On Tue, Jan 22, 2019 at 02:18:42PM -0800, Jakub Kicinski wrote:

I think reusing new netlink ethtool with a special flag would be a nice,
complete solution.  We could also address link settings this way (which
are a pre-requisite for WoL).

I have no strong preference on the mechanism, but for ease of setting
as well as dumping would it be workable to use a nesting, like this:

Run time settings:
  [ETHTOOL_SETTINGS_BLA]
    [ETHTOOL_BLA_VAL_1]
    [ETHTOOL_BLA_VAL_2]
    ...

Persistent:
  [ETHTOOL_PERSISTENT]
    [ETHTOOL_SETTINGS_BLA]
      [ETHTOOL_BLA_VAL_1]
      [ETHTOOL_BLA_VAL_2]

IOW encapsulate settings into a "persistent" attribute?

How does that look to you, Michal?

It's certainly one of the options worth considering. What I like is that
this approach would not require knowing (or rather guessing) which
attributes are going to allow persistent settings in the future.

Michal