netdev - Re: devlink interface for asynchronous event/messages from firmware?

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Date:   Thu, 21 May 2020 15:09:57 -0700
From:   Jacob Keller <jacob.e.keller@...el.com>
To:     Jakub Kicinski <kuba@...nel.org>, Ido Schimmel <idosch@...sch.org>
Cc:     Jiri Pirko <jiri@...nulli.us>,
        "netdev@...r.kernel.org" <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
        petrm@...lanox.com, amitc@...lanox.com
Subject: Re: devlink interface for asynchronous event/messages from firmware?



On 5/21/2020 2:51 PM, Jakub Kicinski wrote:
> On Thu, 21 May 2020 13:59:32 -0700 Jacob Keller wrote:
>>>> So the ice firmware can optionally send diagnostic debug messages via
>>>> its control queue. The current solutions we've used internally
>>>> essentially hex-dump the binary contents to the kernel log, and then
>>>> these get scraped and converted into a useful format for human consumption.
>>>>
>>>> I'm not 100% of the format, but I know it's based on a decoding file
>>>> that is specific to a given firmware image, and thus attempting to tie
>>>> this into the driver is problematic.  
>>>
>>> You explained how it works, but not why it's needed :)  
>>
>> Well, the reason we want it is to be able to read the debug/diagnostics
>> data in order to debug issues that might be related to firmware or
>> software mis-use of firmware interfaces.
>>
>> By having it be a separate interface rather than trying to scrape from
>> the kernel message buffer, it becomes something we can have as a
>> possibility for debugging in the field.
> 
> For pure debug/tracing perhaps trace_devlink_hwerr() is the right fit?
> 
> Right Ido?
> 

Hm, yes that might be more suitable for this purpose. I'll take a look
at it!

Thanks,
Jake