Re: [PATCH][resubmit] HP iLO driver

[Randy Dunlap]

On Tue, 8 Jul 2008 22:19:18 +0000 Altobelli, David wrote:

> Pavel Machek wrote:
> > Could you provide the list of commands (at least) so we can be more
> > concrete?
> 
> Unfortunately, I don't believe that I can.  We reviewed this internally,
> and the question of documentation was raised.  The hardware teams did
> not approve disseminating the ABI.  To be clear, we understand what we
> are doing by releasing the driver as GPLv2, the actual functionality
> of communicating with iLO was okayed for release.  But releasing the
> specifics of what we can send was not approved.

Can you at least point people to the user manual etc. so they can see
what commands/functionality are/is available?


> > Yes, I believe we do want to have 30 commands it kernel, because it
> > will allow same userland to work on HP machines, AMD machines, etc...
> 
> We sell AMD :)
> 
> > (I assume management processors have pretty similar functionality
> > accross vendors, right?)
> 
> I can't speak for other vendors.
> 
> >> It seems much cleaner to keep the kernel interface simple and opaque
> >> (ie read/write), and handle the details of the commands in user
> >> space. From my limited understanding, I thought that was a common
> >> goal here: move what you can to userspace.
> >
> > We are not _that_ extreme. Yes, keep stuff in userspace is important,
> > but "hide hardware differences" is more important goal.
> 
> That seems like a larger question/goal.  Giving users some consistent
> interfaces to do stuff would be nice, but I'd really like to handle this
> driver on its own.


---
~Randy
Linux Plumbers Conference, 17-19 September 2008, Portland, Oregon USA
http://linuxplumbersconf.org/
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