Re: [PATCH net-next] net: stmmac: Remove ARP offload code

From: Nicolai Buchwitz

Date: Mon Aug 31 2026 - 08:08:56 EST


Hi Maxime

On 31.8.2026 09:13, Maxime Chevallier wrote:
dwmac can do ARP offloading, where the HW replies to incoming ARP
requests. This requires multiple steps to work well :
- Program the local IP address in a dedicated register
- Enable ARP offloading

This is halfway implemented in stmmac, as it's only ever used by
selftests, and these selftests are failing on at least 2 platforms :
stm32mp1, and jh7110.

There have been some attempts in the past to support this feature, but
this never made it upstream. Let's just remove the test and that code,
until someone actually wants that to work. We should likely have a
proper API for that so that drivers can use it.

Let's also not mention ARP offload in the stmmac documentation.

Leave the defines in place and the capability detection, this doesn't
hurt and gives some information about how the IP is synthesized.

Signed-off-by: Maxime Chevallier <maxime.chevallier@xxxxxxxxxxx>
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Reviewed-by: Nicolai Buchwitz <nb@xxxxxxxxxxx>

Thanks,
Nicolai