From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Stephen Hemminger Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next 0/2] Add ethtool set regs support Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2016 14:45:09 -0800 Message-ID: <20161206144509.5365a623@xeon-e3> References: <1481063590-7727-1-git-send-email-saeedm@mellanox.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: "David S. Miller" , netdev@vger.kernel.org, "John W . Linville" To: Saeed Mahameed Return-path: Received: from mail-pf0-f179.google.com ([209.85.192.179]:35791 "EHLO mail-pf0-f179.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752186AbcLFWpR (ORCPT ); Tue, 6 Dec 2016 17:45:17 -0500 Received: by mail-pf0-f179.google.com with SMTP id i88so72409870pfk.2 for ; Tue, 06 Dec 2016 14:45:17 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <1481063590-7727-1-git-send-email-saeedm@mellanox.com> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Wed, 7 Dec 2016 00:33:08 +0200 Saeed Mahameed wrote: > This simple ethool change will give HW vendors the flexibility to set > pure HW configurations (not directly related to netdev resources states > and rings), without the need of vendor proprietary tools and hacks. The danger is you need to restrict the kernel to only allow setting safe registers (and this is HW dependent). There are cases like secure boot where it is expected that even root is not allowed to modify all memory. Also supporting closed format of device registers is not in the interest of promoting open source. I am not saying I fundamentally disagree with supporting this, but it is a bigger step than you make it out to be.