RE: [PATCH v3] net: usb: r8152: Add MAC passthrough support for RTL8153BL

[Hayes Wang <hayeswang@realtek.com>]

Limonciello, Mario <Mario.Limonciello@amd.com>
> Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2022 2:41 AM
[...]
> > I've not yet been convinced by replies that the proposed code really
> > does only match the given dock, and not random USB dongles.
> 
> Didn't Realtek confirm this bit is used to identify the Lenovo devices?

Excuse me. Last week is our vacation of Chinese New Year.
Realtek confirms that bit is used to identify the Lenovo devices.
We use different bits for specific customers.
For RTL8153B, bit 0 and 2 of USB OCP 0xD81F are for Dell. Bit 3 is for Lenovo.
However, Realtek couldn't answer if the Lenovo devices are used on docks only.

Best Regards,
Hayes

> > To be
> > convinced i would probably like to see code which positively
> > identifies the dock, and that the USB device is on the correct port of
> > the USB hub within the dock. I doubt you can actually do that in a
> > sane way inside an Ethernet driver. As you say, it will likely lead to
> > unmaintainable spaghetti-code.
> >
> > I also don't really think the vendor would be keen on adding code
> > which they know will get reverted as soon as it is shown to cause a
> > regression.
> >
> > So i would prefer to NACK this, and push it to udev rules where you
> > have a complete picture of the hardware and really can identify with
> > 100% certainty it really is the docks NIC.
> 
> I remember when I did the Dell implementation I tried userspace first.
> 
> Pushing this out to udev has a few other implications I remember hitting:
> 1) You need to also get the value you're supposed to use from ACPI BIOS
>      exported some way in userland too.
> 2) You can run into race conditions with other device or MAC renaming rules.
>     My first try I did it with NM and hit that continually.  So you would
> probably
>     need to land this in systemd or so.
> 
> >
> >    Andrew------Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail.