Bug#804283: Fwd: RE: [E1000-devel] igb / ixgbe : differences between mainline and out-of-tree drivers

2015-11-18 Thread Clement Hermann
[Cross posting to both RFS and ITP bugs, since it's relevant to both]

Hi,

there weren't any new message on the thread I started on upstream
mailing list for a week, so I guess it's time to relay.

The complete response I received is included below, at the end of the
message.

To summarize:
- RSS, EEE, InterruptThrottleRate and QueuePair can be achieve via ethtool
- LLI parameters won't, but this is considered a rarely used feature,
not supported by recent hardware
- InterruptMode is mainly used for debug, since the driver should select
the best interrupt mode available
- VDMQ, MDD and DMAC aren't supported via ethtool and probably never will.

I personally can manage what I need with ethtool, but I'm willing to
maintain this package anyway since I already use kernel parameters
(easier to use than ethtool, although less dynamic). Also people could
find the parameters not supported by ethtool useful.

Of course I'll understand if it's not acceptable for Debian. Advice and
input welcome. I updated the version on mentor to reflect this in the
description.

Cheers,

nodens

 Message transféré 
Sujet : RE: [E1000-devel] igb / ixgbe : differences between mainline
and out-of-tree drivers
Date :  Tue, 10 Nov 2015 18:26:42 +
De :Tantilov, Emil S <emil.s.tanti...@intel.com>
Pour :  Clement Hermann <nod...@nodens.org>,
e1000-de...@lists.sourceforge.net <e1000-de...@lists.sourceforge.net>



>-Original Message-
>From: Clement Hermann [mailto:nod...@nodens.org]
>Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2015 3:51 AM
>To: e1000-de...@lists.sourceforge.net
>Subject: [E1000-devel] igb / ixgbe : differences between mainline and out-
>of-tree drivers
>
>Hi,
>
>I'm trying to understand the differences between the out-of-tree and the
>mainline version for igb and ixgbe drivers.
>
>The issue is, I packaged the out-of-tree version for debian, but there
>are concerns from the kernel team for allowing to maintain an
>out-of-tree driver since most features should be in the mainline driver.
>
>(see discussion on
>https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=804258 and
>https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=804283)
>
>AFAICS, the main difference is that the mainline driver doesn't support
>configuration via modules parameter.

Except for rare cases the community is against using module parameters and 
in favor of using generic tools to control the behavior of the Ethernet drivers.

>Some parameters can be controled with ethtool on mainline version:
>
> - EE: ethtool --set-eee
> - RSS: ethtool -X
>
>For some I'm unsure:
>
> - InterruptThrottleRate: ethtool -C ? Not sure if the same is achieved.
>Input welcome.
> - QueuePairs: Seems like it could be done with ethtool -L ?

That's right. 

>Other don't seen to be:
> - IntMode:Change Interrupt Mode

The driver will pick the best available interrupt mode. This parameter is
more useful for debugging than anything else. There are also ways to limit the 
support from the kernel command line, but that is usually not a good idea.

> - Node:set the starting node to allocate memory on

The driver is designed to allocate memory from the nearest NUMA node.
If I remember correctly this parameter was rejected by the community when we 
proposed it. I think this is a leftover in igb, ixgbe does not have this 
parameter.

> - LLIPort:Low Latency Interrupt TCP Port
> - LLIPush:Low Latency Interrupt on TCP Push flag
> - LLISize:Low Latency Interrupt on Packet Size

The LLI parameters are not generic and are no longer supported in newer HW.
There is no ethtool alternative, but we haven't seen much use of them either.

> - VMDQ:Number of Virtual Machine Device Queues
> - MDD:Malicious Driver Detection
> - DMAC: Disable or set latency for DMA Coalescing
>
>Will these functions be available via ethtool in the mainline driver
>someday ?

We always try to determine if a certain parameter can be exposed via method 
other
than a module parameter, but not all of the functionality has an equivalent 
option
in ethtool. Also some parameters are introduced as a way to test new 
functionality.

Thanks,
Emil







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Re: Bug#804283: RFS: igb/5.3.3.2-1 [ITP] -- out of tree Intel Gigabit Ethernet driver.

2015-11-10 Thread Clement Hermann
Le 08/11/2015 03:56, Paul Wise a écrit :
> On Sat, 2015-11-07 at 08:12 +0100, Vincent Bernat wrote:
>
>> Intel also maintains the drivers for their wired cards in
>> mainline. However, for some reason (unknown for me), they have always
>> restricted the features of those drivers.
> Has anyone suggested to Intel that they should upstream those features?
>
I didn't find anything definitive in the dev list archive, so I just
asked for clarification.

Let's see how it goes.

-- 
Clément (nodens)



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Re: Bug#804283: RFS: igb/5.3.3.2-1 [ITP] -- out of tree Intel Gigabit Ethernet driver.

2015-11-08 Thread Clement Hermann
Le 07/11/2015 18:18, Clément Hermann a écrit :
> Le 7 novembre 2015 16:33:23 GMT+01:00, Vincent Bernat
> <ber...@debian.org> a écrit :
>
>  ❦  6 novembre 2015 22:39 +0100, Clement Hermann <nod...@nodens.org> :
>
> The package is on m.d.n : http://mentors.debian.net/package/igb 
>
>
> Not available anymore?
>
>
> Yeah, it will be again once I rework the description.
> Should be later this weekend.

I just uploaded it again, so it should show up in a few minutes.

Cheers,

-- 
Clément (nodens)



Bug#804283: RFS: igb/5.3.3.2-1 [ITP] -- out of tree Intel Gigabit Ethernet driver.

2015-11-06 Thread Clement Hermann
Package: sponsorship-requests
Severity: wishlist

Hi mentors,

I am looking for a sponsor for my package igb.


* Package name: igb
  Version : 5.3.3.2-1
  Upstream Author : Intel Corporation
* URL : http://sourceforge.net/projects/e1000/
* License : GPL-2
  Programming Lang: C
  Description : dkms source for the igb network driver
  It builds this binary package: 

  igb-dkms   - dkms source for the igb network driver

The package is on m.d.n : http://mentors.debian.net/package/igb

Alternatively, one can download the package with dget using this command:

  dget -x http://mentors.debian.net/debian/pool/main/i/igb/igb_5.3.3.2-1.dsc

More information about igb can be obtained from 
http://sourceforge.net/projects/e1000/ or 
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/13663/Network-Adapter-Driver-for-82575-6-82580-I350-and-I210-211-Based-Gigabit-Network-Connections-for-Linux-

You can also check the ITP: 
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=804258


The package is needed because the in-tree driver doesn't have advanced features 
such as interrupt throttle,
multiqueue or Large Receive Offload.

As far as I can see, there is no firmware  blob loading that should prevent 
including it in main, but if 
I'm proven wrong I'd settle for a non-free upload.

Note that I already have a sponsor for my other packaging work (as a member of 
the perl pkg team), 
but this particular package obviously doesn't belong to this team, hence this 
RFS.

Also, I use git-buildpackage for the packaging work. For now, the Debian 
packaging is hosted on github 
(see Vcs-* URL in the package). I'd like to move it to anonvcs.debian.org, but 
I'd need my sponsor to create 
the repository in collab-maint. Even if you don't want to sponsor the package, 
I'd be glad if you could create
this repo.


Cheers,

-- 
Clément (nodens)




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