linux-kernel - Re: [smartpqi updates PATCH 2/9] smartpqi: rm unsupported controller features msgs

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Message-ID: <4b68177b-4c61-74fd-eee7-83b938200278@molgen.mpg.de>
Date:   Fri, 9 Jul 2021 09:24:21 +0200
From:   Paul Menzel <pmenzel@...gen.mpg.de>
To:     Don.Brace@...rochip.com, Kevin.Barnett@...rochip.com
Cc:     Scott.Teel@...rochip.com, Justin.Lindley@...rochip.com,
        Scott.Benesh@...rochip.com, Gerry.Morong@...rochip.com,
        Mahesh.Rajashekhara@...rochip.com, Mike.McGowen@...rochip.com,
        Murthy.Bhat@...rochip.com, Balsundar.P@...rochip.com,
        joseph.szczypek@....com, jeff@...onical.com, POSWALD@...e.com,
        john.p.donnelly@...cle.com, mwilck@...e.com,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, hch@...radead.org,
        martin.petersen@...cle.com, jejb@...ux.vnet.ibm.com,
        linux-scsi@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [smartpqi updates PATCH 2/9] smartpqi: rm unsupported controller
 features msgs

[I corrected Martin’s email from peterson to peters*e*n. Don, you should 
have also receive a bounce message from the MTA. I guess Martin has 
these as a list subscriber nevertheless, but I suggest to resend the 
series as soon as possible.]

Dear Don,


Thank you for your reply.


Am 08.07.21 um 21:04 schrieb Don.Brace@...rochip.com:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Menzel [mailto:pmenzel@...gen.mpg.de]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 7, 2021 2:29 AM
> Subject: Re: [smartpqi updates PATCH 2/9] smartpqi: rm unsupported controller features msgs

> Am 06.07.21 um 20:16 schrieb Don Brace:
>> From: Kevin Barnett <kevin.barnett@...rochip.com>
>>
>> Remove "Feature XYZ not supported by controller" messages.
>>
>> During driver initialization, the driver examines the PQI Table Feature bits.
>> These bits are used by the controller to advertise features supported
>> by the controller. For any features not supported by the controller,
>> the driver would display a message in the form:
>>           "Feature XYZ not supported by controller"
>> Some of these "negative" messages were causing customer confusion.
> 
> As it’s info log level and not warning or notice, these message are
> useful in my opinion. You could downgrade them to debug, but I do not
> see why. If customers do not want to see these info messages, they
> should filter them out.
> 
> For completeness, is there an alternative to list the unsupported
> features from the firmware for example from sysfs?

> Don> Thanks for your Review. At this time we would prefer to not
> provide messages about unsupported features.

Only because a customer complained? That is not a good enough reason in 
my opinion. Log messages, often grepped for, are an interface which 
should only be changed with caution.

If these absent feature message were present for a long time, and you 
suddenly remove them, people looking a newer Linux kernel messages, 
users conclude the feature is supported now. That is quite a downside in 
my opinion.

> We may add them back at some point but we have taken them out of our
> out-of-box driver also so we hope to keep the driver code in sync.
That’s why you should develop for Linux master branch and upstream 
*first* to get external reviews. That argument should not count for 
Linux upstream reviews in my opinion.


Kind regards,

Paul


>> Reviewed-by: Mike McGowen <mike.mcgowen@...rochip.com>
>> Reviewed-by: Scott Benesh <scott.benesh@...rochip.com>
>> Reviewed-by: Scott Teel <scott.teel@...rochip.com>
>> Signed-off-by: Kevin Barnett <kevin.barnett@...rochip.com>
>> Signed-off-by: Don Brace <don.brace@...rochip.com>
>> ---
>>    drivers/scsi/smartpqi/smartpqi_init.c | 5 +----
>>    1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 4 deletions(-)
>>
>> diff --git a/drivers/scsi/smartpqi/smartpqi_init.c
>> b/drivers/scsi/smartpqi/smartpqi_init.c
>> index d977c7b30d5c..7958316841a4 100644
>> --- a/drivers/scsi/smartpqi/smartpqi_init.c
>> +++ b/drivers/scsi/smartpqi/smartpqi_init.c
>> @@ -7255,11 +7255,8 @@ struct pqi_firmware_feature {
>>    static void pqi_firmware_feature_status(struct pqi_ctrl_info *ctrl_info,
>>        struct pqi_firmware_feature *firmware_feature)
>>    {
>> -     if (!firmware_feature->supported) {
>> -             dev_info(&ctrl_info->pci_dev->dev, "%s not supported by controller\n",
>> -                     firmware_feature->feature_name);
>> +     if (!firmware_feature->supported)
>>                return;
>> -     }
>>
>>        if (firmware_feature->enabled) {
>>                dev_info(&ctrl_info->pci_dev->dev,
>>