Re: RFC: future of ethtool tunables (Re: [RFC][PATCH 1/2] ethtool: Add BroadRReach Master/Slave PHY tunable)

[Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@gmail.com>]

On 3/25/2020 2:55 PM, Andrew Lunn wrote:
>> What might be useful, on the other hand, would be device specific
>> tunables: an interface allowing device drivers to define a list of
>> tunables and their types for each device. It would be a generalization
>> of private flags. There is, of course, the risk that we could end up
>> with multiple NIC vendors defining the same parameters, each under
>> a different name and with slightly different semantics.
>  
> Hi Michal
> 
> I'm not too happy to let PHY drivers do whatever they want. So far,
> all PHY tunables have been generic. Any T1 PHY can implement control
> of master/slave, and there is no reason for each PHY to do it
> different to any other PHY. Downshift is a generic concept, multiple
> PHYs have implemented it, and they all implement it the same. Only
> Marvell currently supports fast link down, but the API is generic
> enough that other PHYs could implement it, if the hardware supports
> it.
> 
> I don't however mind if it gets a different name, or a different tool,
> etc.

BroadRReach is a standard feature that is available on other PHYs for
instance (Broadcom at least has it too) so defining a common name for
this particular tunable knob here would make sense.

If we are to create vendor/device specific tunables, can we agree on a
namespace to use, something like:

<vendor>:<device>:<parameter name>
-- 
Florian