Re: [GIT PULL] Please pull fwctl subsystem changes

Jakub Kicinski
2025-03-26T17:13:13Z

On Mon, 24 Mar 2025 12:13:57 -0300 Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> fwctl is a new subsystem intended to bring some common rules and order to
> the growing pattern of exposing a secure FW interface directly to
> userspace. Unlike existing places like RDMA/DRM/VFIO/uacce that are
> exposing a device for datapath operations fwctl is focused on debugging,
> configuration and provisioning of the device. It will not have the
> necessary features like interrupt delivery to support a datapath.
>
> This concept is similar to the long standing practice in the "HW" RAID
> space of having a device specific misc device to manage the RAID
> controller FW. fwctl generalizes this notion of a companion debug and
> management interface that goes along with a dataplane implemented in an
> appropriate subsystem.

This breaks netdev's long standing policy against exposing proprietary
interfaces (proprietary user space <> proprietary FW). I've been asking
all this time for the interface to be disabled if the device is used
purely as a netdev. Hopefully retaining the benefits of community
standards for majority of users who only use netdev. This has not been
done.