Re: [net-next 5/5] ixgbe: fixup warning regarding max_vfs parameter

[David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>]

From: Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 20:01:32 +0000

> On Thu, 2014-02-13 at 00:00 -0800, Aaron Brown wrote:
>> From: Jacob Keller <jacob.e.keller@intel.com>
>> 
>> The max_vfs parameter for ixgbe is deprecated in favor of using the
>> sysfs sriov_numvfs field to assign VFs as needed, instead of fixing the
>> value at module load time. The current message only indicates that you
>> should use this, without adequately explaining how to do so.
> 
> I don't think the kernel log is the correct place to put documentation.
> A reference alone should be enough.
> 
> [...]
>> +               e_dev_warn("See 'Documentation/PCI/pci-iov-howto.txt for more information.\n");
> [...]
> 
> This doesn't seem very helpful to non-developers.  You could instead
> give the URL:
> 
> https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/PCI/pci-iov-howto.txt

I even think this is not desirable.  The kernel log isn't supposed to be
a hyper-linked "all the information you could possibly need" repository
for every interesting situation the kernel encounters.

Just say plainly what the problem is, people need a certainly level of
understanding to interpret kernel messages properly.