Re: [PATCH v3 net-next 06/24] net: dsa: Call driver's setup callback after setting up its switchdev notifier

From: Andrew Lunn
Date: Sat Apr 13 2019 - 11:06:54 EST


On Sat, Apr 13, 2019 at 04:28:04AM +0300, Vladimir Oltean wrote:
> This allows the driver to perform some manipulations of its own during
> setup, using generic switchdev calls. Having the notifiers registered at
> setup time is important because otherwise any switchdev transaction
> emitted during this time would be ignored (dispatched to an empty call
> chain).
>
> One current usage scenario is for the driver to request DSA to set up
> 802.1Q based switch tagging for its ports.
>
> There is no danger for the driver setup code to start racing now with
> switchdev events emitted from the network stack (such as bridge core)
> even if the notifier is registered earlier. This is because the network
> stack needs a net_device as a vehicle to perform switchdev operations,
> and the slave net_devices are registered later than the core driver
> setup anyway (ds->ops->setup in dsa_switch_setup vs dsa_port_setup).
>
> Luckily DSA doesn't need a net_device to carry out switchdev callbacks,
> and therefore drivers shouldn't assume either that net_devices are
> available at the time their switchdev callbacks get invoked.

Hi Vladimir

Thanks for adding this explanation to the commit message.

Reviewed-by: Andrew Lunn <andrew@xxxxxxx>

Andrew