Re: [PATCH 1/4] net: sfp: add workaround for Realtek RTL8672 and RTL9601C chips

Russell King - ARM Linux admin
2020-12-30T17:06:53Z

On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 05:56:34PM +0100, Pali Rohár wrote:
> This change is really required for those Realtek chips. I thought that
> it is obvious that from *both* addresses 0x50 and 0x51 can be read only
> one byte at the same time. Reading 2 bytes (for be16 value) cannot be
> really done by one i2 transfer, it must be done in two.

Then these modules are even more broken than first throught, and
quite simply it is pointless supporting the diagnostics on them
because we can never read the values in an atomic way.

It's also a violation of the SFF-8472 that _requires_ multi-byte reads
to read these 16 byte values atomically. Reading them with individual
byte reads results in a non-atomic read, and the 16-bit value can not
be trusted to be correct.

That is really not optional, no matter what any manufacturer says - if
they claim the SFP MSAs allows it, they're quite simply talking out of
a donkey's backside and you should dispose of the module in biohazard
packaging. :)

So no, I hadn't understood this from your emails, and as I say above,
if this is the case, then we quite simply disable diagnostics on these
modules since they are _highly_ noncompliant.

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