent with the
- new scheme of device identification.
- As such, ``rte_devargs`` device representation will change.
-
- - The enum ``rte_devtype`` was used to identify a bus and will disappear.
- - Functions previously deprecated will change or disappear:
-
- + ``rte_eal_devargs_type_count``
-
-* vfio: removal of ``rte_vfio_dma_map`` and ``rte_vfio_dma_unmap`` APIs which
- have been replaced with ``rte_dev_dma_map`` and ``rte_dev_dma_unmap``
- functions. The due date for the removal targets DPDK 20.02.
-
-* dpaa2: removal of ``rte_dpaa2_memsegs`` structure which has been replaced
- by a pa-va search library. This structure was earlier being used for holding
- memory segments used by dpaa2 driver for faster pa->va translation. This
- structure would be made internal (or removed if all dependencies are cleared)
- in future releases.
-
-* net: The Ethernet address and header definitions will change
- attributes. The Ethernet address struct will no longer be marked as
- packed since the packed attribute is meaningless on a byte
- array. The Ethernet header will be marked as aligned on a 2-byte
- boundary and will no longer have the packed attribute. This allows
- for efficient access on CPU architectures where unaligned access is
- expensive. These changes should not impact normal usage because drivers
- naturally align the Ethernet header on receive and all known
- encapsulations preserve the alignment of the header.
-
-* ethdev: The function ``rte_eth_dev_count`` will be removed in DPDK 20.02.
- It is replaced by the function ``rte_eth_dev_count_avail``.
- If the intent is to iterate over ports, ``RTE_ETH_FOREACH_*`` macros
- are better port iterators.
+* rte_atomicNN_xxx: These APIs do not take memory order parameter. This does
+ not allow for writing optimized code for all the CPU architectures supported
+ in DPDK. DPDK will adopt C11 atomic operations semantics and provide wrappers
+ using C11 atomic built-ins. These wrappers must be used for patches that
+ need to be merged in 20.08 onwards. This change will not introduce any
+ performance degradation.
+
+* rte_smp_*mb: These APIs provide full barrier functionality. However, many
+ use cases do not require full barriers. To support such use cases, DPDK will
+ adopt C11 barrier semantics and provide wrappers using C11 atomic built-ins.
+ These wrappers must be used for patches that need to be merged in 20.08
+ onwards. This change will not introduce any performance degradation.
+
+* lib: will fix extending some enum/define breaking the ABI. There are multiple
+ samples in DPDK that enum/define terminated with a ``.*MAX.*`` value which is
+ used by iterators, and arrays holding these values are sized with this
+ ``.*MAX.*`` value. So extending this enum/define increases the ``.*MAX.*``
+ value which increases the size of the array and depending on how/where the
+ array is used this may break the ABI.
+ ``RTE_ETH_FLOW_MAX`` is one sample of the mentioned case, adding a new flow
+ type will break the ABI because of ``flex_mask[RTE_ETH_FLOW_MAX]`` array
+ usage in following public struct hierarchy:
+ ``rte_eth_fdir_flex_conf -> rte_fdir_conf -> rte_eth_conf (in the middle)``.
+ Need to identify this kind of usages and fix in 20.11, otherwise this blocks
+ us extending existing enum/define.
+ One solution can be using a fixed size array instead of ``.*MAX.*`` value.
+
+* mbuf: Some fields will be converted to dynamic API in DPDK 20.11
+ in order to reserve more space for the dynamic fields, as explained in
+ `this presentation <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttl6MlhmzWY>`_.
+ The following static fields will be moved as dynamic:
+
+ - ``timestamp``
+ - ``userdata`` / ``udata64``
+ - ``seqn``
+
+ As a consequence, the layout of the ``struct rte_mbuf`` will be re-arranged,
+ avoiding impact on vectorized implementation of the driver datapaths,
+ while evaluating performance gains of a better use of the first cache line.
+
* ethdev: the legacy filter API, including
``rte_eth_dev_filter_supported()``, ``rte_eth_dev_filter_ctrl()`` as well
as filter types MACVLAN, ETHERTYPE, FLEXIBLE, SYN, NTUPLE, TUNNEL, FDIR,
HASH and L2_TUNNEL, is superseded by the generic flow API (rte_flow) in
PMDs that implement the latter.
- Target release for removal of the legacy API will be defined once most
- PMDs have switched to rte_flow.
+ The legacy API will be removed in DPDK 20.11.
+
+* ethdev: The flow director API, including ``rte_eth_conf.fdir_conf`` field,
+ and the related structures (``rte_fdir_*`` and ``rte_eth_fdir_*``),
+ will be removed in DPDK 20.11.
+
+* ethdev: The legacy L2 tunnel filtering API is deprecated as the rest of
+ the legacy filtering API.
+ The functions ``rte_eth_dev_l2_tunnel_eth_type_conf`` and
+ ``rte_eth_dev_l2_tunnel_offload_set`` which were not marked as deprecated,
+ will be removed in DPDK 20.11.
* ethdev: Update API functions returning ``void`` to return ``int`` with
negative errno values to indicate various error conditions (e.g.
- ``rte_eth_dev_stop``
- ``rte_eth_dev_close``
-* ethdev: New offload flags ``DEV_RX_OFFLOAD_RSS_HASH`` and
- ``DEV_RX_OFFLOAD_FLOW_MARK`` will be added in 19.11.
+* ethdev: New offload flags ``DEV_RX_OFFLOAD_FLOW_MARK`` will be added in 19.11.
This will allow application to enable or disable PMDs from updating
- ``rte_mbuf::hash::rss`` and ``rte_mbuf::hash::fdir`` respectively.
+ ``rte_mbuf::hash::fdir``.
This scheme will allow PMDs to avoid writes to ``rte_mbuf`` fields on Rx and
thereby improve Rx performance if application wishes do so.
- In 19.11 PMDs will still update the fields even when the offloads are not
+ In 19.11 PMDs will still update the field even when the offload is not
enabled.
-* ethdev: New function ``rte_eth_dev_set_supported_ptypes`` will be added in
- 19.11.
- This will allow application to request PMD to set specific ptypes defined
- through ``rte_eth_dev_set_supported_ptypes`` in ``rte_mbuf::packet_type``.
- If application doesn't want any ptype information it can call
- ``rte_eth_dev_set_supported_ptypes(ethdev_id, RTE_PTYPE_UNKNOWN)`` and PMD
- will set ``rte_mbuf::packet_type`` to ``0``.
- If application doesn't call ``rte_eth_dev_set_supported_ptypes`` PMD can
- return ``rte_mbuf::packet_type`` with ``rte_eth_dev_get_supported_ptypes``.
- If application is interested only in L2/L3 layer, it can inform the PMD
- to update ``rte_mbuf::packet_type`` with L2/L3 ptype by calling
- ``rte_eth_dev_set_supported_ptypes(ethdev_id, RTE_PTYPE_L2_MASK | RTE_PTYPE_L3_MASK)``.
- This scheme will allow PMDs to avoid lookup to internal ptype table on Rx and
- thereby improve Rx performance if application wishes do so.
-
-* ethdev: New 32-bit fields may be added for maximum LRO session size, in
- struct ``rte_eth_dev_info`` for the port capability and in struct
- ``rte_eth_rxmode`` for the port configuration.
+* ethdev: Add new fields to ``rte_eth_rxconf`` to configure the receiving
+ queues to split ingress packets into multiple segments according to the
+ specified lengths into the buffers allocated from the specified
+ memory pools. The backward compatibility to existing API is preserved.
+
+* ethdev: ``rx_descriptor_done`` dev_ops and ``rte_eth_rx_descriptor_done``
+ will be removed in 21.11.
+ Existing ``rte_eth_rx_descriptor_status`` and ``rte_eth_tx_descriptor_status``
+ APIs can be used as replacement.
+
+* ethdev: The port mirroring API can be replaced with a more fine grain flow API.
+ The structs ``rte_eth_mirror_conf``, ``rte_eth_vlan_mirror`` and the functions
+ ``rte_eth_mirror_rule_set``, ``rte_eth_mirror_rule_reset`` will be marked
+ as deprecated in DPDK 20.11, along with the associated macros ``ETH_MIRROR_*``.
+ This API will be fully removed in DPDK 21.11.
+
+* ethdev: The ``struct rte_flow_item_eth`` and ``struct rte_flow_item_vlan``
+ structs will be modified, to include an additional value, indicating existence
+ or absence of a VLAN header following the current header, as proposed in RFC
+ https://mails.dpdk.org/archives/dev/2020-August/177536.html.
+
+* security: The API ``rte_security_session_create`` takes only single mempool
+ for session and session private data. So the application need to create
+ mempool for twice the number of sessions needed and will also lead to
+ wastage of memory as session private data need more memory compared to session.
+ Hence the API will be modified to take two mempool pointers - one for session
+ and one for private data.
* cryptodev: support for using IV with all sizes is added, J0 still can
be used but only when IV length in following structs ``rte_crypto_auth_xform``,
to set new power environment if power environment was already initialized.
In this case the function will return -1 unless the environment is unset first
(using ``rte_power_unset_env``). Other function usage scenarios will not change.
+
+* cmdline: ``cmdline`` structure will be made opaque to hide platform-specific
+ content. On Linux and FreeBSD, supported prior to DPDK 20.11,
+ original structure will be kept until DPDK 21.11.
+
+* dpdk-setup.sh: This old script relies on deprecated stuff, and especially
+ ``make``. Given environments are too much variables for such a simple script,
+ it will be removed in DPDK 20.11.
+ Some useful parts may be converted into specific scripts.