Wed, Feb 04, 2026 at 03:42:00AM +0100, kuba@kernel.org wrote:

On Tue, 3 Feb 2026 10:44:16 +0100 Jiri Pirko wrote:

quoted

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+/* This structure represents a shared devlink instance,
+ * there is one created per identifier (e.g., serial number).
+ */
+struct devlink_shd {
+	struct list_head list; /* Node in shd list */
+	const char *id; /* Identifier string (e.g., serial number) */  

Why does this have to be a string? The identifier should be irrelevant,
and if something like serial number exists it can be reported in dev
info for the shared instance?  

String gives drivers flexibility to use anything. Perhaps I'm missing
your point. Are you againts free-form or just string and buf+buf_len
would be fine?

I was thinking binary buf+len is fine, and we shouldn't really expose
this to user space in any shape or form (hence no concern about free
form).

How you imagine to name faux device then? I'm sensing that you want to
get rid of busname/devname handle for things like this and rely on some
randomly generated index. But the whole ecosystem is bases on
busname/devname handle. Any idea how to overcome that?