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

[Hauke Mehrtens]

On 4/13/21 12:24 AM, Martin Blumenstingl wrote:
> 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

Would you work on the devlink solution in the next weeks?
I think this is part of the ABI when we add it, can we later remove the 
ethtool registers when we add devlink support or is this not allowed?

Hauke