Re: [PATCH v6 2/7] iwlwifi: mei: add the driver to allow cooperation with CSME

[Kalle Valo <kvalo@codeaurora.org>]

Emmanuel Grumbach <egrumbach@gmail.com> writes:

> On Wed, Nov 10, 2021 at 11:40 AM Kalle Valo <kvalo@codeaurora.org> wrote:
>>
>> Emmanuel Grumbach <egrumbach@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>> >> So if I'm understanding correctly, enabling CONFIG_IWLMEI will break
>> >> existing iwlwifi setups? Or am I missing something?
>> >
>> > Ok, I'll share more details.
>> > The coexistence between iwlwifi and CSME has never really been taken care
>> > of. CSME is a feature meant for enterprise and those systems typically run
>> > Windows which is why the Windows driver has had this feature for years
>> > but not Linux.
>> > iwlmei will not do anything if you don't have CSME configured to use the
>> > WLAN device. Someone needs to actively configure CSME to use WLAN for
>> > this to happen. Very few systems have this configuration.
>>
>> So in a case when CSME/AMT WLAN (or whatever the feature under
>> discussion is called) is disabled in the BIOS and CONFIG_IWLMEI is
>> enabled in the kernel build, iwlwifi will work as before? This is the
>> most important part for me, we must not break people's network access
>> when they upgrade the kernel.
>
> Yes.

Very good, this is most important for me.

>> > The only way to prevent this situation would be to know what device
>> > the user has from iwlmei in the mei bus enumeration but this is
>> > unfortunately not possible.
>> >
>> > I hope that made things clearer. I know all this is confusing, many
>> > pieces of details that I hoped I wouldn't have to bore you with :)
>>
>> It would have been a lot easier and faster to mention all this in the
>> commit logs from the beginning. Dumping me patches without commit logs
>> and no clear explanation is not really building confidence for me.
>>
>
> I understand. There are loads of details and I didn't really want to bother you
> with all of them, I guess I now know that you are the type of person who want
> the details and I'll be clearer the next time.

It's really comes down to trusting the patches, if I don't even
understand what the patches do I will have a hard time trusting them.

> Practically speaking, I owe you a v8 with the WARNING I mentioned plus
> the bugfix I talked about.
>
> Do you want it now or you want me to wait for more comments?

I'm not planning to review v7 anymore, so please do submit v8.

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