Choice of private ioctl approach

[Andrew Rybchenko]

Hello John,

On 09/30/2014 07:31 PM, John Baldwin wrote:
> On Monday, September 29, 2014 8:36:22 am Andrew Rybchenko wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> we need to add private ioctl to the driver sfxge(4) to make FW update,
>> do internal diagnostics commands etc.
>> We see at least two approaches in other drivers:
>>    1. SIOCGPRIVATE_0/ SIOCGPRIVATE_1 on net device
>>    2. dedicated char device with its own ioctl's
>>
>> Is there any recommendations on which way is preferred?
> I would be inclined towards 2).  It is more flexible if you need to add more
> custom ioctls in the future.

Thanks a lot for your reply. It looks like there are no any strong
opinions on the topic.
The problem with 2) is that it adds one more entity and we'd like to
avoid it.
We need more than one request semantically, so we'll have multiplexing
by internal
opcode inside SIOCGPRIVATE_0. I think it is flexible enough.

Best regards,
Andrew.
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