[ovs-dev] OpenvSwitch DKMS compatibility with Linux 3.11 in 1.11

[Jesse Gross]

On Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 2:56 AM, James Page <james.page at ubuntu.com> wrote:
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> Hi Jesse
>
> On 22/08/13 20:44, Jesse Gross wrote:
>>> Fair enough - the deltas for 3.9 and 3.10 support are quite
>>> small; I
>>>> was struggling with the changes in the 3.11 kernel in the way
>>>> gre is handled; I think the gre module in the kernel is
>>>> registering as the protocol handler before openvswitch, which
>>>> then fails to register is own handler - but I could be wrong!
>> What you're describing is possible and it's true that when OVS
>> directly has the ability to use the in-kernel GRE support it's no
>> longer an issue. However, the same scenario can also happen on all
>> earlier kernels and I don't think it should be any worse with
>> these changes than before.
>
> I hacked on this for a few hours the morning and I still can't get the
> OVS dkms module GRE protocol registration to work on 3.11 - either I'm
> doing something completely wrong OR its just not possible without the
> restructure.

Hmm, is it possible that maybe the kernel GRE handler is now compiled
as part of the kernel instead of as a module?

> Anyway; I'm going to take a slightly different course of action for
> Ubuntu 13.10; I have a DKMS module what now no longer crashes BUT
> can't register GRE on a 3.11 kernel - which supports it natively
> anyway so this feels like less of an issue.
>
> So the advice for Ubuntu 13.10 will be - for GRE use the native kernel
> module; for anything else use the DKMS module.

I agree this should work, although I'm afraid that it might be fairly
confusing to users since oftentimes people don't realize there is a
difference or have the wrong module loaded.