Re: [RFC PATCH net-next 3/4] ethtool: Add ability to flash transceiver modules' firmware

On Sat, Nov 27, 2021 at 07:45:29PM +0200, Ido Schimmel wrote:

From: Ido Schimmel <idosch@nvidia.com>

CMIS complaint modules such as QSFP-DD might be running a firmware that
can be updated in a vendor-neutral way by exchanging messages between
the host and the module as described in section 7.3.1 of revision 5.0 of
the CMIS standard.

Add a pair of new ethtool messages that allow:

* User space to trigger firmware update of transceiver modules

* The kernel to notify user space about the progress of the process

The user interface is designed to be asynchronous in order to avoid RTNL
being held for too long and to allow several modules to be updated
simultaneously. The interface is designed with CMIS complaint modules in
mind, but kept generic enough to accommodate future use cases, if these
arise.

Example from the succeeding netdevsim implementation:

Trigger the firmware update process:

 # ethtool --flash-module-firmware eth0 file test.img

Hi Ido

Does the design allow control over which partition gets upgraded?

It seems like it should be possible to boot into the read only factory
firmware image, making both A and B eligible for upgrade.

	 Andrew