Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next v13 12/15] net: stmmac: Fixed failure to set network speed to 1000.

From: "Russell King (Oracle)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2024 19:56:07 +0100

On Wed, Jul 03, 2024 at 07:56:31PM +0300, Serge Semin wrote:
> One another statement in IEEE 802.3 C40 that implies the AN being
> mandatory is that 1000BASE-T PHYs determine their MASTER or SLAVE part
> during the Auto-Negotiation process. The part determines the clock
> source utilized by the PHYs: "The MASTER PHY uses a local clock to
> determine the timing of transmitter operations. The SLAVE PHY recovers
> the clock from the received signal and uses it to determine the timing
> of transmitter operations, i.e.," (40.1.3 Operation of 1000BASE-T)
> 
> So I guess that without Auto-negotiation the link just won't be
> established due to the clocks missconfiguration.

Oh damn, I did a reply, then cocked up sending it (lost it instead!)
So, this is going to be a brief response now.

It seems AN is basically required for 1000base-T.

> > Alternatively, maybe just implement the Marvell Alaska solution
> > to this problem (if the user attempts to disable AN on a PHY
> > supporting only base-T at gigabit speeds, then we silently force
> > AN with SPEED_1000 and DUPLEX_FULL.
> 
> I am not that much knowledgable about the PHY-lib and PHY-link
> internals, but if we get to establish that the standard indeed
> implies the AN being mandatory, then this sounds like the least
> harmful solution from the user-space point of view.

The Atheros PHYs are another PHY where we should not be disabling
AN when wishing to use 1000base-T (so says the datasheet - I did
quote it in my original reply but lost that...)

As has already been mentioned, Marvell Alaska takes an interesting
approach - when BMCR AN enable is cleared but speed is forced to
1000, it internally keeps AN enabled and advertises the appropriate
1G speed + duplex capability bit depending on the BMCR duplex bit.

Rather than erroring out, I think it may be better to just adopt
the Marvell solution to this problem to give consistent behaviour
across all PHYs.

-- 
RMK's Patch system: https://www.armlinux.org.uk/developer/patches/
FTTP is here! 80Mbps down 10Mbps up. Decent connectivity at last!