Subject: Re: [PATCH RFC 0/4] net: add bpfilter

From: Florian Westphal <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2018 16:15:55 +0100

David Miller <[email-masked]> wrote:
> From: Florian Westphal <[email-masked]>
> Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2018 15:59:35 +0100
> 
> > David Miller <[email-masked]> wrote:
> >> It also means that the scope of developers who can contribute and work
> >> on the translater is much larger.
> > 
> > How so?  Translator is in userspace in nftables case too?
> 
> Florian, first of all, the whole "change the iptables binary" idea is
> a non-starter.  For the many reasons I have described in the various
> postings I have made today.
> 
> It is entirely impractical.

???????
You suggest:

iptables -> setsockopt -> umh (xtables -> ebpf) -> kernel

How is this different from

iptables -> setsockopt -> umh (Xtables -> nftables -> kernel

?
EBPF can be placed within nftables either userspace or kernel,
there is nothing that prevents this.

> Anything designed in that nature must be distributed completely in the
> kernel tree, so that the iptables kernel ABI is provided without any
> externel dependencies.

Would you be willing to merge nftables into kernel tools directory then?