Messages in this thread | | | Subject | RE: [PATCH v2] net: add new QCA alx ethernet driver | From | Ben Hutchings <> | Date | Thu, 23 Aug 2012 22:09:02 +0100 |
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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.
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