Re: [PATCH net-next v1 0/3] r816e: Add r816e driver in Realtek

[Heiner Kallweit <hkallweit1@gmail.com>]

On 1/28/2026 7:53 AM, javen wrote:
>> On 1/27/2026 12:34 PM, javen wrote:
> 
>>> From: Javen Xu <javen_xu@realsil.com.cn>
> 
>>>
> 
>>> This series patch add a fake driver r816e to ensure the kernel could 
> 
>>> set the correct power state for #fun through r816e driver when suspending.
> 
>>>
> 
>>
> 
>> I think a better approach would be to contribute to adding phylink/sfp support
> 
>> to r8169, so that the SFP NIC versions (incl. RTL8116AF) can be properly
> 
>> supported. This would have to include making the SFP I2C bus accessible by
> 
>> the kernel (instead of firmware only).
> 
>>
> 
> 
> 
> RTL8116af is a multi-function device. fun0 is a BMC virtual driver and fun1 is
> 
> the nic driver. The BMC virtual driver(fun0) is used for power management,
> 
> while fun1 provides the actual network functionality.
> 
> 
If only purpose of this dummy driver is to bring the device to D3hot during system
suspend, then this may be a question to the PCI subsystem maintainer(s).
PCI devices are instantiated by the PCI core, just that in case of the device here
no driver gets attached. Still PCI core applies a default suspend handling to each
device.