Re: [PATCH net-next 02/10] net: phy: phylink: allow 10GKR interface to use in-band negotiation

On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 02:10:09PM +0100, Antoine Tenart wrote:

Hi Andrew,

On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 01:59:53PM +0100, Andrew Lunn wrote:

quoted

If they don't have PHYs, how are the connected to the outside world?

On 7k/8k you have the following scheme for 10G only interfaces:

   MAC -- Comphy -- PHY -- SFP cage -- ...

Or

   MAC -- Comphy -- SFP cage -- ...

The comphy provides serdes lanes, and can be configured in various
modes (SGMII, 2500SGMII, 10GKR...).

Right - the correct mode is dependent on the SFP module plugged into
the cage.  Trying to describe this by ignoring the SFP cage isn't
going to work out well for end-user functionality, though is fine if
you're just hacking a configuration to test (which would not be
suitable for mainline kernels!)

As I've recently replied to Yan, this is a configuration I haven't
tested yet, and it's entirely possible that phylink may need some
tweaks for it.

What you have is a very similar setup to what is on Clearfog with
its SFP cage, where the SFP cage is connected directly to the
Armada 388.  That only has to deal with 2500base-X / 1000base-X /
SGMII and not 10G.

What I want is to avoid hacks as much as possible here - if there is
a short-coming with SFP/phylink here, we need to address that
properly.

-- 
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