[U-Boot] [RFC PATCH 1/3] expose eth_is_active() function to test network device state

[Bernhard Nortmann]

Am 24.08.2015 um 19:02 schrieb Joe Hershberger:
> Hi Simon,
>
> On Mon, Aug 24, 2015 at 11:59 AM, Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org> wrote:
>> Hi Bernhard,
>>
>> [...]
>> i.e. sunxi GMAC (by simply adding #define CONFIG_NETCONSOLE).
>> In that case how about adding that config to that board? Does it cause
>> problems for other people?
> I'll pile on and agree that it would be great to have at least one
> board with this enabled, and even better to have one that supports
> DM_ETH and one that does not.
>
> -Joe

grep "#define CONFIG_NETCONSOLE" include/configs/*
lists a considerable number of boards where NETCONSOLE seems to be active
by default. I guess none of these has moved to DM_ETH yet, or I'd have
expected reports of "broken" builds.

If you're all for it, I can of course enable NETCONSOLE for the Banana
Pi/Pro. (It may even be done across-the-board for all SUNXI_[EG]MAC
configs?)

Personally, I'm a bit reluctant to "enforce" this setting, because until
now my understanding was that NETCONSOLE is supposed to be mostly
optional, i.e. at user's choice - especially for boards where other
means of input/output are readily available (serial console, vga, usb
keyboard).

I don't expect this to create problems, it just adds code that probably
won't be used most of the time (as long as "nc" doesn't get used for
stdin/stdout).

I guess the proper way to do it would be to introduce Kconfig support;
will this do?

diff --git a/net/Kconfig b/net/Kconfig
index 915371d..87c1729 100644
--- a/net/Kconfig
+++ b/net/Kconfig
@@ -16,4 +16,10 @@ config NET_RANDOM_ETHADDR
           A new MAC address will be generated on every boot and it will
           not be added to the environment.

+config NETCONSOLE
+       bool "Netconsole support"
+       help
+         Support the 'nc' input/output device for networked console.
+         See README.NetConsole for details.
+
  endif   # if NET


In case this gets a "go", I'd prepare a v2 patch set that includes enabling
CONFIG_NETCONSOLE via Bananapi_defconfig / Bananapro_defconfig.

Regards, B. Nortmann