[PATCH 2.6.10-rc1 0/4] driver-model: manual device attach

[Tejun Heo <tj@home-tj.org>]

 Hello, again. :-)

 These are the manual device attach patches I was talking about in the
previous posting.  These patches need devparam patches to be applied
first.  It's composed of two parts.

 1. sysctl node dev.autoattach

 dev.autoattach is read/write integer sysctl node which controls
driver-model's behavior regarding device - driver association.

 0: autoattach disabled.  devices are not associated with drivers
    automatically.  i.e. insmod'ing e100.ko won't cause it to attach to the
    actual e100 devices.
 1: autoattach enabled.  The default value.  This is the same as the
    current driver model behavior.  Driver model automatically associates
    devices to drivers.
 2: rescan command.  If this value is written, bus_rescan_devices() is
    invoked for all the registered bus types; thus attaching all
    devices to available drivers.  After rescan is complete, the
     autoattach value is set to 1.

 2. per-device attach and detach sysfs node.

 Two files named attach and detach are created under each device's
sysfs directory.  Reading attach node shows the name of applicable
drivers.  Writing a driver name attaches the device to the driver.
Also, per-device parameters can be specified when writing to an attach
node.  Writing anything to the write-only detach node detaches the
driver from the currently associated driver.

========= So, for example, on my machine which has two e100's...

# pwd
/sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:00:04.0
# sysctl dev.autoattach
dev.autoattach = 1
# modprobe e100
e100: Intel(R) PRO/100 Network Driver, 3.2.3-k2-NAPI
e100: Copyright(c) 1999-2004 Intel Corporation
e100: eth0: e100_probe: addr 0xfeafe000, irq 20, MAC addr 00:E0:81:01:7F:F3
e100: eth1: e100_probe: addr 0xfeafd000, irq 21, MAC addr 00:E0:81:01:7F:F4
# modprobe eepro100
eepro100.c:v1.09j-t 9/29/99 Donald Becker http://www.scyld.com/network...
eepro100.c: $Revision: 1.36 $ 2000/11/17 Modified by Andrey V. Savochkin...
# ls -l driver
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 0 Nov  4 16:26 driver -> ../../../bus/pci/drivers/e100
# rmmod e100
# rmmod eepro100
# sysctl -w dev.autoattach=0
dev.autoattach = 0
# modprobe e100
e100: Intel(R) PRO/100 Network Driver, 3.2.3-k2-NAPI
e100: Copyright(c) 1999-2004 Intel Corporation
# modprobe eepro100
eepro100.c:v1.09j-t 9/29/99 Donald Becker http://www.scyld.com/network...
eepro100.c: $Revision: 1.36 $ 2000/11/17 Modified by Andrey V. Savochkin...
# ls -l driver
ls: driver: No such file or directory
# cat attach
e100
eepro100
# echo eepro100 > attach
eth0: OEM i82557/i82558 10/100 Ethernet, 00:E0:81:01:7F:F3, IRQ 20.
  Receiver lock-up bug exists -- enabling work-around.
  Board assembly 123456-120, Physical connectors present: RJ45
  ...
# ls -l driver
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 0 Nov  4 16:27 driver -> ../../../bus/pci/drivers/eepro100
# sysctl -w dev.autoattach=2
e100: eth1: e100_probe: addr 0xfeafd000, irq 21, MAC addr 00:E0:81:01:7F:F4
dev.autoattach = 2

======== And, drivers can accept per-device parameters like the following.

# pwd
/sys/bus/dp/devices/dp_dev1
# ls -l
total 0
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 4096 Nov  4 16:34 attach
--w-------  1 root root 4096 Nov  4 16:34 detach
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 4096 Nov  4 16:34 detach_state
# cat attach
babo
# echo babo n=15 opts=0,9,8 dp_class.integer=12 > attach
dp_bus: 0 1 2 1,2,3,0,0,0 cnt=3
dp_drv: 15 0,9,8,0 cnt=3
dp_class: 12 120 "dp_class"
# ls -l driver
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root 0 Nov  4 16:35 driver -> ../../bus/dp/drivers/babo
# ls parameters/
a  ar  b  byte  c  charp  integer  n  opts

===========

 We'll need to expand user-space hotplug facility to make full use of
manualattach feature.  I think with a bit more information exported to
userland and some standardized parameters (i.e. `name' parameter for
all class devices), we'll be able to give high-granuality control over
driver-model to users.

 What do you guys think?  I think this can be quite useful with right
user-space tools.

 Thanks.

--
tejun