Hi Richard, I think the patches that Yangbo is proposing in the RFC are for 802.1AS-2011, and I know other people with Linuxptp patches for 802.1AS-2011 as well. For the most part, 802.1AS-2020 adds new features in a compatible way, so it is straightforward to build 802.1AS-2020 features on a 802.1AS-2011 foundation.
Recommendation: Keep to 802.1AS-2011 bridge for the upcoming patches. We can come back to 802.1AS-2020 features in the future once the document is published (still in work with IEEE editorial staff). Regarding conformance testing like UNH, I totally agree. Recommendation: Proceed with Yangbo's patches first, and conformance testing second. I talked a bit offline with Yangbo, and it turns out that his employer (NXP) does not have a license for the UNH-IOL conformance tests of 802.1AS-2011. Nevertheless, my employer (NI) has a license, and I can offer to run UNH-IOL 802.1AS-2011 bridge tests once those patches are in the Linuxptp master. You mentioned testing at the UNH lab. To clarify that aspect, in my experience, UNH-IOL offers two distinct forms of testing for 802.1AS-2011: - Certification: This means that a company sends their product to UNH physically, UNH staff runs the tests, and generates a formal report. UNH doesn't make the report public, but they can disclose parts of it to other entities for formal approvals. For example, https://avnu.org has a logo that the company can put on the product if a certain percentage of tests pass. - Conformance: This means that a company buys a license from UNH-IOL to run the tests at their own site (not physically at UNH). The test tool generates a report, but UNH does not allow that report to be disclosed publicly. The tests are the same as Certification, but the company is just using them to improve product quality. I assume I cannot get into precise UNH pricing, but Certification costs about 10X more than Conformance. At this point in time, most companies are not being pressured to deliver Certification (e.g. customers aren't asking about a logo), so almost all companies are doing Conformance testing only (including where I work). Based on my experience running the UNH-IOL 802.1AS-2011 Conformance tests, for a solid 1588-based implementation like Linuxptp, I'd say that the report's failures are typically: A) a couple of real bugs that a customer would notice, B) a handful of bugs that are technicalities in the standard, but customers wouldn't notice, C) a handful of bugs in the UNH-IOL test code. In the past, when NI has detected failures for 802.1AS-2011 end station, we've submitted Linuxptp patches to fix category A) (and sometimes B)). Recommendation: After 802.1AS-2011 bridge is in the Linuxptp master, NI runs the UNH-IOL Conformance bridge tests, and submits category A) and B) failures to Linuxptp. For some of the category B) failures, the Linuxptp group might decide not to merge in the fix, and that is okay. In order to go the Certification route, we'd need to find funding, and I'm assuming we want to avoid that challenge. In order to publicly disclose the detailed test report (whether Certification or Conformance), the Linuxptp group would need to negotiate with UNH-IOL, and I'm assuming we don't want to bother. If you or others on the list disagree with these recommendations, that's totally 100% good by me. I'm just throwing them out as suggestions. Rodney Cummings National Instruments > -----Original Message----- > From: Richard Cochran <richardcoch...@gmail.com> > Sent: Friday, March 6, 2020 12:23 PM > To: Y.b. Lu <yangbo...@nxp.com> > Cc: Erik Hons <erik.h...@ni.com>; linuxptp-devel@lists.sourceforge.net; > Rodney Cummings <rodney.cummi...@ni.com> > Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [RFC V2] Add IEEE 802.1AS-2011 time-aware bridge > support > > On Wed, Feb 19, 2020 at 01:52:28AM +0000, Y.b. Lu wrote: > > May I know your opinion on time-aware bridge support? > > I would like to see someone carefully review them. I'm especially > interested in having the new code conform to the new standard (which I > haven't read yet). > > Could you possibly arrange to have this tested at the UNH lab? > Passing the conformance tests would be a strong reason for merging. > > Thanks, > Richard _______________________________________________ Linuxptp-devel mailing list Linuxptp-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linuxptp-devel
