Re: [RFC PATCH net-next] net: ethtool: add support for forward error correction modes

On 25/10/2016 05:50, Vidya Sagar Ravipati wrote:

SET FEC option:
root@tor: ethtool --set-fec  swp1 encoding [off | RS | BaseR | auto] autoneg [off | on]

Encoding: Types of encoding
Off    :  Turning off any encoding
RS     :  enforcing RS-FEC encoding on supported speeds
BaseR  :  enforcing Base R encoding on supported speeds
Auto   :  Default FEC settings  for  divers , and would represent

divers? :)

          asking the hardware to essentially go into a best effort mode.

Here are a few examples of what we would expect if encoding=auto:
- if autoneg is on, we are  expecting FEC to be negotiated as on or off
  as long as protocol supports it
- if the hardware is capable of detecting the FEC encoding on it's
      receiver it will reconfigure its encoder to match
- in absence of the above, the configuration would be set to IEEE
  defaults.

Not sure I follow, why do we need an autoneg option if encoding type can be set to auto?