On Tue 01-02-22 02:14:42, Matthew Wilcox wrote:

On Mon, Jan 31, 2022 at 05:33:29PM -0800, Luis Chamberlain wrote:

quoted

Possible issues? Kernels without CONFIG_NET. Is that a deal breaker?
We already have a few filesystems with their own generic netlink
families, so not sure if this is a good argument against this.

mcgrof@fulton ~/linux-next (git::master)$ git grep genl_register_family fs
fs/cifs/netlink.c:      ret = genl_register_family(&cifs_genl_family);
fs/dlm/netlink.c:       return genl_register_family(&family);
fs/ksmbd/transport_ipc.c:       ret = genl_register_family(&ksmbd_genl_family);
fs/quota/netlink.c:     if (genl_register_family(&quota_genl_family) != 0)

I'm not sure these are good arguments in favour ... other than quota,
these are all network filesystems, which aren't much use without
CONFIG_NET.

quoted

mcgrof@fulton ~/linux-next (git::master)$ git grep genl_register_family drivers/block
drivers/block/nbd.c:    if (genl_register_family(&nbd_genl_family)) {

The, er, _network_ block device, right?

Yep, and even for the quota what you'll lose with the netlink family are
the fancy out-of-band notifications about users going over their quotas.
Not a big loss. So I don't by this argument.

OTOH these days when even a lightbulb is connected to a network, I don't
personally think CONFIG_NET dependency is a real problem...

								Honza
-- 
Jan Kara [off-list ref]
SUSE Labs, CR