[PATCH] ice: mention fw_activate action along with devlink reload

[PATCH] ice: mention fw_activate action along with devlink reload

[Jacob Keller]

The ice driver reports a helpful status message when updating firmware
indicating what action is necessary to enable the new firmware. This is
done because some updates require power cycling or rebooting the machine
but some can be activated via devlink.

The ice driver only supports activating firmware with the specific action
of "fw_activate" a bare "devlink dev reload" will *not* update the
firmware, and will only perform driver reinitialization.

Update the status message to explicitly reflect that the reload must use
the fw_activate action.

I considered modifying the text to spell out the full command, but felt
that was both overkill and something that would belong better as part of
the user space program and not hard coded into the kernel driver output.

Signed-off-by: Jacob Keller <jacob.e.keller@intel.com>
Reviewed-by: Aleksandr Loktionov <aleksandr.loktionov@intel.com>
Reviewed-by: Przemek Kitszel <przemyslaw.kitszel@intel.com>
---
 drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice/ice_fw_update.c | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice/ice_fw_update.c b/drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice/ice_fw_update.c
index 973a13d3d92a..1f35bb9314cc 100644
--- a/drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice/ice_fw_update.c
+++ b/drivers/net/ethernet/intel/ice/ice_fw_update.c
@@ -726,7 +726,7 @@ static int ice_finalize_update(struct pldmfw *context)
 	switch (priv->reset_level) {
 	case ICE_AQC_NVM_EMPR_FLAG:
 		devlink_flash_update_status_notify(devlink,
-						   "Activate new firmware by devlink reload",
+						   "Activate new firmware by devlink reload action fw_activate",
 						   NULL, 0, 0);
 		break;
 	case ICE_AQC_NVM_PERST_FLAG:

---
base-commit: 37a93dd5c49b5fda807fd204edf2547c3493319c
change-id: 20260213-jk-improve-fw-update-activate-message-1382601ec2d1

Best regards,
--  
Jacob Keller <jacob.e.keller@intel.com>

Re: [PATCH] ice: mention fw_activate action along with devlink reload

[Jacob Keller]

On 2/23/2026 4:12 PM, Jacob Keller wrote:
> The ice driver reports a helpful status message when updating firmware
> indicating what action is necessary to enable the new firmware. This is
> done because some updates require power cycling or rebooting the machine
> but some can be activated via devlink.
> 
> The ice driver only supports activating firmware with the specific action
> of "fw_activate" a bare "devlink dev reload" will *not* update the
> firmware, and will only perform driver reinitialization.
> 
> Update the status message to explicitly reflect that the reload must use
> the fw_activate action.
> 
> I considered modifying the text to spell out the full command, but felt
> that was both overkill and something that would belong better as part of
> the user space program and not hard coded into the kernel driver output.
> 
This should target the iwl-next tree, I forgot to add that to the 
subject and my eyes missed it in the double check.

Thanks,
Jake

Re: [PATCH] ice: mention fw_activate action along with devlink reload

[Simon Horman]

On Mon, Feb 23, 2026 at 04:12:17PM -0800, Jacob Keller wrote:
> The ice driver reports a helpful status message when updating firmware
> indicating what action is necessary to enable the new firmware. This is
> done because some updates require power cycling or rebooting the machine
> but some can be activated via devlink.
> 
> The ice driver only supports activating firmware with the specific action
> of "fw_activate" a bare "devlink dev reload" will *not* update the
> firmware, and will only perform driver reinitialization.
> 
> Update the status message to explicitly reflect that the reload must use
> the fw_activate action.
> 
> I considered modifying the text to spell out the full command, but felt
> that was both overkill and something that would belong better as part of
> the user space program and not hard coded into the kernel driver output.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Jacob Keller <jacob.e.keller@intel.com>
> Reviewed-by: Aleksandr Loktionov <aleksandr.loktionov@intel.com>
> Reviewed-by: Przemek Kitszel <przemyslaw.kitszel@intel.com>

Thanks Jacob, all,

I agree that this text strikes a good balance.

Reviewed-by: Simon Horman <horms@kernel.org>