Date:   Sat, 4 Jul 2020 23:29:18 +0300
From:   Vladimir Oltean <olteanv@...il.com>
To:     Russell King - ARM Linux admin <linux@...linux.org.uk>
Cc:     davem@...emloft.net, netdev@...r.kernel.org, andrew@...n.ch,
        f.fainelli@...il.com, vivien.didelot@...il.com,
        claudiu.manoil@....com, alexandru.marginean@....com,
        ioana.ciornei@....com
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 net-next 5/6] net: dsa: felix: delete
 .phylink_mac_an_restart code

On Sat, Jul 04, 2020 at 07:14:01PM +0100, Russell King - ARM Linux admin wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 04, 2020 at 06:50:48PM +0300, Vladimir Oltean wrote:
> > On Sat, Jul 04, 2020 at 03:56:14PM +0100, Russell King - ARM Linux admin wrote:
> > 
> > [snip]
> > 
> > > 
> > > NAK for this description.  You know why.
> > > 
> > > -- 
> > > RMK's Patch system: https://www.armlinux.org.uk/developer/patches/
> > > FTTP is here! 40Mbps down 10Mbps up. Decent connectivity at last!
> > 
> > Sorry, I cannot work with "too busy" (your feedback from v1) and "you
> > know why". If there's anything incorrect in the description of the
> > patch, please point it out and I will change it.
> 
> Let's recap.
> 
> I have explained to you on numerous instances that:
> 
> - as part of the ethtool program, there is the facility to restart
>   negotiation, which users expect to cause the media to renegotiate.
> 
> - when dealing with a link that involves a conventional copper PHY,
>   irrespective of how that PHY is connected, this has always resulted
>   in the copper PHY being requested to restart negotiation on the
>   media side.
> 
> - in order to provide this same capability for fibre links where
>   negotiation is supported, phylink provides the ability to pass that
>   request to the PCS, since that is the media facing hardware block
>   responsible for on-media negotiation.
> 
> - for SGMII, there is no advertisement from the MAC per-se, it is only
>   an acknowledgement that the MAC has received the configuration word
>   from the PHY.
> 
> It is also true that phylink uses this when there may be a change to
> the PCS advertisement - again, to support the ability for the user to
> change the media-side advertisement.  There is no media side
> advertisement in SGMII at the MAC PCS.
> 

No comment there, my revised commit message confirms indeed that there's
nothing to advertise from MAC side in SGMII/USXGMII mode. The initial
commit message leaves that piece of info up in the air.

> There has been code in phylink that avoids calling the an_restart
> methods since day one, as a result of the above.
> 
> Let's now look at the first version of your commit message:
> | In hardware, the AN_RESTART field for these SerDes protocols (SGMII,
> | USXGMII) clears the resolved configuration from the PCS's
> | auto-negotiation state machine.
> | 
> | But PHYLINK has a different interpretation of "AN restart". It assumes
> | that this Linux system is capable of re-triggering an auto-negotiation
> | sequence, something which is only possible with 1000Base-X and
> | 2500Base-X, where the auto-negotiation is symmetrical. In SGMII and
> | USXGMII, there's an AN master and an AN slave, and it isn't so much of
> | "auto-negotiation" as it is "PHY passing the resolved link state on to
> | the MAC".
> | 
> | So, in PHYLINK's interpretation of "AN restart", it doesn't make sense
> | to do anything for SGMII and USXGMII. In fact, PHYLINK won't even call
> | us for any other SerDes protocol than 1000Base-X and 2500Base-X. But we
> | are not supporting those. So just remove this code.
> 
> This comes over as blaming phylink for an interpretation of "AN
> restart" that does not conform to your ideas.  While it is true that
> phylink has a "different interpretation", that interpretation comes
> from the interface that this callback is implementing, which is for
> the user-level interface.  So, the "blame" that comes over in this
> commit message is completely unjustified.
> 

I also apologized for being imprecise, but you are NACK'ing v2 for v1's
wording here. But, there are also better reasons below.

> You also capitalised "PHYLINK" throughout this message for some reason,
> which comes over as a stressed word (capitals is generally interpreted
> as stress or shouting.)  Then there's "this Linux system" which sounds
> a bit spiteful.
> 

I've been using PHYLINK using capitals for a lot of time now, nothing to
do with shouting, just with the fact that I also spell "Ethernet PHY"
with capitals. I'll change to "Phylink" or "phylink", depending on the
word's location within the phrase, and I'll also ask the people I know
to use this notation.

> None of those things belong in a commit message, so I objected to it,
> explicitly asking you to (quote) "So, please, lay off your phylink
> bashing in your commit messages."
> 
> The replacement that you sent was worse - it continues this theme,
> taking it further:
> 
> | The point is, both Cisco standards make explicit reference that they
> | require an auto-negotiation state machine implemented as per "Figure
> | 37-6-Auto-Negotiation state diagram" from IEEE 802.3. In the SGMII spec,
> | it is very clearly pointed out that both the MAC PCS (Figure 3 MAC
> | Functional Block) and the PHY PCS (Figure 2 PHY Functional Block)
> | contain an auto-negotiation block defined by "Auto-Negotiation Figure
> | 37-6".
> 
> Specifically, "The point is, ..." and "very clearly pointed out" are
> completely unnecessary in a commit message, it gives a lecturing tone
> to this text.  The lecturing tone continues throughout the entire text.
> 

I ramble quite a lot in commit messages, it's nothing personal.
Sometimes, among the rambling I say something useful too. I'll try to
value maintainers' time more by using more succint phrases.

> | PHYLINK takes this fact a bit further, and since the fact that for
> | SGMII/USXGMII, the MAC PCS conveys no new information to the PHY PCS
> | (beyond acknowledging the received config word), does not have any use
> | for permitting the MAC PCS to trigger a restart of the clause 37
> | auto-negotiation.
> 
> Again, it is not phylink that "takes this fact a bit further".  Phylink
> is implementing the needs of userspace via this callback, which is to
> cause autonegotiation to restart on the media.
> 
> | The only SERDES protocols for which PHYLINK allows that are 1000Base-X
> | and 2500Base-X. For those, the control information exchange _is_
> | bidirectional (local PCS specifies its duplex and flow control
> | abilities) since the link partner is at the other side of the media.
> 
> This avoids the point that I have been making for a long time now
> about what phylink is doing here.
> 
> Let me re-cap: phylink implements what is required to support the
> network driver in implementing the what the user expects from the APIs
> exposed by the kernel. One of the APIs is to restart negotiation, which
> is generally accepted to mean the on-media negotiation, rather than
> whatever internal negotiation happens within their "network interface".
> 
> Hence, it is appropriate that phylink restricts this to situations
> where it is known that the media link is terminated on hardware that
> phylink is responsible for.
> 

It doesn't avoid that point. ACK, ethtool -r exists, and .mac_an_restart
can be used to implement it under some circumstances. More below.

> At the moment, the known cases are:
> - at the phylib PHY when dealing with conventional twisted pair cabling.
> - at the phylib PHY where one is involved in a fibre link.
> - at the PCS, where one is involved in a fibre link (which means
>   1000base-X or 2500base-X.)
> 
> Since SGMII and USXGMII are designed for use between a PHY and the
> host system (hence internal to the network interface), rather than over
> some user accessible media, there is little point universally making
> that call in response to a user request to restart the media
> negotiation.
> 
> There is two final points to make:
> 
> - if we discover a requirement where we need to restart SGMII or
>   USXGMII at the MAC PCS end (thank you for showing me that it is
>   possible) then, yes, we will have to revisit how we deal with this.
>   Yes, we may wish the callback to restart SGMII and USXGMII at that
>   point.  However, we do not want to do that if the user requests a
>   media side renegotiation.  As I have already explained, restarting
>   negotiation on the media side at the PHY will cause a fresh exchange
>   - not once, but twice - on the SGMII and USXGMII side anyway, which
>   will refresh the configuration.
> 
>   The exception to that is if we have a buggy SGMII or USXGMII
>   implementation - and, again, when we have such a scenario, that is
>   the time to adapt.
> 
> - changing the behaviour now that we have several users without good
>   reason is inviting regressions - there is the possibility for a state
>   machine error if both ends of the link are hit for a renegotiation.
>   Yes, I'm being cautious there, but there is always risk to change,
>   and if there is no benefit from making that change then it stands to
>   reason that there is no net benefit from making that change.
> 

Yes, I am definitely not suggesting a phylink API change or
reinterpretation of existing API at this point. That would be confusing,
and "confusing" is what I want to avoid, perhaps by using more words
than necessary. I will happily accept that I am the only one who
misunderstood the API on this particular aspect.

> So, to sum up, your commit message _only_ needs to describe the change
> you are making.  You should not lecture in a commit message, and you
> should use neutral language.
> 

Ok, I will try to keep it shorter in v3 and lose the lecturing tone.

> If there is something lacking in the understanding of the callback,
> the right place to fix that is in the documentation within the kernel,
> not buried in some commit message for some obscure driver that no one
> is going to even look at while developing their own driver.  Even so,
> such documentation should clearly but briefly explain what is going on.
> 

There were a number of other points you've made in this text, all of
which boil down to one idea: that restarting SGMII AN from MAC side does
not trigger an MDI-side auto-negotiation process, so it cannot be used
for implementing the behavior expected by the user for "ethtool -r".

I will try to address those points centrally, here, by asking 2
questions.

1. In various topics you have brought up a certain copper SFP module
   from Mikrotik which embeds an inaccessible Atheros SGMII PHY. Mind
   you, I have never interacted with that SFP, but, I have a question
   out of sheer curiosity. How does ethtool -r currently work for such a
   system?

   [ I am not going to use this argument to lean this particular
   discussion in either direction (read: even if my hunch is right and
   restarting AN on the MAC PCS _could_ be the only way to implement
   ethtool -r there, I still don't care enough about that one-off case
   to change the phylink API, for the time being), but I _would_ like
   to know ]

2. There are some 1000Base-T PHYs, such as VSC8234 (which I know from
   first-hand experience, in fact there's even a comment in
   felix_vsc9959.c about it), which restart their MDI-side AN when they
   detect a transition of the system side from data mode to
   configuration mode [ initiated by the MAC ].
   Is this behavior implied by any standard (probably IEEE)? That I
   didn't check. Is this behavior also at least consistent with the
   non-SFP SGMII Atheros PHYs I have? I didn't check that either.
   Anyway, food for thought.

> I have just spent the last 1h40 composing this message - I've put a lot
> of thought into it. I obviously do not have the capacity to do that all
> the time.
> 

Thank you, it shows that you've put some more time and thought into this
reply. Maybe some balance would work a lot better overall?

> -- 
> RMK's Patch system: https://www.armlinux.org.uk/developer/patches/
> FTTP is here! 40Mbps down 10Mbps up. Decent connectivity at last!

-Vladimir

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