[openib-general] [PATCH] Allow setting of NodeDescription

[Roland Dreier]

    Fab> To me, non volatile in this context means something like
    Fab> using the system name.

Huh??  To me non-volatile means not changing.

    Fab> Would this be hard to do?  In fact, I would prefer to see the
    Fab> system name used instead of whatever is programmed in the HCA
    Fab> as the default.  Granted, this makes the node description
    Fab> burned in the firmware useless, but that doesn't seem like a
    Fab> big deal.

It's easy to do, but I don't want to put naming policy in the kernel.
I'll try to think of a clean way to give userspace a chance to set the
node description before the HCA ports are exposed to the SM.

However, there are various unsolvable cases like boot over IB, where
the HCA ports need to be active to mount the root filesystem, but the
system doesn't have its hostname set until after the root filesystem
is mounted.

 - R.