netdev - RE: [PATCH 1/2] bna: Added flash sub-module and ethtool eeprom entry points.

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Message-ID: <B5EE62D80D50B84BB9E5174F7FCCE80A206BE39A24@HQ1-EXCH02.corp.brocade.com>
Date:	Fri, 23 Dec 2011 07:09:24 -0800
From:	Krishna Gudipati <kgudipat@...cade.com>
To:	"'Ben Hutchings'" <bhutchings@...arflare.com>
CC:	"'davem@...emloft.net'" <davem@...emloft.net>,
	"'netdev@...r.kernel.org'" <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
	Adapter Linux Open SRC Team 
	<adapter_linux_open_src_team@...cade.COM>,
	Rasesh Mody <rmody@...cade.com>
Subject: RE: [PATCH 1/2] bna: Added flash sub-module and ethtool eeprom
 entry points.

-----Original Message-----
From: netdev-owner@...r.kernel.org [mailto:netdev-owner@...r.kernel.org] On Behalf Of Ben Hutchings
Sent: Friday, December 23, 2011 1:44 AM
To: Krishna Gudipati
Cc: davem@...emloft.net; netdev@...r.kernel.org; Adapter Linux Open SRC Team; Rasesh Mody
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] bna: Added flash sub-module and ethtool eeprom entry points.

On Thu, 2011-12-22 at 15:29 -0800, kgudipat@...cade.com wrote:
> From: Krishna Gudipati <kgudipat@...cade.com>
> 
> Change details:
> 	- The patch adds flash sub-module to the bna driver.
> 	- Added ethtool set_eeprom() and get_eeprom() entry points to
> 	  support flash partition read/write operations.
[...]

I'm not going to say this is wrong, but we didn't find the EEPROM
operations suitable for firmware upgrade.  I have a couple of questions:

1. How long can a single set_eeprom() operation take?
2. Have you considered implementing the flash_device() operation or an
MTD driver?

-----

Thanks Ben for reviewing.

For 1: Considering the max size of the flash image chunk passed to the set_eeprom() entry point
	 at a time is 4Kbytes, it takes a little around ~3min for the firmware upgrade as the
	 operation involves a flash write for each 4Kbytes of the total 461Kbytes which is our fwimg size.

	 Please note that we use the same entry point to do flash update for other flash partitions as well,
	 for which the flash image size is much lesser than the firmware image.

For 2: No, we noticed that flash_device() entry point is listed as obsolete in the RHEL6.2 kernel source,
	 so we did not want to implement using it.

Thanks,
Krishna.