On Thu, Jun 4, 2026 at 5:29 PM Jakub Kicinski [off-list ref] wrote:

ethnl_default_doit() and ethnl_default_dump_one() are both used
exclusively for GET callbacks (former to get info for a single
device or get global strings). ops-locked devices don't need
rtnl_lock for GET callbacks, stop taking it.

Introduce an opt-out mechanism for devices which use phylink (fbnic)
since phylink currently depends on rtnl_lock protection. Subsequent
patches will add more exceptions, anyway. Practically the new helpers
for judging if command needs rtnl_lock could also call
netdev_need_ops_lock() but I find that it makes the code in the callers
slightly less obvious.

Add a helper for IOCTLs already, even tho it's unused so that
we can keep them in sync as the series progresses.

This is the first user-visible step of moving ethtool ops out
from under rtnl. Subsequent patches do the same for SET ops,
as well as the ioctl path.

Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>

Reviewed-by: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>