Re: [PATCH bpf-next] tools: bpftool: add map create command

On Fri, Oct 12, 2018 at 11:06:14AM -0700, Jakub Kicinski wrote:

Add a way of creating maps from user space.  The command takes
as parameters most of the attributes of the map creation system
call command.  After map is created its pinned to bpffs.  This makes
it possible to easily and dynamically (without rebuilding programs)
test various corner cases related to map creation.

Map type names are taken from bpftool's array used for printing.
In general these days we try to make use of libbpf type names, but
there are no map type names in libbpf as of today.

As with most features I add the motivation is testing (offloads) :)

Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski <redacted>
Reviewed-by: Quentin Monnet <redacted>

...

 	fprintf(stderr,
 		"Usage: %s %s { show | list }   [MAP]\n"
+		"       %s %s create     FILE type TYPE key KEY_SIZE value VALUE_SIZE \\\n"
+		"                              entries MAX_ENTRIES [name NAME] [flags FLAGS] \\\n"
+		"                              [dev NAME]\n"

I suspect as soon as bpftool has an ability to create standalone maps
some folks will start relying on such interface.
Therefore I'd like to request to make 'name' argument to be mandatory.
I think in the future we will require BTF to be mandatory too.
We need to move towards more transparent and debuggable infra.
Do you think requiring json description of key/value would be managable to implement?
Then bpftool could convert it to BTF and the map full be fully defined.
I certainly understand that bpf prog can disregard the key/value layout today,
but we will make verifier to enforce that in the future too.