Re: [EXT] Re: [net-next PATCH 1/2] octeontx2-pf: Add devlink param to init and de-init serdes

On Wed, 27 Oct 2021 22:13:32 +0530 sundeep subbaraya wrote:

quoted

On Wed, 27 Oct 2021 16:01:14 +0530 Subbaraya Sundeep wrote:  

quoted

From: Rakesh Babu <redacted>

The physical/SerDes link of an netdev interface is not
toggled on interface bring up and bring down. This is
because the same link is shared between PFs and its VFs.
This patch adds devlink param to toggle physical link so
that it is useful in cases where a physical link needs to
be re-initialized.  

So it's a reset? Or are there cases where user wants the link
to stay down?  

There are cases where the user wants the link to stay down and debug.
We are adding this to help customers to debug issues wrt physical links.

Intel has a similar thing, they keep adding a ethtool priv flag called 
"link-down-on-close" to all their drivers. Maybe others do this, too. 
It's time we added a standard API for this.