RHEL 7 support
Hi,
I would like to open a discussion about RHEL 7 support in DPDK. How long do we want to support it in new DPDK versions? Can we drop RHEL 7 support starting DPDK 21.11?
If we decide to drop RHEL 7 support, does it mean we can generally use standard C11 atomics?
What other benefits or impacts can you think about?
<snip>
Quoted 6 lines
Hi,
I would like to open a discussion about RHEL 7 support in DPDK. How long do we want to support it in new DPDK versions? Can we drop RHEL 7 support starting DPDK 21.11?
I think the concerns were from Redhat and Intel.
Quoted 3 lines
If we decide to drop RHEL 7 support, does it mean we can generally use standard C11 atomics?
What is the next RHEL version we support officially?
If we adopt C11 atomic APIs, we need to think about windows support too.
Quoted 3 lines
What other benefits or impacts can you think about?
Quoted 10 lines · Honnappa Nagarahalli
<snip>
Quoted 6 lines
Hi,
I would like to open a discussion about RHEL 7 support in DPDK. How long do we want to support it in new DPDK versions? Can we drop RHEL 7 support starting DPDK 21.11?
I think the concerns were from Redhat and Intel.
I think it's fine to drop from a DPDK distro package view. The DPDK package in RHEL7 won't be updated to new main releases anymore.
It's not quite as clear for a user compiling their own DPDK. CentOS7 is in maintenance mode until mid 2024 and will only get security or critical fixes.
You could still have a user on CentOS7 compiling their own DPDK from the latest tarballs. It feels like an unlikely combination but maybe someone knows of a user like that.
As the distro version won't get latest software packages, it seems reasonable that latest DPDK is not supported either, but there would need to be some advance warning.
20.11 LTS will provide bugfix/security that should be ok on CentOS7 until Jan 2023.
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If we decide to drop RHEL 7 support, does it mean we can generally use standard C11 atomics?
What is the next RHEL version we support officially?
RHEL8 is supported.
Quoted 6 lines
If we adopt C11 atomic APIs, we need to think about windows support too.
Quoted 3 lines
What other benefits or impacts can you think about?
Quoted 32 lines · Kevin Traynor
Quoted 10 lines · Honnappa Nagarahalli
<snip>
Quoted 6 lines
Hi,
I would like to open a discussion about RHEL 7 support in DPDK. How long do we want to support it in new DPDK versions? Can we drop RHEL 7 support starting DPDK 21.11?
I think the concerns were from Redhat and Intel.
I think it's fine to drop from a DPDK distro package view. The DPDK package in RHEL7 won't be updated to new main releases anymore.
It's not quite as clear for a user compiling their own DPDK. CentOS7 is in maintenance mode until mid 2024 and will only get security or critical fixes.
You could still have a user on CentOS7 compiling their own DPDK from the latest tarballs. It feels like an unlikely combination but maybe someone knows of a user like that.
As the distro version won't get latest software packages, it seems reasonable that latest DPDK is not supported either, but there would need to be some advance warning.
20.11 LTS will provide bugfix/security that should be ok on CentOS7 until Jan 2023.
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Quoted 13 lines
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If we decide to drop RHEL 7 support, does it mean we can generally use standard C11 atomics?
What is the next RHEL version we support officially?
RHEL8 is supported.
Quoted 6 lines
If we adopt C11 atomic APIs, we need to think about windows support too.
Quoted 3 lines
What other benefits or impacts can you think about?
Are the issues with continuing to support RHEL 7 all related to the default gcc version in RHEL 7 (the structure initialization to {0} issue and lack of <atomic.h> etc. apply to 4.8 but not 4.9+), or are there also lib/kernel issues?
The minimum supported gcc version is already documented to be 4.9+, which seems to rule out RHEL 7 unless a newer version of gcc is used (which is easy to do by installing one of the "software collection" toolset packages, not sure if that is a valid option to suggest).
Quoted 20 lines · Kevin Traynor
Quoted 10 lines · Honnappa Nagarahalli
<snip>
Quoted 6 lines
Hi,
I would like to open a discussion about RHEL 7 support in DPDK. How long do we want to support it in new DPDK versions? Can we drop RHEL 7 support starting DPDK 21.11?
I think the concerns were from Redhat and Intel.
I think it's fine to drop from a DPDK distro package view. The DPDK package in RHEL7 won't be updated to new main releases anymore.
It's not quite as clear for a user compiling their own DPDK. CentOS7 is in maintenance mode until mid 2024 and will only get security or critical fixes.
Quoted 7 lines
You could still have a user on CentOS7 compiling their own DPDK from the latest tarballs. It feels like an unlikely combination but maybe someone knows of a user like that.
As the distro version won't get latest software packages, it seems reasonable that latest DPDK is not supported either, but there would need to be some advance warning.
+1
If RHEL7 and Centos7 are in maintenance mode,
I think it is fair to taper DPDK support as well.
Quoted 18 lines
20.11 LTS will provide bugfix/security that should be ok on CentOS7 until Jan 2023.
Quoted 4 lines
Quoted 3 lines
If we decide to drop RHEL 7 support, does it mean we can generally use standard C11 atomics?
What is the next RHEL version we support officially?
RHEL8 is supported.
Quoted 6 lines
If we adopt C11 atomic APIs, we need to think about windows support too.
Quoted 3 lines
What other benefits or impacts can you think about?
Quoted 8 lines · Honnappa Nagarahalli
<snip>
Quoted 6 lines
Hi,
I would like to open a discussion about RHEL 7 support in DPDK. How long do we want to support it in new DPDK versions? Can we drop RHEL 7 support starting DPDK 21.11?
Quoted 7 lines
I think the concerns were from Redhat and Intel.
Quoted 3 lines
If we decide to drop RHEL 7 support, does it mean we can generally use standard C11 atomics?
What is the next RHEL version we support officially?
If we adopt C11 atomic APIs, we need to think about windows support too.
fwiw i don't think there is an issue with windows support for clang/mingw they implement C11 stdatomic.h
Quoted 5 lines · Thomas Monjalon
Hi,
I would like to open a discussion about RHEL 7 support in DPDK. How long do we want to support it in new DPDK versions? Can we drop RHEL 7 support starting DPDK 21.11?
did this thread/question ever reach conclusion?
Quoted 3 lines
If we decide to drop RHEL 7 support, does it mean we can generally use standard C11 atomics?
this is still desirable from the perspective of the windows port.
Quoted 9 lines · Tyler Retzlaff
Quoted 5 lines · Thomas Monjalon
Hi,
I would like to open a discussion about RHEL 7 support in DPDK. How long do we want to support it in new DPDK versions? Can we drop RHEL 7 support starting DPDK 21.11?
did this thread/question ever reach conclusion?
I asked around a bit and was informed that there are quite a few users who are still using CentOS 7, and still need new DPDK to work on that. The fact of CentOS 8 being EOL'ed at the end of 2021 has probably kept quite a few users on v7 for now.
/Bruce