Subject: [PATCH net-next 0/8] netpoll: move out netconsole-specific functions

From: Breno Leitao <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 08 May 2026 06:29:14 -0700

netpoll and netconsole were created together and their code has
been intermixed in net/core/netpoll.c for decades. The result is
that netpoll exposes two send-side interfaces:

 * a generic "give me an sk_buff" path used by every stacked-device
   driver (bonding, team, vlan, bridge, macvlan, dsa),

 * a second path that takes raw bytes and builds a UDP/IP/Ethernet
   packet -- exclusively for netconsole.

The packet builder, an skb pool allocator, and several
netconsole-specific helpers all live next to the generic plumbing even
though no other consumer ever touches them.

Worse, every netpoll user pays for that overlap: struct netpoll carries
an skb_pool and a refill work_struct that only netconsole's find_skb()
ever reads from, and net-core has to review unrelated changes (TTL, hop
limit, IP ID generation, source MAC selection, pool sizing) just because
they happen to be coded inside netpoll.

This is a waste of memory for something useless.

This series splits the netconsole-specific code out:

 * netpoll_send_udp() and its private helpers (push_ipv6, push_ipv4,
push_eth, push_udp, netpoll_udp_checksum, find_skb) move into
drivers/net/netconsole.c, leaving netpoll with a single skb-only
send interface that is the same for every user.

The moves are one function per patch for reviewability; helpers are
temporarily EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL'd while netpoll_send_udp() is still in
netpoll calling them, then those exports are dropped together once
netpoll_send_udp() itself moves.

The only new permanent export is zap_completion_queue(), needed because
find_skb() still drains the per-CPU TX completion queue before
allocating.

struct netpoll is unchanged in this series; making the pool itself
netconsole-private (and reclaiming the skb_pool / refill_wq fields for
the rest of netpoll's users) is the natural follow-up, once this patchset
lands.

Signed-off-by: Breno Leitao <[email-masked]>
---
Breno Leitao (8):
      netpoll: expose UDP packet builder helpers for netconsole
      netconsole: move netpoll_send_udp() from netpoll
      netconsole: move push_ipv6() from netpoll
      netconsole: move push_ipv4() from netpoll
      netconsole: move push_eth() from netpoll
      netconsole: move push_udp() from netpoll
      netconsole: move netpoll_udp_checksum() from netpoll
      netconsole: move find_skb() from netpoll

 drivers/net/netconsole.c | 174 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 include/linux/netpoll.h  |   2 +-
 net/core/netpoll.c       | 180 +----------------------------------------------
 3 files changed, 178 insertions(+), 178 deletions(-)
---
base-commit: 6a4c4656b0d2d4056a1f0c35442db4e8a5cf8021
change-id: 20260508-netconsole_split-4f8402a9a9ff

Best regards,
--  
Breno Leitao <[email-masked]>