netdev - Re: [PATCH net-2.6] ethtool: Remove fallback to old ethtool operations for ETHTOOL

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Message-ID: <1305513923.19966.20.camel@localhost>
Date:	Mon, 16 May 2011 03:45:23 +0100
From:	Ben Hutchings <bhutchings@...arflare.com>
To:	Michał Mirosław <mirq-linux@...e.qmqm.pl>
Cc:	David Miller <davem@...emloft.net>, netdev@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH net-2.6] ethtool: Remove fallback to old ethtool
 operations for ETHTOOL_SFEATURES

On Sat, 2011-05-14 at 12:35 +0200, Michał Mirosław wrote:
> On Sat, May 14, 2011 at 02:05:42AM +0100, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> > ethtool_set_feature_compat() squashes the feature mask into a boolean,
> > which is not correct for ethtool_ops::set_flags.
> > 
> > We could fix this, but the fallback code for ETHTOOL_SFEATURES actually
> > makes things more complicated for the ethtool utility and any other
> > application using the ethtool API.  They will still need to fall back to
> > the old offload control commands in order to support older kernel
> > versions.  The fallback code in the kernel adds a third possibility for
> > them to handle.  So make ETHTOOL_SFEATURES fail when the driver
> > implements the old offload control operations, and let userland do the
> > fallback.
> 
> BTW, the idea behind the compat code is that if ETHTOOL_[GS]FEATURES is
> available, then there should be no need to fallback to old ops. For
> a userspace tool that targets only kernels >= 2.6.39 there's no need
> to care about old ops at all.

Well that's not true, because those tools still have to deal with
ETHTOOL_F_COMPAT.  And we're supposed to have all drivers converted for
2.6.40, so the hypothetical new tool only has to wait one more release.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings, Senior Software Engineer, Solarflare
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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