Re: [patch net-next 3/9] mlx4: Implement port type setting via devlink interface

Tue, Feb 23, 2016 at 04:20:09PM CET, gospo@cumulusnetworks.com wrote:

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I am not sure, but one of the initial problems was that this information
should already be there before the driver actually gets loaded, no? These
changes don't solve this problem either?

This is planned to be implemented in near future. Basically there would
be possible to use DEVLINK_CMD_NEW to add devlink iface for specific device
even before the driver gets loaded to serve as a place holder to set values

s/driver/network driver/ right?

right.

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of some predefined set of options. Once the driver registers, it can read
those and act accordingly. For example, we need that to set "profile" of
our asic. This is a substitute to module options which are completely
inappropriate for this usecase.

FWIW, I DO like the idea that the PCI driver contains this information
and netdev creation in the network driver depends on this mapping.  We
see these issues on a regular basis and while have solved it other
ways (rtnl_link_ops and genl which is why I like a cross-vendor way to
do it like this).