From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "Amar Mudrankit" Subject: Re: [ofa-general] Re: [PATCH v4 14/14] QLogic VNIC: sysfs Documentation Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:43:40 +0530 Message-ID: References: <20080610205633.11186.45499.stgit@dale> <20080610210918.11186.64253.stgit@dale> <484F751F.7030407@trash.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: netdev@vger.kernel.org, rdreier@cisco.com, general@lists.openfabrics.org, poornima.kamath@qlogic.com To: "Patrick McHardy" Return-path: In-Reply-To: <484F751F.7030407@trash.net> Content-Disposition: inline List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: general-bounces@lists.openfabrics.org Errors-To: general-bounces@lists.openfabrics.org List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org > >> +/sys/class/infiniband_qlgc_vnic/interfaces// >> + >> + vnic_state (0444) State of the VNIC interface. > > This I don't understand - you seem to be registering and > unregistering the net_device based some state machine, > in some cases even triggered by timers. > > Whats the idea behind this? > For a given VNIC interface, unless the VNIC host driver establishes a connection with EVIC and completes the control and data path communication sequence with the EVIC, the VNIC network device is not registered on the host. Establishing a connection with EVIC and going through the control and data path communication involves multiple packet exchange on the IB side with the EVIC and can take some time. The netpath statemachine is, hence, meant to PERIODICALLY check if connection is fully established with EVIC or not. Once connection is established, it takes care to register the VNIC netdevice.