RDE Enablement

[Garrett, Mike (HPE Server Firmware)]

Hello Deepak.  As an update, we are just assembling a statically linked C library that can do generic BEJ/JSON encode/decode with input dictionaries and some unit tests.  I'm thinking that we could put this in its own repo and then build out the PLDM type 6 handling in the PLDM code as you suggest.

Feedback welcome,

Mike

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Deepak Kodihalli <deepak.kodihalli.83 at gmail.com>
> Sent: Friday, June 11, 2021 1:54 AM
> To: Garrett, Mike (HPE Server Firmware) <mike.garrett at hpe.com>
> Cc: Ed Tanous <edtanous at google.com>; OpenBMC Maillist
> <openbmc at lists.ozlabs.org>
> Subject: Re: RDE Enablement
> 
> Hi Mike,
> 
> On Fri, Jun 11, 2021 at 2:29 AM Garrett, Mike (HPE Server Firmware)
> <mike.garrett at hpe.com> wrote:
> >
> > Great!  We are interested in RDE becoming ubiquitous on adapter cards so
> that Redfish configuration of storage and networking doesn't have to include
> adapter specific code.  A good success metric would be the ability to create a
> storage logical volume using nothing but standard Redfish operations.  In
> pursuit of this, a solid open source OpenBMC implementation seems like a
> good way to put RDE on the right footing.
> >
> > My initial thoughts would be to build an RDE systemd service on top of the
> existing pldmd service and have an upper interface into the standard dbus
> interfaces for inventory, status, and configuration.  However, I suspect
> there's some additional dbus work needed to join RDE to bmcweb because
> there will be a need to dynamically change the Redfish model and support
> things like Actions.  A requirement for this to work would be the ability to
> discover PLDM devices and assign IDs (MCTP EID) in order to interrogate
> them for RDE capabilities.  It is unclear to me that the current PLDM and
> MCTP code handles discovery or if it assumes devices.
> 
> The current PLDM stack upstream is mostly for the BMC as a PLDM
> responder, but there is work underway to make the BMC act as a PLDM
> requester, discover devices, etc. You should start seeing patches for these
> shortly (there's already
> INVALID URI REMOVED
> project.xyz/c/openbmc/pldm/*/43465__;Kw!!NpxR!xcRomaR8B_1cmsXdTkj
> qkA4_KrGm73QRD8NxGyIU0Tg6UF95qPKk8q2mfV_PXvg$ ).
> 
> What is the reasoning behind having RDE as a separate service as opposed to
> being part of the PLDM service? I think one of the key aspects would be the
> Redfish to RDE bridge (and vice versa). We're also interested in RDE. I'd be
> happy to discuss/review further on the ML or on Gerrit (if you're planning to
> put up a design doc).
> 
> Thanks,
> Deepak