James C. McPherson wrote:
> Frank Che wrote:
>> I'm sponsoring this fast track for Bill Yan. Requested release
>> binding is patch/micro for OpenSolaris. Timer is set to 08/13/2008.
> >
>> Note that this project depends on the IPS project (PSARC 2008/190)
>> which is still under development now.
>
>
> So you want this to go into a Solaris 10 Update? Why? I would have
> expected "minor" for the release binding since you have a dependency
> on the IPS project.
Yes, minor is appropriate. Note that patch != micro in any case, so
you'd need to pick one. (We haven't had a micro release since Solaris
2.5.1.)
-- Garrett
>
>> Frank.
>>
>> 4. Technical Description
>> Summary
>> The intent of this project is to propose the integration of
>> Device Driver
>> Utility to OpenSolaris OS. Motivation to propose this project is
>> to fulfill
>> the increasing requirement from the customer about easily view
>> hardware
>> information in Solaris OS and install missing device driver(s), thus
>> contribute to the adoption of OpenSolaris OS.
>> This project requests a patch/micro release binding to
>> OpenSolaris.
>>
>> 4.1 Proposal
>> 4.1.1 Introduction to Device Driver Utility
>> Device Driver Utility provides information about the devices of
>> the user's
>> native system. Device Driver Utility enables the user to connect
>> to the
>> Image Packaging System (IPS) [1] to search for the device drivers
>> for the
>> devices that do not have a driver attached with it. By using the
>> Device
>> Driver Utility application, the user can do the following:
>> * Get the information of the devices installed on your native
>> system and
>> their corresponding device driver availability status. The following
>> information are displayed on the GUI:
>> - Device name and attributes(device path, vendor ID, device
>> ID etc.)
>> - Device driver availability
>> - Device driver name and status(instance number,
>> attached/detached
>> etc.)
>> * Check the device driver availability for your system devices on
>> IPS.
>> * Download and install the device drivers from IPS for those devices
>> that do not have an attached driver.
>> * Report system configurations to the OpenSolaris Hardware
>> Compatibility
>> List (HCL).
>>
>> 4.1.2 Device Driver Utility components
>> To achieve the above functions, the following components will be
>> implemented:
>>
>> 4.1.2.1 Device information fetcher.
>> This component is designed to probe current system via the
>> libdevinfo
>> interface, walk through device tree and get information of all
>> detected
>> devices and driver information of each device.
>>
>> 4.1.2.2 Solaris driver database.
>> The Solaris driver database is a mapping table between device
>> identifier(normally vendor ID and device ID) and name of Solaris
>> driver.
>> This database includes three sets of information: drivers that
>> are bundle
>> with OpenSolaris, third-party drivers that can be downloaded from
>> an IHV
>> website, drivers that can be downloaded from OpenSolaris community.
>>
>> This database is only used when a device doesn't have a driver.
>>
>> Solaris driver information is extracted from the
>> /etc/driver_aliases file.
>> Third-party and OpenSolaris driver information is manually
>> collected and
>> added to the driver database.
>>
>> The driver database must be updated periodically because new
>> hardware and
>> new Solaris drivers are continually created.
>
>
> How often will the database be updated?
> Who is responsible for updating the database?
> Who is responsible for ensuring that the information
> in the database is accurate?
>
>
>> 4.1.2.3 User interface.
>> Consider the target user of this tool are most likely don't have
>> much
>> knowledge of Solaris system administration, only graphical user
>> interface
>> is available, written in Python. The user reads device
>> information from
>> this informative GUI, instruct Device Driver Utility to download and
>> install missing driver(s) automatically through a few simple
>> mouse-click,
>> submit hardware information to OpenSolaris HCL using this GUI.
>
> What if the driver is for a network device, and the
> system has no other network interface installed?
> What information will be provided to the user so that
> they can get the driver via other means?
>
>
>
>> 4.1.2.4 Core engine.
>> This component stays in the center of Device Driver Utility. It
>> completes
>> the following fundamental operations:
>> (1) Get device information from device information fetcher. If there
>> is device
>> that missing driver in current OpenSolaris OS, then look up Solaris
>> driver
>> database for the driver name. Pass all these information to GUI for
>> display.
>> (2) Check IPS for driver availability through pkg(1M) command. Search
>> for
>> package on IPS that contains needed driver based on driver name.
>> Download and
>> install certain driver package(s) according to user's instruction.
>> (3) Read hardware-related information from SMBIOS as much as
>> possible, then
>> automatically fill in to OpenSolaris HCL submission table, ask the
>> user to
>> provide other necessary information, then format all these
>> information and pass
>> to OpenSolaris HCL server if the user want to do a submission.
>> Submission is
>> done through HTTPS post method. The user can see what data will be
>> transferred
>> to Sun before the submission is done.
>
> I like the sound of this. Will there be just one URL to point both
> the database queries and submission towards, or will there be multiple
> locations?
>
> If there are multiple locations, how will the information be collated
> for the database, and how will it be propagated to the other locations?
>
>
> How will you handle secure sites?
>
>
>> 4.1.3 Limitations
>> There are a few limitations in current plan:
>>
>> (1) The following functionality depend on network connectivity to Sun
>> servers:
>> * Check device driver availability via IPS.
>> * Dynamically add driver from IPS.
>> * Submit system configuration to OpenSolaris HCL.
>>
>> (2) If the Solaris driver database is not updated in time(for
>> example, there is
>> driver which can be found in IPS but not in Solaris driver database),
>> the
>> driver search result may not be correct. However, if IPS enables the
>> user to
>> search for a driver package through supported vendor ID and device
>> ID, this
>> limitation will not exist any more.
>>
>> 4.2 Interfaces
>> 4.2.1 Exported Interfaces
>> Exported Interface| Stability | Description
>>
>> ------------------+-------------+----------------------------------------
>>
>> /usr/bin/ddu | Committed | Device Driver Utility startup
>> script
>>
>> ------------------+-------------+----------------------------------------
>>
>> SUNWddu | Uncommitted | Package name for Device Driver
>> Utility
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>> 4.2.2 Imported Interfaces
>> Imported Interface| Stability | Description
>>
>> ------------------+-------------+----------------------------------------
>>
>> Python 2.4.x | Volatile | PSARC/2005/532
>>
>> ------------------+-------------+----------------------------------------
>>
>> libdevinfo.so.1 | Uncommitted | PSARC/1997/127
>>
>> ------------------+-------------+----------------------------------------
>>
>> /dev/smbios | Uncommitted | PSARC/2005/483
>>
>> ------------------+-------------+----------------------------------------
>>
>> pkg(5): image | Uncommitted | PSARC 2008/190
>> packaging system | |
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>> 4.3 References
>> [1] IPS is a repository for OpenSolaris packages where the user
>> can find
>> suitable drivers for the devices.
>>
>>
>> 6. Resources and Schedule
>> 6.4 Steering Committee Requested Information
>> 6.4.1 Consolidation C-team Name: None
>> 6.5 ARC review type: Fast Track
>> 6.6 ARC exposure: Open
>
> One final question - is the project team writing this from scratch,
> or are they leveraging the work of the existing HCTS tool?
>
>
> James C. McPherson
> --
> Senior Kernel Software Engineer, Solaris
> Sun Microsystems
> http://blogs.sun.com/jmcp http://www.jmcp.homeunix.com/blog
