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Date:   Thu, 19 May 2022 16:15:32 +0100
From:   "Russell King (Oracle)" <linux@armlinux.org.uk>
To:     Vladimir Oltean <vladimir.oltean@nxp.com>
Cc:     Andrew Lunn <andrew@lunn.ch>,
        "netdev@vger.kernel.org" <netdev@vger.kernel.org>,
        Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>,
        "David S. Miller" <davem@davemloft.net>,
        Paolo Abeni <pabeni@redhat.com>,
        Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>,
        Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@gmail.com>,
        Vivien Didelot <vivien.didelot@gmail.com>,
        Vladimir Oltean <olteanv@gmail.com>,
        "devicetree@vger.kernel.org" <devicetree@vger.kernel.org>,
        "linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
        Saravana Kannan <saravanak@google.com>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>,
        "Rafael J. Wysocki" <rafael@kernel.org>,
        Robin Murphy <robin.murphy@arm.com>,
        Geert Uytterhoeven <geert+renesas@glider.be>,
        Rob Herring <robh+dt@kernel.org>,
        Frank Rowand <frowand.list@gmail.com>,
        John Stultz <jstultz@google.com>,
        Alvin =?utf-8?B?4pS8w6FpcHJhZ2E=?= <alsi@bang-olufsen.dk>,
        Heiner Kallweit <hkallweit1@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH net 0/2] Make phylink and DSA wait for PHY driver
 that defers probe
Message-ID: <YoZfFDdSDLUtn42S@shell.armlinux.org.uk>
References: <20220513233640.2518337-1-vladimir.oltean@nxp.com>
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On Thu, May 19, 2022 at 02:59:36PM +0000, Vladimir Oltean wrote:
> Hi Andrew,
> 
> On Sat, May 14, 2022 at 02:23:51AM +0200, Andrew Lunn wrote:
> > There is a very different approach, which might be simpler.
> > 
> > We know polling will always work. And it should be possible to
> > transition between polling and interrupt at any point, so long as the
> > phylock is held. So if you get -EPROBE_DEFFER during probe, mark some
> > state in phydev that there should be an irq, but it is not around yet.
> > When the phy is started, and phylib starts polling, look for the state
> > and try getting the IRQ again. If successful, swap to interrupts, if
> > not, keep polling. Maybe after 60 seconds of polling and trying, give
> > up trying to find the irq and stick with polling.
> 
> That doesn't sound like something that I'd backport to stable kernels.
> Letting the PHY driver dynamically switch from poll to IRQ mode risks
> racing with phylink's workqueue, and generally speaking, phylink doesn't
> seem to be built around the idea that "bool poll" can change after
> phylink_start().

I think you're confused. Andrew is merely talking about phylib's
polling, not phylink's.

Phylink's polling is only ever used in two circumstances:

1. In fixed-link mode where we have an interruptless GPIO.
2. In in-band mode when the PCS specifies it needs to be polled.

This is not used to poll ethernet PHYs - ethernet PHY polling is
handled entirely by phylib itself.

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