Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next v3] net: dsa: mv88e6xxx: Add erratum 3.14 for 88E6390X and 88E6190X

From: "Russell King (Oracle)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2023 11:56:41 +0100

On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 12:47:43PM +0200, Paolo Abeni wrote:
> [adding Russell]
> On Tue, 2023-07-25 at 11:59 +0200, Ante Knezic wrote:
> > On Tue, 25 Jul 2023 10:56:25 +0200 Paolo Abeni wrote
> > > It looks like you are ignoring the errors reported by
> > > mv88e6390_erratum_3_14(). Should the above be:
> > > 
> > > 		return mv88e6390_erratum_3_14(mpcs);
> > > 
> > > instead?
> > > 
> > 
> > I guess you are right. Would it make sense to do the evaluation for the 
> > 	mv88e639x_sgmii_pcs_control_pwr(mpcs, true);
> > above as well?
> 
> Good question ;) it looks like pcs_post_config() errors are always
> ignored by the core, but I guess it's better to report them as
> accurately as possible.

... because if they occur, it's way too late to attempt to unwind the
changes that have already occurred.

> @Russell, what it your preference here, should we just ignore the
> generate errors earlier, or try to propagate them to the core/phylink,
> should that later be changed to deal with them?

How would we deal with an error?

If it's a "we can't support this configuration" then that's a driver
problem, and means that the validation failed to exclude the
unsupported configuration.

If it's a communication error of some sort, then we're unlikely to
be able to back out the configuration change, because we probably
can't communicate with some device anymore - and there are paths
in phylink where these methods are called where there is no
possibility of propagating an error (due to being called in a
workqueue.)

I did decide that phylink_major_config() ought not proceed if
mac_prepare() fails, but really once mac_prepare() has been called
we're committed - and if an error happens after that, the network
interface is dead.

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