Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next v3 06/10] net: dsa: Migrate to device_find_class()

From: Greg KH <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2017 08:06:10 +0100

On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 12:01:02PM -0800, Florian Fainelli wrote:
> On 01/15/2017 11:16 AM, Andrew Lunn wrote:
> >>> What exactly is the relationship between these devices (a ascii-art tree
> >>> or sysfs tree output might be nice) so I can try to understand what is
> >>> going on here.
> > 
> > Hi Greg, Florian
> > 
> > A few diagrams and trees which might help understand what is going on.
> > 
> > The first diagram comes from the 2008 patch which added all this code:
> > 
> >             +-----------+       +-----------+
> >             |           | RGMII |           |
> >             |           +-------+           +------ 1000baseT MDI ("WAN")
> >             |           |       |  6-port   +------ 1000baseT MDI ("LAN1")
> >             |    CPU    |       |  ethernet +------ 1000baseT MDI ("LAN2")
> >             |           |MIImgmt|  switch   +------ 1000baseT MDI ("LAN3")
> >             |           +-------+  w/5 PHYs +------ 1000baseT MDI ("LAN4")
> >             |           |       |           |
> >             +-----------+       +-----------+
> > 
> > We have an ethernet switch and a host CPU. The switch is connected to
> > the CPU in two different ways. RGMII allows us to get Ethernet frames
> > from the CPU into the switch. MIImgmt, is the management bus normally
> > used for Ethernet PHYs, but Marvell switches also use it for Managing
> > switches.
> > 
> > The diagram above is the simplest setup. You can have multiple
> > Ethernet switches, connected together via switch ports. Each switch
> > has its own MIImgmt connect to the CPU, but there is only one RGMII
> > link.
> > 
> > When this code was designed back in 2008, it was decided to represent
> > this is a platform device, and it has a platform_data, which i have
> > slightly edited to keep it simple:
> > 
> > struct dsa_platform_data {
> >         /*
> >          * Reference to a Linux network interface that connects
> >          * to the root switch chip of the tree.
> >          */
> >         struct device   *netdev;
> > 
> >         /*
> >          * Info structs describing each of the switch chips
> >          * connected via this network interface.
> >          */
> >         int             nr_chips;
> >         struct dsa_chip_data    *chip;
> > };
> > 
> > This netdev is the CPU side of the RGMII interface.
> > 
> > Each switch has a dsa_chip_data, again edited:
> > 
> > struct dsa_chip_data {
> >         /*
> >          * How to access the switch configuration registers.
> >          */
> >         struct device   *host_dev;
> >         int             sw_addr;
> > ...
> > }
> > 
> > The host_dev is the CPU side of the MIImgmt, and we have the address
> > the switch is using on the bus.
> > 
> > During probe of this platform device, we need to get from the
> > struct device *netdev to a struct net_device *dev.
> > 
> > So the code looks in the device net class to find the device
> > 
> > |   |   |   |-- f1074000.ethernet
> > |   |   |   |   |-- deferred_probe
> > |   |   |   |   |-- driver -> ../../../../../bus/platform/drivers/mvneta
> > |   |   |   |   |-- driver_override
> > |   |   |   |   |-- modalias
> > |   |   |   |   |-- net
> > |   |   |   |   |   `-- eth1
> > |   |   |   |   |       |-- addr_assign_type
> > |   |   |   |   |       |-- address
> > |   |   |   |   |       |-- addr_len
> > |   |   |   |   |       |-- broadcast
> > |   |   |   |   |       |-- carrier
> > |   |   |   |   |       |-- carrier_changes
> > |   |   |   |   |       |-- deferred_probe
> > |   |   |   |   |       |-- device -> ../../../f1074000.ethernet
> > 
> > and then use container_of() to get the net_device.
> > 
> > Similarly, the code needs to get from struct device *host_dev to a struct mii_bus *.
> > 
> > |   |   |   |-- f1072004.mdio
> > |   |   |   |   |-- deferred_probe
> > |   |   |   |   |-- driver -> ../../../../../bus/platform/drivers/orion-mdio
> > |   |   |   |   |-- driver_override
> > |   |   |   |   |-- mdio_bus
> > |   |   |   |   |   `-- f1072004.mdio-mi
> > |   |   |   |   |       |-- deferred_probe
> > |   |   |   |   |       |-- device -> ../../../f1072004.mdio
> > 
> 
> Thanks Andrew! Greg, does that make it clearer how these devices
> references are used, do you still think the way this is done is wrong,
> too cautious, or valid?

I'm still not sold on it, I think there is something odd here with your
use/assumptions of the driver model.  Give me a few days to catch up
with other stuff to respond back please...

thanks,

greg k-h