Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1757577AbYGHUbw (ORCPT ); Tue, 8 Jul 2008 16:31:52 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1754729AbYGHUbo (ORCPT ); Tue, 8 Jul 2008 16:31:44 -0400 Received: from gprs189-60.eurotel.cz ([160.218.189.60]:33465 "EHLO gprs189-60.eurotel.cz" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754462AbYGHUbn (ORCPT ); Tue, 8 Jul 2008 16:31:43 -0400 Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2008 12:37:32 +0200 From: Pavel Machek To: Bruno =?iso-8859-1?Q?Pr=E9mont?= Cc: "Altobelli, David" , "linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" , "greg@kroah.com" Subject: Re: [PATCH][resubmit] HP iLO driver Message-ID: <20080708103732.GA15317@elf.ucw.cz> References: <20080623160052.GA7616@ldl.fc.hp.com> <20080627191458.GA10872@ucw.cz> <20080707160658.GB1794@elf.ucw.cz> <20080708072152.GD1761@elf.ucw.cz> <20080708100241.36b89e20@pluto.restena.lu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-Reply-To: <20080708100241.36b89e20@pluto.restena.lu> X-Warning: Reading this can be dangerous to your mental health. User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.17 (2007-11-01) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2682 Lines: 59 On Tue 2008-07-08 10:02:41, Bruno Pr?mont wrote: > On Tue, 8 Jul 2008 09:21:52 +0200 Pavel Machek wrote: > > On Mon 2008-07-07 17:37:18, Altobelli, David wrote: > > > Pavel Machek wrote: > > > > Hi! > > > > > > > >>>> A driver for the HP iLO/iLO2 management processor, which allows > > > >>>> userspace programs to query the management processor. Programs > > > >>>> can open a channel to the device (/dev/hpilo/dXccbN), and use > > > >>>> this to send/receive queries. > > > >>> > > > >>> What kind of queries? Is there documentation somewhere? > > > >> > > > >> Generally, it can get data out of the management processor - > > > >> things like basic iLO configuration (users, nic, etc), handle > > > >> SNMP traffic, flashing iLO, and some others. > > > >> > > > >> Unfortunately, there isn't yet any available documenation. > > > > > > > > Ok, I guess we should have documentation "what does it do" and > > > > "what protocol does it speak" before we can think about merging. > > > > > > I really hope that isn't the case. > > > > Telling us "what does it do" seems like good start. > > > > > However, I do think there is value in merging the driver without > > > docs. Having drivers in tree is often stated as a goal, because of > > > the obvious security and API/ABI disadvantages to out of tree > > > drivers. > > > > You know, we'd prefer to have kernel<->user ABI documented. With this > > driver... we don't. > > > > What does /dev/hpilo/* do? Beep speakers? Control fans? Launch atomic > > bombs? What will happen on cat /bin/bash > /dev/hpilo/dXccbN? Does > > that depend on concrete machine? Is it acceptable for this > > functionality not to be abstracted out? (Kernel should provide hw > > abstraction, right?) > > If the driver allows access to hardware monitoring features available > via iLO/iLO2 (fan, temperature, voltage) it would be really useful if > this driver also registered the sensors with hwmon framework so the > details are accessible via lm_sensors. (like is now done for ACPI > thermal zone) > Same applies for any information that could be properly mapped to > other existing frameworks (e.g. power supply class) Yes.. and other stuff it can do should be exported in "reasonable" form, like /sys interface where it makes sense. Pavel -- (english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek (cesky, pictures) http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/