Re: [ofa-general] Re: [PATCH v4 14/14] QLogic VNIC: sysfs Documentation

Ramachandra K wrote:

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 12:17 PM, Patrick McHardy [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

Since I didn't receive anything but a "its too complex" in
response to my previous question, let me ask again: why are
you inventing a new sysfs interface (combined with ~15 module
parameters) instead of using the existing standard interfaces
for this?

Can you please elaborate on the standard interfaces you are referring to ?

Also as Roland mentioned in the other thread, echo-ing the parameters
to sysfs files
is a pretty straightforward way to configure the interfaces. Users
can setup configuration files to configure QLogic VNIC interfaces
specifying the name of the interface, various parameters of the
QLogic EVIC gateway target they want to use  and a simple user level
script parses the configuration file and echoes the parameters to the driver.

We introduced the rtnl_link API to avoid having each driver
come up with its own method of creating virtual network devices.

Besides the fact that it is the interface intended to be used
for this kind of thing and the advantages mentioned in my
response to Roland, looking at your interface, there are a
few more advantages from integrating this cleanly in iproute:

 > +echo -n 00066a01de000037 		 > 
/sys/class/infiniband_qlgc_vnic/interfaces/veth1/primary_path/ioc_guid
 > +echo -n fe8000000000000100066a11de000037 > 
/sys/class/infiniband_qlgc_vnic/interfaces/veth1/primary_path/dgid
 > +echo -n ffff 				 > 
/sys/class/infiniband_qlgc_vnic/interfaces/veth1/primary_path/pkey

I guess life would be easier for users if those parameters can
be generated in userspace or at least looked up in something
like the maps in /etc/iproute2/.

 > +echo -n 100 				 > 
/sys/class/infiniband_qlgc_vnic/interfaces/veth1/primary_path/heartbeat

I assume thats some kind of timing parameter. iproute
would allow to specify the (undocumented) unit and convert
it appropriately.

In any case, things like tx_csum and rx_csum definitely do
not belong in this interface.

quoted

quoted

+# An interface can be deleted by echoing the name of the interface to be
deleted
+# to delete_vnic file
+echo -n veth1 > /sys/class/infiniband_qlgc_vnic/interfaces/delete_vnic

This clearly shows the advantage of being able to use echo
for configuration.

quoted

From this statement, I thought you agreed with the advantage of echo for

configuration.

Sorry, that wasn't meant seriously :)