[openib-general] [RFC] ib_mad

[Hal Rosenstock]

On Thu, 2004-09-16 at 20:46, Roland Dreier wrote:
> It makes sense to me to add the device attr to ib_device.  The only
> fields that I see that might change are system_image_guid and
> phys_port_cnt (if hot pluggable ports ever come about).  We could fix
> this by requiring the low-level driver to keep the system_image_guid
> field up to date (since it can only be changed through that driver),
> and defining phys_port_cnt to be the maximum possible number of ports
> (pluggable ports that aren't present would just always be down).

Why would the max possible number of ports need to be known ahead of
time ? This might change as "modules" fit in the same chassis with 
higher port densities over time. It would be better if we didn't need to
artificially limit it.

> In any case pretty much everyone's code would be broken by phys_port_cnt
> changing under them.

Agreed. We would need some event to indicate a port count change and
a lot of code would need to use this as a trigger.

> If we did this we could just kill off the query_device method
> entirely, which would be nice.

Sounds good to me.

-- Hal