linux/net/netlink
Jakub Kicinski 374d345d9b netlink: add variable-length / auto integers
We currently push everyone to use padding to align 64b values
in netlink. Un-padded nla_put_u64() doesn't even exist any more.

The story behind this possibly start with this thread:
https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20121204.130914.1457976839967676240.davem@davemloft.net/
where DaveM was concerned about the alignment of a structure
containing 64b stats. If user space tries to access such struct
directly:

	struct some_stats *stats = nla_data(attr);
	printf("A: %llu", stats->a);

lack of alignment may become problematic for some architectures.
These days we most often put every single member in a separate
attribute, meaning that the code above would use a helper like
nla_get_u64(), which can deal with alignment internally.
Even for arches which don't have good unaligned access - access
aligned to 4B should be pretty efficient.
Kernel and well known libraries deal with unaligned input already.

Padded 64b is quite space-inefficient (64b + pad means at worst 16B
per attr vs 32b which takes 8B). It is also more typing:

    if (nla_put_u64_pad(rsp, NETDEV_A_SOMETHING_SOMETHING,
                        value, NETDEV_A_SOMETHING_PAD))

Create a new attribute type which will use 32 bits at netlink
level if value is small enough (probably most of the time?),
and (4B-aligned) 64 bits otherwise. Kernel API is just:

    if (nla_put_uint(rsp, NETDEV_A_SOMETHING_SOMETHING, value))

Calling this new type "just" sint / uint with no specific size
will hopefully also make people more comfortable with using it.
Currently telling people "don't use u8, you may need the bits,
and netlink will round up to 4B, anyway" is the #1 comment
we give to newcomers.

In terms of netlink layout it looks like this:

         0       4       8       12      16
32b:     [nlattr][ u32  ]
64b:     [  pad ][nlattr][     u64      ]
uint(32) [nlattr][ u32  ]
uint(64) [nlattr][     u64      ]

Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>
Acked-by: Nicolas Dichtel <nicolas.dichtel@6wind.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
2023-10-20 11:43:35 +01:00
..
af_netlink.c netlink: annotate data-races around sk->sk_err 2023-10-04 17:32:54 -07:00
af_netlink.h netlink: convert nlk->flags to atomic flags 2023-08-13 12:23:19 +01:00
diag.c netlink: convert nlk->flags to atomic flags 2023-08-13 12:23:19 +01:00
genetlink.c genetlink: add a family pointer to struct genl_info 2023-08-15 15:01:03 -07:00
Kconfig treewide: replace '---help---' in Kconfig files with 'help' 2020-06-14 01:57:21 +09:00
Makefile netlink: add infrastructure to expose policies to userspace 2020-04-30 17:51:42 -07:00
policy.c netlink: add variable-length / auto integers 2023-10-20 11:43:35 +01:00