.. BSD LICENSE Copyright 2016 6WIND S.A. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. * Neither the name of 6WIND S.A. nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. Overview of Networking Drivers ============================== The networking drivers may be classified in two categories: - physical for real devices - virtual for emulated devices Some physical devices may be shaped through a virtual layer as for SR-IOV. The interface seen in the virtual environment is a VF (Virtual Function). The ethdev layer exposes an API to use the networking functions of these devices. The bottom half part of ethdev is implemented by the drivers. Thus some features may not be implemented. There are more differences between drivers regarding some internal properties, portability or even documentation availability. Most of these differences are summarized below. .. _table_net_pmd_features: .. raw:: html .. include:: overview_table.txt .. Note:: Features marked with "P" are partially supported. Refer to the appropriate NIC guide in the following sections for details.