[OmniOS-discuss] Say hello to very-larval i40e...

[Dan McDonald]

Just so y'all know, this is the very earliest intro to the i40e driver (Intel 40Gig Ethernet, aka. Fortville, aka. the XL710 board).  There are LOTS of KEBE comments (my work-in-progress markers) with more to come, there are TONS of missing pieces of functionality, and I haven't even tried attaching it to a real piece of hardware yet.

I *do* have real hardware, however, thanks to Intel - a pair of XL710s that I will connect back-to-back for testing.  This project started with the "ixl" driver from FreeBSD common-from-Intel code, and I will be attempting to wrap a GLDv3 driver around this common code, much like ixgbe(7D) is.  In fact, the initial directions I'm going are largely derived from ixgbe(7D).  I have the very large programmer's reference manual (which you can download from Intel for free) up for when I get that far, as well as the ixl code from FreeBSD.

I figure developing this in the open would help keep me honest, as well as allow anyone in the community to inspect, or even help, with things.  (I've Bcc:ed the very helpful contact from Intel, so Intel knows things as well.)

Here's the very larval webrev:

	http://kebe.com/~danmcd/webrevs/i40e/

I could turn this into an actual git repo if I wanted, and there's enough interest.  Currently I'm working in a child of illumos-omnios, but there's nothing here that won't just drop into illumos-gate, or your favorite other child of illumos-gate (modulo perhaps packaging, but the .mf is already in place).

This won't happen overnight - but I hope it will happen relatively quickly.

FYI,
Dan