netdev - Re: Manual loading of mlx4

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Message-ID: <53D7748A.6040800@mellanox.com>
Date:	Tue, 29 Jul 2014 13:16:42 +0300
From:	Amir Vadai <amirv@...lanox.com>
To:	Jean Delvare <jdelvare@...e.de>,
	Or Gerlitz <ogerlitz@...lanox.com>,
	Jack Morgenstein <jackm@....mellanox.co.il>
CC:	"David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>,
	netdev <netdev@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: Manual loading of mlx4_en

Hi,

On 7/29/2014 12:53 PM, Jean Delvare wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I have a usability concern with the mlx4_en ethernet network driver. The
> module aliases for all the supported devices are on the mlx4_core
> module, so mlx4_core gets loaded automatically, but mlx4_en does not. I
> must load mlx4_en manually (kernel 3.12.)
> 
> May I ask why the mlx4 driver was split into mlx4_core and mlx4_en in
> the first place?
Connect-X card can support both Ethernet and Infiniband link layer - you
can switch between link layers without replacing the hardware.

To prevent code duplication, there is a single lower layer driver -
mlx4_core and two separate upper layer drivers - mlx4_en and mlx4_ib.

Since kernel 3.13 mlx4_core is loading automatically the upper layer
driver using request_module():
b046ffe net/mlx4_core: Load higher level modules according to ports type

> 
> I have worked around the problem with the following modprobe directive:
> 
> install mlx4_core /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install mlx4_core && /sbin/modprobe mlx4_en
> 
> But this is kind of a hack and I would expect the right driver to load
> automatically without magic.
> 
> Shouldn't the module aliases be attached to mlx4_en instead of
> mlx4_core?
> 
> Thanks,
> 

Amir
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