netdev - Re: [RFC] Online firmware upgrade in non-embedded systems

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Message-ID: <1285764266.2283.10.camel@achroite.uk.solarflarecom.com>
Date:	Wed, 29 Sep 2010 13:44:26 +0100
From:	Ben Hutchings <bhutchings@...arflare.com>
To:	dedekind1@...il.com
Cc:	netdev <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
	linux-kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	linux-mtd <linux-mtd@...ts.infradead.org>,
	sf-linux-drivers <linux-net-drivers@...arflare.com>
Subject: Re: [RFC] Online firmware upgrade in non-embedded systems

On Wed, 2010-09-29 at 15:34 +0300, Artem Bityutskiy wrote:
> On Tue, 2010-09-28 at 18:59 +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> > Currently the sfc network driver is optionally combined with an MTD
> > driver (CONFIG_SFC_MTD) which exposes all upgradable firmware and
> > configuration partitions in flash.  This works nicely in kernels with
> > MTD enabled, but since MTD is mainly used in embedded systems with
> > on-board flash it is often disabled in distribution kernels and custom
> > kernels alike.  This leaves users of sfc unable to upgrade firmware
> > without rebuilding the kernel or booting some other distribution.  The
> > lack of widespread MTD support is a regular cause of support requests.
> 
> At least Fedora does have MTD enabled. But I guess commercial
> distributions like RHEL might have it disabled (but I did not check),
> and I think I could guess the reason for this.

RHEL 4 and 5 have it; the first RHEL 6 beta did not but this was changed
at my request.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings, Senior Software Engineer, Solarflare Communications
Not speaking for my employer; that's the marketing department's job.
They asked us to note that Solarflare product names are trademarked.

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