[swapping Ben's email]

On Mon, 29 May 2017 11:52:27 +0300, Or Gerlitz wrote:

On Mon, May 29, 2017 at 3:17 AM, Jakub Kicinski [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

On Sun, 28 May 2017 10:26:49 +0300, Yotam Gigi wrote:  

quoted

quoted

This problem is even more relevant in the Mellanox HCA driver team, which would
like to use that code in order to burn the HCA firmware, but not intend to
trigger it on boot time, which means that must have a way for the user to
trigger it.  

quoted

What would the requirements for the HCA team be?  Is it about loading
different code or loading HW settings?  

For the NIC, as of the (happily growing) large open-systems by nature
install base, we
can't effort for the driver not to load when the currently burned fw
isn't the latest or
the system doesn't have the latest libfirmware clone. We do have to
keep the hassle of
compatibility with older FWs, etc.  As part of the driver/FW API
design we use cap bits
for that matter, and never ask/branch on specific FW or HW versions.

We do want to let user work with the kernel w.o the need to have them
install MLNX or anyone's
tool suit and hence the large value we find in the ethtool flashing of
FW image (the patches
are ready...)

Thanks for the explanations Or and Yotam!  That does sound like a plain
version upgrade problem.