packet: nlmon: virtual netlink monitoring device for packet sockets

Currently, there is no good possibility to debug netlink traffic that
is being exchanged between kernel and user space. Therefore, this patch
implements a netlink virtual device, so that netlink messages will be
made visible to PF_PACKET sockets. Once there was an approach with a
similar idea [1], but it got forgotten somehow.

I think it makes most sense to accept the "overhead" of an extra netlink
net device over implementing the same functionality from PF_PACKET
sockets once again into netlink sockets. We have BPF filters that can
already be easily applied which even have netlink extensions, we have
RX_RING zero-copy between kernel- and user space that can be reused,
and much more features. So instead of re-implementing all of this, we
simply pass the skb to a given PF_PACKET socket for further analysis.

Another nice benefit that comes from that is that no code needs to be
changed in user space packet analyzers (maybe adding a dissector, but
not more), thus out of the box, we can already capture pcap files of
netlink traffic to debug/troubleshoot netlink problems.

Also thanks goes to Thomas Graf, Flavio Leitner, Jesper Dangaard Brouer.

 [1] http://marc.info/?l=linux-netdev&m=113813401516110

Signed-off-by: Daniel Borkmann <dborkman@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>

1 files changed, 10 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/drivers/net/Kconfig b/drivers/net/Kconfig
index 00aba08f01a9..b45b240889f5 100644
--- a/drivers/net/Kconfig
+++ b/drivers/net/Kconfig
@@ -240,6 +240,16 @@ config VIRTIO_NET
           This is the virtual network driver for virtio.  It can be used with
           lguest or QEMU based VMMs (like KVM or Xen).  Say Y or M.
 
+config NLMON
+        tristate "Virtual netlink monitoring device"
+        ---help---
+          This option enables a monitoring net device for netlink skbs. The
+          purpose of this is to analyze netlink messages with packet sockets.
+          Thus applications like tcpdump will be able to see local netlink
+          messages if they tap into the netlink device, record pcaps for further
+          diagnostics, etc. This is mostly intended for developers or support
+          to debug netlink issues. If unsure, say N.
+
 endif # NET_CORE
 
 config SUNGEM_PHY