Extending sys/dev/mii

[Stefan Bethke]

Am 25.01.2012 um 23:17 schrieb Marius Strobl:

> Yes, it assumes IEEE 802.3-compliant devices and usecases. If you
> throw out all the things like auto-probing via ID registers, out-
> detection of media via the BMSR and so and which makes miibus(4)
> the generic PHY handling framework that it is or work around them,
> I hardly can think of much that would be left that justifies using
> miibus(4) in the first place though. Can't we just build another
> framework which handles all the other stuff that also just happens
> to have an MDIO interface and attach it instead?

The problem with that is that for f.e. the RTL8306, the switch and the PHYs coexist on the same MDIO bus, so some form of interoperation is required.

Don't get me wrong, my post was not meant to suggest that the current miibus code must be scratched or even significantly changed, I just wanted to document the limitations I discovered.

What I would like to do is make my new mdio bus driver into a full-fledged bus, and then maybe see if miibus can be extended to work with it more naturally than through the miiproxy adapter driver.


Stefan

-- 
Stefan Bethke <stb at lassitu.de>   Fon +49 151 14070811