Re: [PATCH net-next] net: dsa: lantiq_gswip: Add support for dumping the registers

[Martin Blumenstingl]

Hi Andrew,

On Mon, Apr 12, 2021 at 1:16 AM Andrew Lunn <andrew@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Sun, Apr 11, 2021 at 10:55:11PM +0200, Martin Blumenstingl wrote:
> > Add support for .get_regs_len and .get_regs so it is easier to find out
> > about the state of the ports on the GSWIP hardware. For this we
> > specifically add the GSWIP_MAC_PSTATp(port) and GSWIP_MDIO_STATp(port)
> > register #defines as these contain the current port status (as well as
> > the result of the auto polling mechanism). Other global and per-port
> > registers which are also considered useful are included as well.
>
> Although this is O.K, there has been a trend towards using devlink
> regions for this, and other register sets in the switch. Take a look
> at drivers/net/dsa/mv88e6xxx/devlink.c.
>
> There is a userspace tool for the mv88e6xxx devlink regions here:
>
> https://github.com/lunn/mv88e6xxx_dump
>
> and a few people have forked it and modified it for other DSA
> switches. At some point we might want to try to merge the forks back
> together so we have one tool to dump any switch.
actually I was wondering if there is some way to make the registers
"easier to read" in userspace.
It turns out there is :-)

Hauke, which approach do you recommend?:
- update this patch with your suggestion and ask Andrew to still merge
it soon-ish
- put this topic somewhere on my or your TODO-list and come up with a
devlink solution at some point in the future


Best regards,
Martin