Re: [patch net-next-2.6 1/2] net: allow to change carrier via sysfs

[Jiri Pirko <jpirko@redhat.com>]

Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 10:12:17PM CEST, bhutchings@solarflare.com wrote:
>On Wed, 2011-08-31 at 22:03 +0200, Nicolas de Pesloüan wrote:
>> Le 31/08/2011 10:45, Jiri Pirko a écrit :
>> 
>> >>>> Do you expect drivers using implementation different than just calling
>> >>>> netif_carrier_on/off? Or is it supposed to also e.g. power down PHYs?
>> >>> Yes, generally it can be used also for en/disable phy, for testing
>> >>> purposes if hw and driver would support it.
>> >>
>> >> I'd like to see this working for GRE tunnel devices (for keepalive
>> >> daemon to be able to indicate to routing daemons whether tunnel is
>> >> really working) - implementation would be identical to dummy's case.
>> >> Should I prepare a patch or can I leave it to you?
>> >
>> > Ok, I can include it to this patchset (I'm going to repost first patch
>> > anyway)
>> 
>> Can't we assume that the dummy's case is the default behavior and
>> register this default 
>> ndo_change_carrier callback for every device ?
>
>You have got to be joking.  No device driver that has real link
>monitoring should use this implementation.
>
>[...]
>> If someone is not confident with this default callback registered for
>> all device, at least, we can 
>> put this code in a common place, so that a driver willing to use it
>> doesn't need to have its own 
>> version of it.
>
>I agree that this might be useful in some other software devices,
>though.

Maybe it would be better to just add priv_flag for this instead of
introducing netdev_op. Then do on/off is this flag is set. Not sure
though...

Jirka

>
>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.
>