RE: [PATCH v2] net: add new QCA alx ethernet driver

[Ben Hutchings <bhutchings@solarflare.com>]

On Thu, 2012-08-23 at 06:35 +0000, Huang, Xiong wrote:
> > This is why we require that portable, sane, interfaces are added to ethtool for
> > driver diagnostics.  That way users can perform a task in the same way
> > regardless of what hardware and driver are underneath.
> 
> I quite agree you on using ethtool to implement it. we did consider it. 
> But ethtool has some limitation, for example, the NIC has built-in OTP (TWSI interface)
> And Flash (External SPI interface),  their properties are quite different with EEPROM which
> Ethtool supports.
> To support such memory (OTP/Flash), we need additional input parameters.

You have two reasonable options for this:
1. The ETHTOOL_FLASHDEV command takes a partition ID and filename to
write.  The driver is supposed to load the file through the firmware
loader and then rewrite the partition completely (erasing if necessary).
Example: be2net.
2. For a more flexible interface, implement an MTD driver as part of
your net driver.  Example: sfc.

> Same situation exists in diagnostic utility. Ethtool only provide two options : offline & online
> That's too gross to locate which part/module of the chip is malfunction. we also need 
> more options to detect it.

That's absolute nonsense, you can run as many sub-tests as you want and
provide separate results for each of them.

Ben.

> that's why we finally selected a custom debugfs interface. 

-- 
Ben Hutchings, Staff Engineer, Solarflare
Not speaking for my employer; that's the marketing department's job.
They asked us to note that Solarflare product names are trademarked.