PSA Meeting Minutes Aug 1, 2018

Attendees:

Andy Fingerhut (Cisco), Konstantin Weitz (Google), Vlad, Han, Antonin, Calin (Barefoot Networks)
online: James Coole (Cisco), Peng He (Ciena)

Status update and roadmap discussion -- Andy and Calin (30 min)
Idle timeout: https://github.com/p4lang/p4-spec/issues/523 (15 min)
Handling empty groups in ActionSelectors: https://github.com/p4lang/p4-spec/issues/573 (15 min)
Timestamps for INT: https://github.com/p4lang/p4-spec/issues/510 (15 min)
New options for clone sessions: https://github.com/p4lang/p4-spec/issues/621 (15 min)
Direct and indirect actions in a single table entry: https://github.com/p4lang/p4-spec/issues/647 (time permitting)

Spec released in March. Since then, built initial compiler support (50%)
NIC architecture
- we would like the people who are interested in the definition of the architecture to also sign up to build an open source prototype.
- AI: Andy to send out email to the 6 folks who have expressed interest and form a sub-working group.

P4Runtime group has an enum defined
- Vladimir: at the language level makes sense to define an extern
- Antonin: P4Runtime will stick with the enum: None, NotifyControl
  - retrieving the table entry gives back the time in ns since last accessed
- Andy: extern with size, trigger type (time (sec), packets (virtual time)), and resolution
AI: start with a table property (extern without paramters). Vladimir to write up a full extern proposal.

Always have an action that signals an invalid entry (drop packet)
PSA can publish a workaround to always keep a member, and mark action parameters as invalid (port invalid). When a new member comes in, this entry should be removed (so it does not match).
AI: Andy PSA will not be specifying that empty groups are supported, and propose the workaround for portability.

AI: Calin to invite P4 Apps folks to update us on what are their needs and what we should capture

P4Runtime supports cloning to a list of groups (allows repeats)
- can be implemented using cloning to a multicast group
AI: Han to create a PR to extend clone sessions with mcast