lkml.org 
[lkml]   [2012]   [Aug]   [23]   [last100]   RSS Feed
Views: [wrap][no wrap]   [headers]  [forward] 
 
Messages in this thread
/
SubjectRE: [PATCH v2] net: add new QCA alx ethernet driver
From
Date
On Thu, 2012-08-23 at 06:35 +0000, Huang, Xiong wrote:
> > This is why we require that portable, sane, interfaces are added to ethtool for
> > driver diagnostics. That way users can perform a task in the same way
> > regardless of what hardware and driver are underneath.
>
> I quite agree you on using ethtool to implement it. we did consider it.
> But ethtool has some limitation, for example, the NIC has built-in OTP (TWSI interface)
> And Flash (External SPI interface), their properties are quite different with EEPROM which
> Ethtool supports.
> To support such memory (OTP/Flash), we need additional input parameters.

You have two reasonable options for this:
1. The ETHTOOL_FLASHDEV command takes a partition ID and filename to
write. The driver is supposed to load the file through the firmware
loader and then rewrite the partition completely (erasing if necessary).
Example: be2net.
2. For a more flexible interface, implement an MTD driver as part of
your net driver. Example: sfc.

> Same situation exists in diagnostic utility. Ethtool only provide two options : offline & online
> That's too gross to locate which part/module of the chip is malfunction. we also need
> more options to detect it.

That's absolute nonsense, you can run as many sub-tests as you want and
provide separate results for each of them.

Ben.

> that's why we finally selected a custom debugfs interface.

--
Ben Hutchings, Staff Engineer, Solarflare
Not speaking for my employer; that's the marketing department's job.
They asked us to note that Solarflare product names are trademarked.



\
 
 \ /
  Last update: 2012-08-24 00:01    [W:0.713 / U:0.428 seconds]
©2003-2020 Jasper Spaans|hosted at Digital Ocean and TransIP|Read the blog|Advertise on this site