Re: ethtool enhancement proposal

[Ben Hutchings <bhutchings@solarflare.com>]

On Wed, 2012-04-18 at 13:05 +0000, Yaniv Rosner wrote:
> Hi Ben,
> I want to propose new enhancement for the ethtool to display the
> content of attached SFP+ module.
> The format should be similar to the "-e" option, and optionally parse
> it's content based on SFF-8472.
> Please let me know what you think.

Stuart Hodgson is working on something like this, though parsing is
unconditional.  I thought he had already posted a patch to netdev, but I
can't see it in the archive.

We discussed the different module formats and came to the conclusion
that:

- Most module types in current use have a 256-byte EEPROM, format
  defined in SFF-8079.
- SFF-8472 specifies two 256-byte EEPROMs/register files, the first
  identical to SFF-8079 and the second carrying diagnostic information.
- The ETHTOOL_GMODULE{EEPROM,INFO} commands should effectively
  concatenate the two.

The current Solarflare controller firmware only provides access to the
SFF-8079 EEPROM on SFP+ modules, so Stuart's code does not cover the
additional diagnostic information.  But that should be easy to add on
top.

Ben.

-- 
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.