> >> Patches 6-8 add the "ethtool -f" and the boot-time firmware upgrade on > the > >> mlxsw spectrum driver. > > When we tried using `ethtool -E' for qed we got burned for trying to use > the magic > > value [1]. When we suggested extending it to allow some private data > indications, > > Ben claimed that this entire ethtool infrastructure is a thing of the past, > > and we should try using MTD instead - a claim no one bothered to counter. > > > > Creating proprietary file-formats, filling them with metadata and > > complementary driver state-machines could easily overcome the original > > obstacle we faced. But it raises the question of whether these APIs are > > valid or obsolete. > > The metadata in our format is needed to allow us to hold several firmware > images for several spectrum silicon variants in one file, hence the metadata > is used by the driver and does not get transferred to the device.
Understood; Otherwise it would have been 'data' and not 'metadata'. >Our code can only be used to transfer firmware to the device, and cannot > be used to configure the device. Not sure what this refers to? The differences between '-f' and '-E'? Also, assuming you haven't started selling your adapters as persistent memory for storage, what's the difference?
