Re: [net-next PATCH] net: netlink messages for HW addr programming

On Sun, 2016-09-18 at 07:51 -0700, Roopa Prabhu wrote:

On 9/15/16, 9:48 AM, Patrick Ruddy wrote:

quoted

Add RTM_NEWADDR and RTM_DELADDR netlink messages with family
AF_UNSPEC to indicate interest in specific unicast and multicast
hardware addresses. These messages are sent when addresses are
added or deleted from the appropriate interface driver.
Added AF_UNSPEC GETADDR function to allow the netlink notifications
to be replayed to avoid loss of state due to application start
ordering or restart.

Signed-off-by: Patrick Ruddy <redacted>
---

RTM_NEWADDR and RTM_DELADDR are not used to add these entries to the kernel.
so, it seems a bit wrong to use RTM_NEWADDR and RTM_DELADDR to notify them to
userspace and also to request a special dump of these addresses.

This could just be a new nested netlink attribute in the existing link dump ?

Hi Roopa

Thanks for the review. I did initially code this using NEW/DEL/GET_LINK
messages but was asked to change to to ADDR messages by Stephen
Hemminger (cc'd). 

However I agree that these addresses fall between the LINK and ADDR
areas so I'm happy to change this if we can reach some consensus on the
format.

thanks

-pr