[NETLINK]: Type-safe netlink messages/attributes interface

Introduces a new type-safe interface for netlink message and
attributes handling. The interface is fully binary compatible
with the old interface towards userspace. Besides type safety,
this interface features attribute validation capabilities,
simplified message contstruction, and documentation.

The resulting netlink code should be smaller, less error prone
and easier to understand.

Signed-off-by: Thomas Graf <tgraf@suug.ch>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>

1 files changed, 23 insertions, 1 deletions

diff --git a/include/linux/netlink.h b/include/linux/netlink.h
index ba25ca874c20..6a2ccf78a356 100644
--- a/include/linux/netlink.h
+++ b/include/linux/netlink.h
@@ -71,7 +71,8 @@ struct nlmsghdr
 
 #define NLMSG_ALIGNTO   4
 #define NLMSG_ALIGN(len) ( ((len)+NLMSG_ALIGNTO-1) & ~(NLMSG_ALIGNTO-1) )
-#define NLMSG_LENGTH(len) ((len)+NLMSG_ALIGN(sizeof(struct nlmsghdr)))
+#define NLMSG_HDRLEN     ((int) NLMSG_ALIGN(sizeof(struct nlmsghdr)))
+#define NLMSG_LENGTH(len) ((len)+NLMSG_ALIGN(NLMSG_HDRLEN))
 #define NLMSG_SPACE(len) NLMSG_ALIGN(NLMSG_LENGTH(len))
 #define NLMSG_DATA(nlh)  ((void*)(((char*)nlh) + NLMSG_LENGTH(0)))
 #define NLMSG_NEXT(nlh,len)      ((len) -= NLMSG_ALIGN((nlh)->nlmsg_len), \
@@ -86,6 +87,8 @@ struct nlmsghdr
 #define NLMSG_DONE              0x3     /* End of a dump        */
 #define NLMSG_OVERRUN           0x4     /* Data lost            */
 
+#define NLMSG_MIN_TYPE          0x10    /* < 0x10: reserved control messages */
+
 struct nlmsgerr
 {
         int             error;
@@ -108,6 +111,25 @@ enum {
         NETLINK_CONNECTED,
 };
 
+/*
+ *  <------- NLA_HDRLEN ------> <-- NLA_ALIGN(payload)-->
+ * +---------------------+- - -+- - - - - - - - - -+- - -+
+ * |        Header       | Pad |     Payload       | Pad |
+ * |   (struct nlattr)   | ing |                   | ing |
+ * +---------------------+- - -+- - - - - - - - - -+- - -+
+ *  <-------------- nlattr->nla_len -------------->
+ */
+
+struct nlattr
+{
+        __u16           nla_len;
+        __u16           nla_type;
+};
+
+#define NLA_ALIGNTO             4
+#define NLA_ALIGN(len)          (((len) + NLA_ALIGNTO - 1) & ~(NLA_ALIGNTO - 1))
+#define NLA_HDRLEN              ((int) NLA_ALIGN(sizeof(struct nlattr)))
+
 #ifdef __KERNEL__
 
 #include <linux/capability.h>