Subject: Re: [PATCH v5] net: ip, diag -- Add diag interface for raw sockets

From: Cyrill Gorcunov <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2016 15:45:20 +0300

On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 08:27:24AM -0400, Jamal Hadi Salim wrote:
> > 
> > They must initialize it to zero.
> > 
> 
> What if in the future actually meant to use 0 for
> something?;-> For example in Cyrill's case it means PROTO_IP
> Not sure if it useful to interpret or not but it is part of the
> enum for protocols.

It will be perfectly fine if we start using 0 here for something,
the main match key is @sdiag_proto (which will be IPPROTO_RAW for
my case). If someone is to use this field for something else the
main key selection remain the same, iow @sdiag_proto first and
then subprotocol if needed.

> Maybe we shouldnt be adding pad fields in these netlink
> structure definitions then one can liberally add new ones.

You know, I personally don't see much problem in defining union,
especially while anonymous uninons do work for us here.

> Note: inet_diag somewhere has a netlink structure that
> has a hole. I pointed it out to Eric D. and he said we cant
> add it now because it would break ABI.

Naming holes generated by a compiler for alignment sake should
not break abi (because alignments are abi by self), but I may
be missing something in context of where the structure you're
talking about is present. And what about non-x86 archs? They
might have different members alignment requirements.

> So where do we draw the line for future extensions?