Extending sys/dev/mii

[Marius Strobl]

On Sun, Jan 08, 2012 at 11:27:25PM +0100, Stefan Bethke wrote:
> Am 08.01.2012 um 14:00 schrieb Marius Strobl:
> 
> > Okay, this is the kind of information I was looking for as coupling
> > devices with newbus that have no close relation in the hierarchy is
> > tedious. However, when not using newbus the question arises how do
> > you intend to associate the device_t of say arge0 with the mdiobus0
> > hanging off somewhere beneath iicbus0?
> 
> In my experimental tree, I've hacked together a small function that parses a string for a devclass name and unit number, and looks that up.
> 
> I'm also trying a number of other approaches; mainly I'm trying to understand how newbus works, and what kind of driver I want at the various points, ideally auto-attached, or configured by hints, instead of by custom code.  I think I'll need another couple of days to get a good enough understanding of drivers, devclasses and their tree, and the device tree.
> 

Okay, I suggest to postpone this discussion until then. For the
scenario when mdiobus is the parent of miibus I see no technical
need to change miibus to support what you want to do, just implement
the miibus_if in mdiobus and redirect it to the device_t of the
MAC there. Moreover, that way the hack to sidestep newbus is contained
in the layer that actually needs it and not scattered over multiple
frameworks.

Marius