Consider adding `mstflint` and `mlnx-fw-updater`

[viniciusferrao]

Not sure if this is the right place to report this issue, but to avoid adding the official Mellanox repository and break the compatibility with this specific mlx4 modules it maybe a good ideia to also ship some Mellanox tools to configure and use Mellanox cards.

As an example, to enable SR-IOV we need mstflint and to install it we need to add the Mellanox repositories: https://linux.mellanox.com/public/repo/mlnx_en/4.9-7.1.0.0/rhel7.9/x86_64.

mlnx-fw-updater is also a nice thing to add to manage firmwares on Mellanox cards.

[stormi]

If there's a solution to manage the card, we'd rather not duplicate the packaging effort on these tools. That's why we only packaged the drivers for now.

[viniciusferrao]

Alright @stormi. Does copying the RPMs from Mellanox and just doing the createrepo with the packages copied would be a considered solution?

My goal would be not adding the Mellanox repo since it may break the XCP-ng driver.

Does that make sense?

[stormi]

You could add the repo, but make sure you leave it disabled. Then you can hopefully install the needed tools from it without pulling the driver with them (with --enablerepo).

Now, regarding my previous statement, it's a moving balance. Maybe at some point, if the need is strong enough among users, we'll package them.

[viniciusferrao]

Hi @stormi, yes we can do that. But my suggestion here is to just copy those packages from the Mellanox repo. Why? More refined experience.

You see, there's a bug report for XCP-ng about using SR-IOV with mlx4, and to it work as expected we need to have the Mellanox utilities to enable SR-IOV and control the number of VF's on a given card.

That's why I personally think that the tools should be also shipped by XCP-ng.

[stormi]

We don't just copy such packages, we rebuild them. But it's not too difficult. Suggestion noted.

[stormi]

CC @gduperrey: please check whether these two binaries are produced by the sources we already use to build the driver.