Subject: Re: [net-next-2.6 PATCH 1/1] e1000e: Expose MDI-X status via ethtool change

From: Ben Hutchings <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 16:05:04 +0100

On Fri, 2009-05-22 at 07:55 -0700, Chaitanya Lala wrote:
> Ethtool is a standard way of getting information about ethernet
> interfaces. We enhance ethtool kernel interface & e1000e to make
> the MDI-X status readable via ethtool in userspace.
[...] 
> diff --git a/include/linux/ethtool.h b/include/linux/ethtool.h
> index 380b042..0533d70 100644
> --- a/include/linux/ethtool.h
> +++ b/include/linux/ethtool.h
> @@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ struct ethtool_cmd {
>  	__u8	phy_address;
>  	__u8	transceiver;	/* Which transceiver to use */
>  	__u8	autoneg;	/* Enable or disable autonegotiation */
> +	__u8	is_mdix;	/* MDI-X status tri-state value */
>  	__u8	mdio_support;
[...]

There's no gap here, so this would move all the following fields and
break all older ethtool clients.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings, Senior Software Engineer, Solarflare Communications
Not speaking for my employer; that's the marketing department's job.
They asked us to note that Solarflare product names are trademarked.