netdev - Re: phylib: Any PHY which reports link up during autoneg ?

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Date:   Thu, 16 Aug 2018 12:21:35 -0700
From:   Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@...il.com>
To:     Heiner Kallweit <hkallweit1@...il.com>,
        Andrew Lunn <andrew@...n.ch>
Cc:     "netdev@...r.kernel.org" <netdev@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: phylib: Any PHY which reports link up during autoneg ?

On 08/16/2018 12:15 PM, Heiner Kallweit wrote:
> When reading through the state machine code in phy.c I wondered whether
> there is any PHY which reports the link as up during autonegotiation.
> (It's about handling PHY_AN in the state machine, once we know the link
> is up we still check whether aneg was completed. Is this needed?)
> 
> At least the PHY's I have access to all report the link as down when
> autonegotiating.
> I checked also clause 22 of 802.3u, however found no clear definition
> when a link should be considered up. There it's stated that it's
> PHY-dependent.
> 
> Can you shed any light on this?

I think the answer is no, there are no PHYs that can report a link UP
during auto-negotiation that is, between the time you ask for an
auto-negotiation to occur/restart, and the PHY reporting that it is
done. By definition, auto-negotiation needs to figure out the common
denominator between link partners, if, and only if that process
completes (ANEG done), then the link should be UP.

If the link was reported UP during auto-negotiation, it would not be
possible to be deterministic about:

- which link parameters changed between negotiation attempts
- whether the link is DOWN due to a physical disconnection or a failure
to agree on parameters
-- 
Florian