History log of /linux-master/Documentation/networking/devlink/devlink-flash.rst
Revision Date Author Comments
# 5d5b4128 25-Sep-2020 Jacob Keller <jacob.e.keller@intel.com>

devlink: introduce flash update overwrite mask

Sections of device flash may contain settings or device identifying
information. When performing a flash update, it is generally expected
that these settings and identifiers are not overwritten.

However, it may sometimes be useful to allow overwriting these fields
when performing a flash update. Some examples include, 1) customizing
the initial device config on first programming, such as overwriting
default device identifying information, or 2) reverting a device
configuration to known good state provided in the new firmware image, or
3) in case it is suspected that current firmware logic for managing the
preservation of fields during an update is broken.

Although some devices are able to completely separate these types of
settings and fields into separate components, this is not true for all
hardware.

To support controlling this behavior, a new
DEVLINK_ATTR_FLASH_UPDATE_OVERWRITE_MASK is defined. This is an
nla_bitfield32 which will define what subset of fields in a component
should be overwritten during an update.

If no bits are specified, or of the overwrite mask is not provided, then
an update should not overwrite anything, and should maintain the
settings and identifiers as they are in the previous image.

If the overwrite mask has the DEVLINK_FLASH_OVERWRITE_SETTINGS bit set,
then the device should be configured to overwrite any of the settings in
the requested component with settings found in the provided image.

Similarly, if the DEVLINK_FLASH_OVERWRITE_IDENTIFIERS bit is set, the
device should be configured to overwrite any device identifiers in the
requested component with the identifiers from the image.

Multiple overwrite modes may be combined to indicate that a combination
of the set of fields that should be overwritten.

Drivers which support the new overwrite mask must set the
DEVLINK_SUPPORT_FLASH_UPDATE_OVERWRITE_MASK in the
supported_flash_update_params field of their devlink_ops.

Signed-off-by: Jacob Keller <jacob.e.keller@intel.com>
Reviewed-by: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>


# cd556e40 24-Mar-2020 Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>

devlink: expand the devlink-info documentation

We are having multiple review cycles with all vendors trying
to implement devlink-info. Let's expand the documentation with
more information about what's implemented and motivation behind
this interface in an attempt to make the implementations easier.

Describe what each info section is supposed to contain, and make
some references to other HW interfaces (PCI caps).

Document how firmware management is expected to look, to make
it clear how devlink-info and devlink-flash work in concert.

Name some future work.

v2: - improve wording
v3: - improve wording

Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>