Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next v2 1/6] net: dcb: add new pcp selector to app object

From: Petr Machata <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 2022 12:20:04 +0200

Jakub Kicinski <[email-masked]> writes:

> On Mon, 3 Oct 2022 09:52:59 +0200 Petr Machata wrote:
>> I assumed the policy is much more strict with changes like this. If you
>> think it's OK, I'm fine with it as well.
>> 
>> The userspace (lldpad in particular) is doing the opposite thing BTW:
>> assuming everything in the nest is a DCB_ATTR_IEEE_APP. When we start
>> emitting the new attribute, it will get confused.
>
> Can you add an attribute or a flag to the request which would turn
> emitting the new attrs on?

The question is whether it's better to do it anyway. My opinion is that
if a userspace decides to make assumptions about the contents of a TLV,
and neglects to validate the actual TLV type, it's on them, and I'm not
obligated to keep them working. We know about this case, but really any
attribute addition at all could potentially trip some userspace if they
expected something else at this offset.