Intel 10g ixgbe NIC driver "TUNABLE_INT" and sysctl argument inconsistency

[Tugrul Erdogan]

Hi,

I am using Intel 10g ixgbe network interface NIC on 10.0. While I was
tuning the NIC for increasinf the netwoking performance, I noticed that
like "hw.ix.rxd" "hw.ix.rxd" "hw.ix.rx_process_limit" sysctl tunings are
can not be done. The sysctl calls are not returning any error message.

When I look at the source code of ixgbe driver (
source_path/dev/ixgbe/ixgbe.c ), I found the "TUNABLE_INT" macro calls. The
macro taking "hw.ixgbe.*" like arguments but the sysctl expects "hw.ix.*"
like arguments. So I changed all of the "hw.ixgbe.*" arguments to "hw.ix.*"
which are inputs for "TUNABLE_INT" macro. Then I compiled the driver code
and now I am using the sysctl "hw.ix.*" calls sucessfully I think. I want
to consult you at this point, why should the original source code be
inconsistent with sysctl implementation? Is it only a bug or I have done a
change which must not be changed?

Thanks,
Tugrul