From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Steve Lin Subject: Re: [PATCH 4/7] devlink: Adding perm config of link settings Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2017 11:07:50 -0400 Message-ID: References: <1508273069-40461-1-git-send-email-steven.lin1@broadcom.com> <1508273069-40461-5-git-send-email-steven.lin1@broadcom.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Cc: "netdev@vger.kernel.org" , Jiri Pirko , "davem@davemloft.net" , "michael.chan@broadcom.com" , "linville@tuxdriver.com" , "gospo@broadcom.com" To: Yuval Mintz Return-path: Received: from mail-qt0-f169.google.com ([209.85.216.169]:52815 "EHLO mail-qt0-f169.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751014AbdJSPIL (ORCPT ); Thu, 19 Oct 2017 11:08:11 -0400 Received: by mail-qt0-f169.google.com with SMTP id 31so14797967qtz.9 for ; Thu, 19 Oct 2017 08:08:11 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Thu, Oct 19, 2017 at 2:07 AM, Yuval Mintz wrote: >> +enum devlink_autoneg_protocol { >> + DEVLINK_AUTONEG_PROTOCOL_IEEE8023BY_BAM, >> + DEVLINK_AUTONEG_PROTOCOL_IEEE8023BY_CONSORTIUM, >> + DEVLINK_AUTONEG_PROTOCOL_IEEE8023BY, >> + DEVLINK_AUTONEG_PROTOCOL_BAM, /* Broadcom >> Autoneg Mode */ >> + DEVLINK_AUTONEG_PROTOCOL_CONSORTIUM, /* >> Consortium Autoneg Mode */ >> +}; > > Wouldn't adding BAM as a 'generic' mode of operation be like adding > non-consortium speeds to ethtool API? > [I profess ignorance in this area; For all I know it can be a widely accepted > industry standard] > Yuval, I'm glad to get input from other NIC vendors. The high-level goal of this effort is to allow users of various vendors' NICs to be able to configure these types of NVRAM/permanent/default settings using an inbox tool, rather than the collection of vendor-specific tools that is the status quo. In order to provide that functionality, it seems like the vendor-specific parameters and also the vendor-specific settings of common parameters both need to be supported in this manner. Ideally there will be much overlap in both the set of parameters available as well as the options for each parameter, but in the real world, there will always be differences between vendors and even between different devices (drivers) from the same vendor. Despite that reality, I think there is still great benefit in having a common inbox tool that users can use for device configuration of this type. It just means that not all drivers will support all parameters, nor all options for each parameter that they do support. Thanks, Steve