Subject: Re: cannot set IP for ethernet

From: Patrick McHardy <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:06:25 +0200

Oliver Neukum wrote:
> with 2.6.22-rc4-git2 I am getting errors when setting IP for ethernet
> interfaces:
> 
> ioctl(4, SIOCSIFADDR, 0x7fff94931600)   = -1 ENOBUFS (No buffer space available)
> 
> The error is independant of the interface. It happens to all interfaces.
> There's nothing in the syslog.
> 
> valisk:/home/oliver # uname -a
> Linux valisk 2.6.22-rc4-git2-default #3 SMP Tue Jun 12 13:27:54 CEST 2007 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

This can happen if the initial inetdev allocation when the netdevice is
registered fails. I think it would make sense to try to allocate again
when adding addresses in that case, otherwise there is no way of
recovery other than unregistering and registering the device again.

diff --git a/net/ipv4/devinet.c b/net/ipv4/devinet.c
index abf6352..dc77e91 100644
--- a/net/ipv4/devinet.c
+++ b/net/ipv4/devinet.c
@@ -401,8 +401,11 @@ static int inet_set_ifa(struct net_device *dev, struct in_ifaddr *ifa)
 	ASSERT_RTNL();
 
 	if (!in_dev) {
-		inet_free_ifa(ifa);
-		return -ENOBUFS;
+		in_dev = inetdev_init(dev);
+		if (!in_dev) {
+			inet_free_ifa(ifa);
+			return -ENOBUFS;
+		}
 	}
 	ipv4_devconf_setall(in_dev);
 	if (ifa->ifa_dev != in_dev) {
@@ -514,8 +517,11 @@ static struct in_ifaddr *rtm_to_ifaddr(struct nlmsghdr *nlh)
 
 	in_dev = __in_dev_get_rtnl(dev);
 	if (in_dev == NULL) {
-		err = -ENOBUFS;
-		goto errout;
+		in_dev = inetdev_init(dev);
+		if (!in_dev) {
+			err = -ENOBUFS;
+			goto errout;
+		}
 	}
 
 	ipv4_devconf_setall(in_dev);