Document the fact that Ethernet PHY timestamping has a fundamentally
flawed corner case (which in fact hits the majority of networking
drivers): a PHY for which its host MAC driver doesn't forward the
phy_mii_ioctl for timestamping is still going to be presented to user
space as functional.
Fixing this inconsistency would require moving the phy_has_tsinfo()
check inside all MAC drivers which are capable of PHY timestamping, to
be in harmony with the existing design for phy_has_hwtstamp() checks.
Instead of doing that, document the preferable solution which is that
offending MAC drivers be fixed instead.
Signed-off-by: Vladimir Oltean <olteanv@xxxxxxxxx>
---
Documentation/networking/timestamping.rst | 37 +++++++++++++++++++++++
1 file changed, 37 insertions(+)
diff --git a/Documentation/networking/timestamping.rst b/Documentation/networking/timestamping.rst
index 9a1f4cb4ce9e..4004c5d2771d 100644
--- a/Documentation/networking/timestamping.rst
+++ b/Documentation/networking/timestamping.rst
@@ -754,3 +754,40 @@ check in their "TX confirmation" portion, not only for
that PTP timestamping is not enabled for anything other than the outermost PHC,
this enhanced check will avoid delivering a duplicated TX timestamp to user
space.
+
+Another known limitation is the design of the ``__ethtool_get_ts_info``
+function::
+
+ int __ethtool_get_ts_info(struct net_device *dev, struct ethtool_ts_info *info)
+ {
+ const struct ethtool_ops *ops = dev->ethtool_ops;
+ struct phy_device *phydev = dev->phydev;
+
+ memset(info, 0, sizeof(*info));
+ info->cmd = ETHTOOL_GET_TS_INFO;
+
+ if (phy_has_tsinfo(phydev))
+ return phy_ts_info(phydev, info);
+ if (ops->get_ts_info)
+ return ops->get_ts_info(dev, info);
+
+ info->so_timestamping = SOF_TIMESTAMPING_RX_SOFTWARE |
+ SOF_TIMESTAMPING_SOFTWARE;
+ info->phc_index = -1;
+
+ return 0;
+ }
+
+Because the generic function searches first for the timestamping capabilities
+of the attached PHY, and returns them directly without consulting the MAC
+driver, no checking is being done whether the requirements described in `3.2.2
+Ethernet PHYs`_ are implemented or not. Therefore, if the MAC driver does not
+satisfy the requirements for PHY timestamping, and
+``CONFIG_NETWORK_PHY_TIMESTAMPING`` is enabled, then a non-functional PHC index
+(the one corresponding to the PHY) will be reported to user space, via
+``ethtool -T``.
+
+The correct solution to this problem is to implement the PHY timestamping
+requirements in the MAC driver found broken, and submit as a bug fix patch to
+netdev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. See :ref:`Documentation/process/stable-kernel-rules.rst
+<stable_kernel_rules>` for more details.
--
2.25.1
