Networking Overview
The different switch SoCs have different hardware features, and the software provided with the switch may implement a subset of these features.
Typically the support for a network feature is added in a BSP Release and then work will begin to try to get the same feature into the upstream Linux Kernel.
1. BSP Kernel Networking Overview
Here is an overview of when network features were provided in a BSP Release for the different platforms:
| Feature | LAN966x Support | Sparx5 Support | LAN969x Support |
|---|---|---|---|
SwitchDev Driver |
2023.03 |
2022.03 |
2023.09 |
2023.03 |
2022.06 |
2023.09 |
|
2023.03 |
2022.09 |
2023.09 |
|
2023.03 |
|||
2023.03 |
|||
2023.03 |
2022.03 |
2023.09 |
|
2023.03 |
|||
2023.03 |
2022.06 |
2023.09 |
|
2023.03 |
2022.09 |
2023.09 |
|
2023.03 |
2022.12 |
2023.09 |
|
2023.03 |
2022.09 |
2023.09 |
|
2023.03 |
2022.09 |
2023.09 |
|
2023.03 |
2022.06 |
2023.09 |
|
2023.03 |
2022.09 |
2023.09 |
|
2023.03 |
2022.09 |
2023.09 |
|
2023.03 |
2022.03 |
2023.09 |
|
2023.03 |
2023.12 |
2023.12 |
|
2023.03 |
2023.03 |
2023.09 |
|
2023.03 |
|||
2023.03 |
|||
2023.03 |
|||
2023.03 |
2022.03 |
2023.09 |
|
2024.06 |
2024.06 |
2. Upstream Kernel Networking Overview
Here is an overview of when network features were provided in a Linux LTS release for the different platforms:
| Feature | LAN966x Support | Sparx5 Support | LAN969x Support |
|---|---|---|---|
SwitchDev Driver |
v6.1 |
v5.15 |
|
v6.6 |
v6.6 |
||
v6.1 |
|||
v6.1 |
|||
v6.1 |
|||
v6.1 |
v5.15 |
||
v6.1 |
|||
v6.6 |
v6.6 |
||
v6.1 |
|||
v6.6 |
|||
v6.1 |
|||
v6.1 |
|||
v6.1 |
|||
v6.1 |
|||
v6.1 |
v5.15 |
||
v6.6 |
v6.6 |
||
v6.6 |
|||
v6.1 |
v6.1 |
||
This information is obtained from: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git
Some network features depend on a userspace tool that uses a proprietary Netlink interface for communication with the kernel driver.
This means that the particular network feature cannot be accepted upstream, until the tool (or an equivalent) is available for use in the upstream kernel.