Re: [PATCH net-next RFC 01/13] devlink: Add reload level option to devlink reload command

[Jiri Pirko]

Mon, Aug 10, 2020 at 06:53:05PM CEST, kuba@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>On Sun, 9 Aug 2020 16:21:29 +0300 Moshe Shemesh wrote:
>> Okay, so devlink reload default for mlx5 will include also fw-activate 
>> to align with mlxsw default.
>> 
>> Meaning drivers that supports fw-activate will add it to the default.
>
>No per-driver default.
>
>Maybe the difference between mlxsw and mlx5 can be simply explained by
>the fact that mlxsw loads firmware from /lib/firmware on every probe
>(more or less).
>
>It's only natural for a driver which loads FW from disk to load it on
>driver reload.

We don't load it on reaload... We just do reset witn activation.

>
>> The flow of devlink reload default on mlx5 will be:
>> 
>> If there is FW image pending and live patch is suitable to apply, do 
>> live patch and driver re-initialization.
>> 
>> If there is FW image pending but live patch doesn't fit do fw-reset and 
>> driver-initialization.
>> 
>> If no FW image pending just do driver-initialization.
>
>This sounds too complicated. Don't try to guess what the user wants.
>
>> I still think I should on top of that add the level option to be 
>> selected by the user if he prefers a specific action, so the uAPI would be:
>> 
>> devlink dev reload [ netns { PID | NAME | ID } ] [ level { fw-live-patch 
>> | driver-reinit |fw-activate } ]
>
>I'm all for the level/action.
>
>> But I am still missing something: fw-activate implies that it will 
>> activate a new FW image stored on flash, pending activation. What if the 
>> user wants to reset and reload the FW if no new FW pending ? Should we 
>> add --force option to fw-activate level ?
>
>Since reload does not check today if anything changed - i.e. if reload
>is actually needed, neither should fw-activate, IMO. I'd expect the
>"--force behavior" to be the default.