[ovs-discuss] Some questions about OVS porting

[Mehdi Rashidi]

Hello everybody,

I am totally new to the OVS and OpenFlow and trying to understand them
deeply as I am working on a project which aims to make non-compliant
OpenFlow devices compatible with OpenFlow. i.e. to be controlled by
OpenFlow controller.

I am trying to analyze the OVS as an option for porting it to our devices.
Reading the porting document has risen some question for me.
Q: Say I want to port OVS to a new hardware like EZchip NP-3 platform.
According to the document if I want to take full advantage of hardware I
need to write my own "ofproto-provider".
"ofproto-provider" uses "dpif" library. Now do I need to write a new
library for my  "ofproto-provider" or I can just use the one that is
already in the package? Also do I need to write "dpif-provider" too to feed
the  "ofproto-provider"?

What about the "datapath" in the kernel space? Is it needed to be written
for every porting?

>From the architectural block diagram I get that I need to write
 "ofproto-provider", "dpif", "dpif-provider" and "datapath" if I want to
port OVS to a new hardware but if I want to port it to a software (say make
a VM that acts as OpenFlow proxy that sits between egress/ingress) I need
to write "dpif-provider" and "datapath". Am I right or these are all wrong
assumptions?

Oh I know that I need to write netdev provider :)

Thanks a bunch

Mehdi
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