From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Ben Hutchings Subject: RE: [PATCH v2] net: add new QCA alx ethernet driver Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2012 22:09:02 +0100 Message-ID: <1345756142.2579.16.camel@bwh-desktop.uk.solarflarecom.com> References: <1345480949-14800-1-git-send-email-cjren@qca.qualcomm.com> <20120822.225700.714020017287504609.davem@davemloft.net> <157393863283F442885425D2C45428562A4F5169@nasanexd02f.na.qualcomm.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: David Miller , "Ren, Cloud" , "netdev@vger.kernel.org" , "linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" , qca-linux-team , nic-devel , "Rodriguez, Luis" To: "Huang, Xiong" Return-path: In-Reply-To: <157393863283F442885425D2C45428562A4F5169@nasanexd02f.na.qualcomm.com> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org On Thu, 2012-08-23 at 06:35 +0000, Huang, Xiong wrote: > > This is why we require that portable, sane, interfaces are added to ethtool for > > driver diagnostics. That way users can perform a task in the same way > > regardless of what hardware and driver are underneath. > > I quite agree you on using ethtool to implement it. we did consider it. > But ethtool has some limitation, for example, the NIC has built-in OTP (TWSI interface) > And Flash (External SPI interface), their properties are quite different with EEPROM which > Ethtool supports. > To support such memory (OTP/Flash), we need additional input parameters. You have two reasonable options for this: 1. The ETHTOOL_FLASHDEV command takes a partition ID and filename to write. The driver is supposed to load the file through the firmware loader and then rewrite the partition completely (erasing if necessary). Example: be2net. 2. For a more flexible interface, implement an MTD driver as part of your net driver. Example: sfc. > Same situation exists in diagnostic utility. Ethtool only provide two options : offline & online > That's too gross to locate which part/module of the chip is malfunction. we also need > more options to detect it. That's absolute nonsense, you can run as many sub-tests as you want and provide separate results for each of them. Ben. > that's why we finally selected a custom debugfs interface. -- 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.