From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Qing Huang Subject: Re: [PATCH] net/mlx4_core: print firmware version during driver loading Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2018 15:36:46 -0700 Message-ID: <1d4fe3c6-13aa-12a4-8da4-a83374b89fbf@oracle.com> References: <20180914181718.GD3811@lunn.ch> <20180914.141406.2211638662965115243.davem@davemloft.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: andrew@lunn.ch, leon@kernel.org, netdev@vger.kernel.org, linux-rdma@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, tariqt@mellanox.com To: David Miller Return-path: In-Reply-To: <20180914.141406.2211638662965115243.davem@davemloft.net> Content-Language: en-US Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org On 9/14/2018 2:14 PM, David Miller wrote: > From: Qing Huang > Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2018 11:33:40 -0700 > >> On 9/14/2018 11:17 AM, Andrew Lunn wrote: >>> On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 10:15:48AM -0700, Qing Huang wrote: >>>> The FW version is actually a very crucial piece of information and >>>> only >>>> printed once here >>>> when the driver is loaded. People tend to get confused when switching >>>> multiple FW files >>>> back and forth without running separate utility tools, especially at >>>> customer sites. >>>> IMHO, this information is very useful and only takes up very little >>>> log file >>>> space. :-) >>> Why not use ethtool -i ? >>> >>> $ sudo ethtool -i eth0 >>> driver: r8169 >>> version: 2.3LK-NAPI >>> firmware-version: rtl8168g-2_0.0.1 02/06/13 >>> >>> Andrew >> Sure. You can also use ibstat or ibv_devinfo tool if they are >> installed. But it's not very >> convenient in some cases. >> >> E.g. >> A customer upgrades FW on HCAs and encounters issues. During triage, >> it's much easier >> to study customer uploaded log files when remotely testing different >> FW files. > Not a valid argument. You can print the ethtool output from initramfs > if necessary for triage. > > I still stand by the fact that ethtool is the only fully reliable way > to obtain this information, the kernel log is not. This is more for Infiniband mode which depends more on features and functionalities provided in firmware and get much more frequent FW bug fixes than typical Ethernet devices. This is not meant to replace other ways of getting the information, more like an enhancement for checking log history. This can provide valuable information when tracing through system log history to discover what happened with a specific HCA drv ver and fw ver combination in the past. Regards, Qing