[ovs-dev] OVS dpdk-latest branch & UNH testing

Ian Stokes ian.stokes at intel.com
Thu Apr 25 10:21:44 UTC 2019


Hi All,

At last weeks OVS community call [1] the topic of the UNH DPDK lab 
testing OVS was raised, specifically the issue of the target branches 
being used so I wanted to kick off a wider discussion on the ML.

Currently the UNH Lab tests target the DPDK master branch and the 
dpdk-latest branch in the OVS repo.

To date, we've maintained the dpdk-latest branch by merging OVS master 
every few weeks and applying any required patches to ensure compilation 
& existing feature functionality with DPDK master branch at that time.

A concern from UNH is that this introduces 2 moving targets i.e. 
breakages could be introduced either by commits on DPDK master or a 
commit merged from OVS master into dpdk-latest.

 From a UNH perspective, it was suggested that it would be easier if the 
dpdk-latest branch did not have regular  merges from OVS master. Only 
patches that enable DPDK master compilation and functionality would be 
committed to dpdk-latest.

This does reduce the scope of introducing breakage as now breakage 
should only occur due to a change in DPDK master.

However the advantage of keeping dpdk-latest in sync with both DPDK 
master and OVS master is that there is better visibility WRT to changes 
required in OVS master when it eventually transitions to the latest DPDK 
LTS release. IMO, this process has worked well for the OVS community 
since being introduced.

I would prefer to keep the current process for dpdk-latest, my thinking 
here is that before pushing the latest merge of OVS master to 
dpdk-latest it should undergo validation testing anyhow (travis, unit 
tests, basic p2p  & pvp). If these are passing before the changes are 
pushed then I would think it there would be minimal danger at least WRT 
OVS code base changes breaking the UNH tests.

Another proposal suggested was that another branch could be introduced 
in the OVS repo specifically to enable UNH OVS DPDK testing. I'm not a 
fan of this however, I think it's adding overhead to avoid an issue (OVS 
master merge causing dpdk-latest breakage) that should be addressed 
regardless if it occurs.

What are peoples thoughts?

Ian

[1] https://mail.openvswitch.org/pipermail/ovs-dev/2019-April/358276.html



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