[ofw] RE: "livefish" mode

[Fab Tillier]

I think either one is OK as long as an event log entry gets written to indicate that the FW is out of date.  I thought that the main difference between Linux and Windows with respect to updating the firmware was that Linux gives applications access to the PCI configuration registers, while Windows does not.  This required the HCA driver to provide that functionality in order for the FW update tool to read/write the FW image.

Does your FW update package on your site load a new kernel driver for the HCA?

-Fab

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ofw-bounces at lists.openfabrics.org [mailto:ofw-
> bounces at lists.openfabrics.org] On Behalf Of Leonid Keller
> Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2008 1:41 AM
> To: Sean Hefty; ofw at lists.openfabrics.org
> Subject: [ofw] "livefish" mode
>
> I guess, one can fix behaviour of query_interface routine so as it will
> support the work in "livefish" mode.
> But it is worth to discuss whether we need this mode at all.
> Historically, Linux always provided (and provides now) to the customers
> two drivers - mthca and mst.
> The latter was intended for burning FW and other maintainance/debugging
> works.
> These drivers are working in parallel.
> Windows PnP Manager didn't allow to have two drivers for one device, so
> I've added mst functionality into mthca driver (and in mlx4 also).
> In due time we came to the conclusion that it is more comfortable to
> have a standalone maintainance tools package with its own driver.
> This package we are providing now from our site.
> The "livefish" mode is used now only as a special mode, into which the
> low-level drivers pass when the fail to start up.
> One can run vstat and see the warning, that driver failed to start out
> of (possibly) incorrest FW.
> It is good especially at install time, because this behaviour allows
> for
> all other drivers of the stack to get installed and loaded.
> Otherwise the installation ended up with low-level driver failed to
> load
> and other drivers not installed.
> Is this enough worthy for keeping this mode ?
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Sean Hefty [mailto:sean.hefty at intel.com]
> > Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 9:13 PM
> > To: Leonid Keller; ofw at lists.openfabrics.org
> > Subject: RE: [ofw] [PATCH 7/9] mthca/pnp: respond to query interface
> >
> > >Why do you remove "livefish" functionality ?
> > >It's needed in case of incorrect FW.
> >
> > I had removed it to avoid crashing when a query interface
> > arrived at the HCA after a PnP device add event.  From what I
> > could determine, livefish was used in this context simply to
> > avoid setting specific interface functions.
> >
> > I did eventually end up changing winverbs to delay its query
> > interface call until it received a PnP D0 power event, so it
> > may be possible to add it back.  The interface wasn't usable
> > until then anyway.  I guess we can trust kernel clients not
> > to generate a query interface call until the D0 power event.
> >
> > >You can add the same stuff in mlx4\kernel\hca\drv.c
> >
> > Thanks - that saves me some searching.
> >
> > - Sean
> >
> >
> >
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