linux-drivers/
drivers/net/ethernet/marvell/octeon_ep

Marvell OCTEON PCI Endpoint NIC (CN93/CN98/CN10K)

Host-side network driver for Marvell (formerly Cavium) OCTEON processors operating in PCI endpoint mode, where the OCTEON chip plugs into a server as a SmartNIC or DPU and presents itself as an Ethernet device to the host. Covers the CN93xx, CN98xx, CNF95N, and CN10K families used in cloud, carrier, and enterprise networking gear from roughly 2020 onward.

keep conf=0.88 deploy=medium replacement=none subsystem=net category=networking-ethernet
88%

recommendation

It should stay because the hardware is current Marvell silicon, with OCTEON 10 DPUs and SmartNICs still being sold and shipped to OEMs as of late 2023, and the driver itself is under active upstream maintenance with bug fixes and feature work landing in netdev as recently as early 2026. No other in-tree driver covers these PCI IDs, so removing it would orphan working SmartNIC and DPU deployments.

repository signals

21 files
9,007 source lines
84 commits, 5y
+10,081 / −1,044 lines added / removed, 5y
27 authors, 5y
monthly commits · 2021-04-21 → 2026-04-21 · 84 total · active in 22/61 months
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sources

  1. spinics.net

    Patchwork bot confirms a Jan 2026 octeon_ep fix was applied to netdev/net.git, indicating active upstream maintenance rather than abandonment.

  2. spinics.net

    A Feb 2026 v4 net patch series for octeon_ep shows ongoing feature/bug-fix traffic and maintainer review activity.

  3. marvell.com

    Marvell still markets OCTEON 10 DPUs for current cloud, carrier, enterprise and SmartNIC use cases, supporting that related hardware remains current in 2025/2026.

  4. marvell.com

    Marvell announced OCTEON 10 CN102/CN103 as broadly available to OEMs in December 2023, supporting continued new-product availability in the family.

  5. cateee.net

    LKDDb identifies CONFIG_OCTEON_EP as the Marvell Octeon PCI Endpoint NIC Driver and lists the supported Cavium/Marvell PCI device IDs, matching this directory.

codex reasoning notes (technical)

Shell `rg` and local doc read showed this is the PF PCI endpoint NIC driver (`octeon_ep`) for CN93/CN98/CNF95N/CN10K-class devices, not a helper library; local `git -c safe.directory=... log` showed substantive fixes through 2026-03-03. Web search found the spinics/netdev threads above; they show active Jan-Feb 2026 maintenance and no removal/deprecation discussion surfaced in the lore/spinics searches I ran. Web search also found Marvell product/news pages showing OCTEON 10 DPU hardware still being marketed and broadly available to OEMs, so this is not legacy-only silicon. Deployment is niche infrastructure/SmartNIC/DPU rather than mass-market, so `medium` fits. No natural replacement driver covers the same PF endpoint NIC PCI IDs, so the right recommendation is keep.