netdev - Re: [E1000-devel] [PATCH] e100: Fix inconsistency in bad frames handling

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Date:	Mon, 06 Jun 2011 21:15:15 +0100
From:	Ben Hutchings <bhutchings@...arflare.com>
To:	Ben Greear <greearb@...delatech.com>
Cc:	"Brandeburg, Jesse" <jesse.brandeburg@...el.com>,
	Andrea Merello <andrea.merello@...il.com>,
	"e1000-devel@...ts.sourceforge.net" 
	<e1000-devel@...ts.sourceforge.net>, netdev@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [E1000-devel] [PATCH] e100: Fix inconsistency in bad frames
 handling

On Mon, 2011-06-06 at 10:56 -0700, Ben Greear wrote:
> On 06/06/2011 10:49 AM, Brandeburg, Jesse wrote:
> >
> > <added netdev>, removed other useless lists.
> >
> > On Sat, 4 Jun 2011, Andrea Merello wrote:
> >> In e100 driver it seems that the intention was to accept bad frames in
> >> promiscuous mode and loopback mode.
> >> I think this is evident because of the following code in the driver:
> >>
> >> if (nic->flags&  promiscuous || nic->loopback) {
> >> 		config->rx_save_bad_frames = 0x1;	/* 1=save, 0=discard */
> >> 		config->rx_discard_short_frames = 0x0;	/* 1=discard, 0=save */
> >> 		config->promiscuous_mode = 0x1;		/* 1=on, 0=off */
> >> 	}
> >>
> >
> > Hi, thanks for your work on e100.
> >
> >> However this intention is not really realized because bad frames are
> >> discarded later by SW check.
> >> This patch finally honors the above intention, making the RX code to
> >> let bad frames to pass when the NIC is in promiscuous or loopback
> >> mode.
> >
> > I think this may be a mistake by the authors of the software developers
> > manual.  The manual suggests that save bad frames and save short frames
> > should be enabled in promisc mode, but all of our other drivers *do not*
> > save bad frames when in promiscuous mode (by design).  This is intentional
> > because a bad frame is just that, bad, and with no hope of knowing if the
> > data in it is okay/malicious/other.  I understand your reasoning above,
> > but realistically the rx_save_bad_frames should NOT be set.  I'd ack a
> > patch to comment that line out.
> >
> >> This helped me a lot to debug an FPGA ethernet core.
> >> Maybe it can be also useful to someone else..
> >
> > I think this patch is just that, debug only. As a developer I understand
> > why this is useful, but there is no reason any normal user would be able
> > to benefit from this, so for now, sorry:
> >
> > NACK.
> 
> I think anyone sniffing a funky network would have benefit in
> receiving all frames.  So, while it shouldn't be enabled by default,
> it would be nice to have an ethtool command to turn on receiving
> bad-crc frames, as well as receiving the 4-byte CRC on the end of
> the packets.
> 
> It just so happens I have such a patch, in case others agree :)

How would a received skb be flagged as having a CRC error?

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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