Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH] extend RTM_GETNEIGH to allow getting more precise information

From: Patrick McHardy <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:51:54 +0100

David Miller wrote:
> From: Cosmin Ratiu <[email-masked]>
> Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:42:59 +0200
> 
>> Please have a look at this patch which tries to solve a problem we 
>> encountered.
>>
>> The background is that RTM_GETNEIGH netlink message is used to get a complete 
>> dump of a neighbor table. Sometimes, that's too much (especially when you have 
>> a lot of neighbors). This patch allows one to specify the IPv4/6 address of a 
>> neighbor and the device index through which it is accessible in order to 
>> obtain only that entry.
>>
>> If you have other suggestions on how to accomplish this task, please let us 
>> know.
> 
> Please add a netlink attribute to specify lookup keys.
> 
> Adding specifiers to the end of the existing request message
> error prone and creates trouble in the future if someone gets
> the idea to add something more.

It should also use a seperate callback for looking up individual
entries instead of the NLM_F_DUMP callback.