Subject: Re: [RFC] let mortals use ethtool

From: Jeff Garzik <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 16:35:48 -0400

James Morris wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Sep 2006, Michael Chan wrote:
> 
>> I'm against letting normal users do ETHTOOL_GREGS and ETHTOOL_PHYS_ID.
>> Dumping 64K worth of registers and blinking the LEDs should be
>> restricted.
> 
> Out of curiosity -- why?

In the past, dumping certain tg3 registers has led to lock-ups, for one.

Also, blindly dumping registers can negatively affect driver operation, 
for the case where reading registers has side effects, such as PHY 
register bit shifting, or read-and-clear registers.

	Jeff