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Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2017 10:47:49 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <20170411.104749.1916353709565387637.davem@davemloft.net>
To: Jie.Deng1@synopsys.com
Cc: netdev@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next] net: dwc-xlgmac: add the initial ethtool
 support
From: David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
In-Reply-To: <f1495b53a7ddd2c4bbccdd4b629f57035139c7b6.1491898365.git.jiedeng@synopsys.com>
References: <f1495b53a7ddd2c4bbccdd4b629f57035139c7b6.1491898365.git.jiedeng@synopsys.com>
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From: Jie Deng <Jie.Deng1@synopsys.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2017 16:14:04 +0800

> It is necessary to provide ethtool support for displaying and
> modifying parameters of dwc-xlgmac.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Jie Deng <jiedeng@synopsys.com>

I don't see why you cannot allow the statistics to be obtained when
the device is not running.  Similarly for other ethtool calls that
just fetch information stored in the software state of the driver.

I think your ->begin() method is way too restrictive.