Steps to integrate new 40G Network driver to the kernel tree

Hello,

We have a new 40G network Linux driver. What are the steps to integrate it to the kernel tree?

Thanks,
Joyce

There is a simple well documented process.
See the file SubmittingPatches in the kernel source Documentation directory.

Network drivers should be submitted to netdev list.

Make sure it works as an addition to David Miller's net-2.6 git tree. Send patches here for review, in <100K chunks (that's the limit for this list). Update it based on review feedback, and repeat as necessary.

Documentation/SubmittingPatches has general advice on patches.

Ben.

Ben Hutchings, Senior Software Engineer, Solarflare
Not speaking for my employer; that's the marketing department's job.
They asked us to note that Solarflare product names are trademarked.

Do you want the driver to show up in 3.0 (aka 2.6.40) or next release. For 3.0 submit patch against 3.0-rc4 for next release base the patch against the network development tree (net-next-2.6).

The code should remove all special case code to deal with old kernel versions. No backward compatiablity #ifdef's

Since it is a new driver, shall I follow the "Submitting Drivers for the Linux Kernel" Doc? The driver is ready and passed all our QA cycles. I have three source base, one is for 2.6.16 and 2.6.18 (for RHL 5.X and SLES 10 SP3) , one is for 2.6.32 (For RHL 6.X, SLES11SP1), one for 2.6.27 (For SLES11). Can it be integrated to the 2.6.18 and 2.6.32 tree? or it has to be in the latest 2.6.39 or later?

Thanks,
Joyce

There are 'longterm' branches for Linux 2.6.27 and 2.6.32, but they don't include new drivers. If you want your driver to go into existing distributions then you have to talk to the distributors. They will generally tell you that your driver should be accepted in mainline Linux first. So you should first submit a driver based on David Miller's net-2.6 tree (targetting 3.0) or net-next-2.6 (targetting 3.1).

Ben.

Ben Hutchings, Senior Software Engineer, Solarflare
Not speaking for my employer; that's the marketing department's job.
They asked us to note that Solarflare product names are trademarked.