FCP-0101: Deprecating most 10/100 Ethernet drivers

[Matthew Macy]

On Thu, Oct 4, 2018 at 12:55 PM Doug Hardie <bc979 at lafn.org> wrote:
>
> I have a number of production servers that only have bge and I don't see that listed in either category.  None of them are running FreeBSD 12 yet as it has not been released.  Also there are some with rl.  Those are add-on boards so they could be changed, but would require extensive effort as the machines are about a 4 hour drive from here and would require reconfiguration (an error prone process when you are tired).
>
To this day servers ship with bge. My Talos 2 with 2x22x4 P9s has dual
onboard bge.
-M


> I also have two production machines with ue devices.  There is no provision for replacing them.  They are running an early version of 12 as 11 doesn't run on those machines.  I don't see ue listed in either category.
>
> -- Doug
>
> > On 3 October 2018, at 14:05, Brooks Davis <brooks at freebsd.org> wrote:
> >
> >>>> Please direct replies to freebsd-arch <<<
> >
> > FCP-01010 (https://github.com/freebsd/fcp/blob/master/fcp-0101.md)
> > outlines a plan to deprecate most 10/100 Ethernet drivers in FreeBSD 12
> > and remove them in FreeBSD 13 to reduce the burden of maintaining and
> > improving the network stack.  We have discussed this within the
> > core team and intend to move forward as proposed.  We are solictiting
> > feedback on the list of drivers to be excepted from removal.
> >
> > The current list of drivers slated for REMOVAL is:
> >
> > ae, bfe, bm, cs, dme, ed, ep, ex, fe, pcn, rl, sf, smc, sn,
> > ste, tl, tx, txp, vx, wb, xe
> >
> > The current list of drivers that will STAY in the tree is:
> >
> > dc, ffec, fxpl, hme, le, sis, vr, xl
> >
> > The criteria for exception are:
> > - Popular in applications where it is likely to be deployed beyond the
> >   support lifetime of FreeBSD 12 (late 2023).
> >   - 5 reports of uses in the wild on machines running FreeBSD 12 will be
> >     deemed satisfy the "popular"
> >     requirement.
> > - Required to make a well supported embedded or emulation platform usable.
> > - Ported to use iflib (reducing future maintenance cost.)
> >
> > Please reply to this message with nominations to the exception list.
> >
> > The full FCP-0101 is included below.
> >
> > -- Brooks
> >
> > ---
> > authors: Brooks Davis <brooks at freebsd.org>
> > state: feedback
> > ---
> >
> > # FCP 101: Deprecation and removal of 10/100 Ethernet drivers
> >
> > Deprecate most 10 and 10/100Mbps Ethernet drivers and remove them before
> > FreeBSD 13.
> >
> > ## Problem Statement
> >
> > Each network driver creates drag for the project as we attempt to
> > improve the network stack or provide new features such as expanded
> > 32-bit compatibility.  For example, the author has edited every single
> > NIC driver more than once in the past year to update management (`ioctl`)
> > interfaces.  We could improve this situation by converting drivers to
> > iflib, but each additional driver takes work.
> >
> > 10 and 100 megabit Ethernet drivers are largely irrelevant today
> > and we have a significant number of them in the tree.  The ones that
> > are no longer used and/or are not known to be working need to be
> > removed due to the significant ongoing 'tax' on new development.
> >
> > For at least a decade, most systems (including small embedded
> > systems) have shipped with gigabit Ethernet devices and virtual
> > machines commonly emulate popular gigabit devices.  We wish to
> > retain support for popular physical and virtual devices while
> > removing support for uncommon ones.  With a few exceptions these
> > drivers are unlikely to be used by our user base by the time FreeBSD
> > 12 is obsolete (approximately 2024).
> >
> > ## Proposed Solution
> >
> > We propose to deprecate devices which are not sufficiently popular.  This
> > will entail:
> > - (October 2018) Send this list to freebsd-net and freebsd-stable.
> > - (Before FreeBSD 12.0-RELEASE - October 2018) Update the manpages and
> >   attach routines for each device to be removed and merge those changes
> >   to FreeBSD 12.
> > - (One month after FreeBSD 12.0-RELEASE - January 2018) Remind
> >   freebsd-net and freebsd-stable users of pending deletion.
> > - (Two months after FreeBSD 12.0-RELEASE - February 2019) Delete deprecated
> >   devices.
> >
> > Through out this process, solicit feedback on additions to the exception
> > list and update this document as required.  For a device to be placed on
> > the exception list the device must meet one of the following criteria:
> > - Popular in applications where it is likely to be deployed beyond the
> >   support lifetime of FreeBSD 12 (late 2023).
> >   - 5 reports of uses in the wild on machines running FreeBSD 12 will be
> >     deemed satisfy the "popular"
> >     requirement.
> > - Required to make a well supported embedded or emulation platform usable.
> > - Ported to use iflib (reducing future maintenance cost.)
> >
> > ### Exceptions to removal
> >
> > Device | Reason
> > -------|-------------------------------------------------
> > ffec   | Onboard Ethernet for Vybrid arm7 boards
> > fxp    | Popular device long recommended by the project.
> > dc     | Popular device for CardBus card.
> > hme    | Built in interface on many supported sparc64 platforms.
> > le     | Emulated by QEMU, alternatives don't yet work for mips64.
> > sis    | Soekris Engineering net45xx, net48xx, lan1621, and lan1641.
> > vr     | Soekris Engineering net5501, some Asus motherboards.
> > xl     | Popular device for CardBus card.
> >
> > Note: USB devices have been excluded from consideration in this round.
> >
> > ### Device to be removed
> >
> > ae, bfe, bm, cs, dme, ed, ep, ex, fe, pcn, rl, sf, smc, sn,
> > ste, tl, tx, txp, vx, wb, xe
> >
> > ## Final Disposition
> >
> > TBD
>
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