James C. McPherson Wrote: > How often will the database be updated? When a new driver is added to the IPS or a driver in the IPS is updated to support more devices, the driver database should be updated. If the IPS could support searching drivers by PCI device ID, then this update is not necessary.
Contents on third party drivers in the database is updated quarterly depends on whether there are new drivers or driver updates on IHV websites and OpenSolaris community. > Who is responsible for updating the database? > Who is responsible for ensuring that the information > in the database is accurate? This should be the project team's responsibility. > > >> 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? > > In case a third party driver exists, the URL for that driver will be provided on the GUI. > >> 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? > Just one URL for submissions. No database queries. > 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. >> > > One final question - is the project team writing this from scratch, > or are they leveraging the work of the existing HCTS tool? > It reads the device tree through the libdevinfo interface to get device and associated driver information, the same method with the HCTS product. In case no driver is attached for a device, it uses the same driver searching algorithm with the Sun Device Detection Tool product. Also, almost the same driver database. Thanks, Frank.
