Re: [PATCH 01/13 net-next] net: ipv4: introduce CONFIG_IPV4 to decouple the IPv4 stack

Hi Fernando,

Thanks for the patch - after nearly 30 years IPv6 should be mature 
enough :)

On 10.9.2026 16:48, Fernando Fernandez Mancera wrote:

Historically, the IPv4 protocol has been linked to the core INET
subsystem. Because shared infrastructure like the TCP/UDP engine,
routing or INET hashtables live inside net/ipv4/, it has been 
impossible
to compile a kernel with only IPv6 support.

This patch introduces the CONFIG_IPV4 Kconfig symbol, which is set to
'def_bool y' for now. This does not allow to completely disable the
IPv4 stack yet but it lays the necessary build-system work for that
goal.

In addition, multiple subsystems Kconfig symbols across networking
features like tunnels, drivers and filesystems have been adjusted to
depend on IPv4. Keep on mind that follow-up work is required to convert
the Kconfig symbol to bool and remove the dependency on IPv4 where it
makes sense.

Signed-off-by: Fernando Fernandez Mancera <redacted>
---

[...]

   depends on IPV4 || !INET

Otherwise this would break existing configs with INET=n. The same 
applies
to other affected options that currently permit INET=n.

[...]

Thanks,
Nicolai