RE: [PATCH 2/4 v2] PCI: support ARI capability

[Zhao, Yu]

On Monday, September 01, 2008 11:50 PM, Roland Dreier wrote:
>To: Alex Chiang
>Cc: Zhao, Yu; Jesse Barnes; linux-pci@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Randy Dunlap; Greg KH;
>Grant Grundler; Matthew Wilcox; linux-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx;
>kvm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; virtualization@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx;
>xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/4 v2] PCI: support ARI capability
>
> > > +config PCI_ARI
> > > +	bool "PCI ARI support"
> > > +	depends on PCI
> > > +	default n
> > > +	help
> > > +	  This enables PCI Alternative Routing-ID Interpretation.
> >
> > This Kconfig help text is a little weak. Why not include the text
> > you've already written here:
> >
> > 	Support Alternative Routing-ID Interpretation (ARI), which
> > 	increases the number of functions that can be supported by a PCIe
> > 	endpoint. ARI is required by SR-IOV.
>
>I agree with this improvement to the help text.  But a further question
>is whether ARI even merits its own user-visible config option.  Is it
>worth having yet another choice for users?  When would someone want ARI
>but not SR-IOV?

ARI is an independent PCI Express extended capability. Multi-function devices supporting this capability may use it to track dependency between different functions and assign function group numbers to these functions.

Another reason to keep this separated with SR-IOV is that after ARI is enabled, PCI Express Endpoint may have non-zero slot number (device number), which is different from traditional PCI Express Endpoint.

Thanks.

>
> - R.

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