ipdk-io
Confused about a line in README_NATIVE.md
One line of instructions in README_NATIVE.md says this:
Note: To skip installing and building dependencies in the future, add a -s flag to the host_install.sh script.
I am not sure, but it sounds like it is suggesting that for the same VM, someone might follow all of these instructions once, then go back and run host_install.sh again later in that same VM, but want to skip some steps.
Is it ever useful in any way to run host_install.sh on the same VM if it has ever been run before? If so, in what scenario would someone actually want to do that?
I'm not sure but it looks like its handy in case code of one of the used upstream repositories or libraries is changed? Then everything is compiled again with the new code?
@jafingerhut That comment, well perhaps not 100% clear, is meant to convey that if you pass -s to host_install.sh, it will not try to recompile all the P4 things again. Let me know if you think it should be adjusted to be made a bit more clear.
I think it is clear that it does that. What isn't clear is: Why would I ever want to run the command with that option? If I've created a VM using these steps and succeeded in running host_install.sh once before for the VM, why would I then ever want to run host_install.sh in that same VM again?
Ah, now I understand. You'd want to run that if you rebooted your VM somehow, as we don't tie in restarting P4-OVS into startup scripts yet. I can push a simple update to make that clear.
I mean, if it is an expert ipdk user option, that is fine with me. I'm thinking that if there were significant changes to IPDK code since the last time I ran these instructions, I would typically just start over again from scratch, rather than try to figure out what subset of commands with different options I need to run to update it.
In general, it seems to get exponentially trickier to clearly document all of these 'partial reinstall' sequences of steps.
Perhaps I should just remove the -s option, as I tend to agree with your comments, and it's not clear it's serving a real purpose given the current reality of where IPDK is at, e.g. you would want to start from scratch each time right now.