History log of /linux-master/include/uapi/linux/netdevice.h
Revision Date Author Comments
# e2be04c7 01-Nov-2017 Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>

License cleanup: add SPDX license identifier to uapi header files with a license

Many user space API headers have licensing information, which is either
incomplete, badly formatted or just a shorthand for referring to the
license under which the file is supposed to be. This makes it hard for
compliance tools to determine the correct license.

Update these files with an SPDX license identifier. The identifier was
chosen based on the license information in the file.

GPL/LGPL licensed headers get the matching GPL/LGPL SPDX license
identifier with the added 'WITH Linux-syscall-note' exception, which is
the officially assigned exception identifier for the kernel syscall
exception:

NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel
services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use
of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work".

This exception makes it possible to include GPL headers into non GPL
code, without confusing license compliance tools.

Headers which have either explicit dual licensing or are just licensed
under a non GPL license are updated with the corresponding SPDX
identifier and the GPLv2 with syscall exception identifier. The format
is:
((GPL-2.0 WITH Linux-syscall-note) OR SPDX-ID-OF-OTHER-LICENSE)

SPDX license identifiers are a legally binding shorthand, which can be
used instead of the full boiler plate text. The update does not remove
existing license information as this has to be done on a case by case
basis and the copyright holders might have to be consulted. This will
happen in a separate step.

This patch is based on work done by Thomas Gleixner and Kate Stewart and
Philippe Ombredanne. See the previous patch in this series for the
methodology of how this patch was researched.

Reviewed-by: Kate Stewart <kstewart@linuxfoundation.org>
Reviewed-by: Philippe Ombredanne <pombredanne@nexb.com>
Reviewed-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>


# 685343fc 14-Jul-2014 Tom Gundersen <teg@jklm.no>

net: add name_assign_type netdev attribute

Based on a patch by David Herrmann.

The name_assign_type attribute gives hints where the interface name of a
given net-device comes from. These values are currently defined:
NET_NAME_ENUM:
The ifname is provided by the kernel with an enumerated
suffix, typically based on order of discovery. Names may
be reused and unpredictable.
NET_NAME_PREDICTABLE:
The ifname has been assigned by the kernel in a predictable way
that is guaranteed to avoid reuse and always be the same for a
given device. Examples include statically created devices like
the loopback device and names deduced from hardware properties
(including being given explicitly by the firmware). Names
depending on the order of discovery, or in any other way on the
existence of other devices, must not be marked as PREDICTABLE.
NET_NAME_USER:
The ifname was provided by user-space during net-device setup.
NET_NAME_RENAMED:
The net-device has been renamed from userspace. Once this type is set,
it cannot change again.
NET_NAME_UNKNOWN:
This is an internal placeholder to indicate that we yet haven't yet
categorized the name. It will not be exposed to userspace, rather
-EINVAL is returned.

The aim of these patches is to improve user-space renaming of interfaces. As
a general rule, userspace must rename interfaces to guarantee that names stay
the same every time a given piece of hardware appears (at boot, or when
attaching it). However, there are several situations where userspace should
not perform the renaming, and that depends on both the policy of the local
admin, but crucially also on the nature of the current interface name.

If an interface was created in repsonse to a userspace request, and userspace
already provided a name, we most probably want to leave that name alone. The
main instance of this is wifi-P2P devices created over nl80211, which currently
have a long-standing bug where they are getting renamed by udev. We label such
names NET_NAME_USER.

If an interface, unbeknown to us, has already been renamed from userspace, we
most probably want to leave also that alone. This will typically happen when
third-party plugins (for instance to udev, but the interface is generic so could
be from anywhere) renames the interface without informing udev about it. A
typical situation is when you switch root from an installer or an initrd to the
real system and the new instance of udev does not know what happened before
the switch. These types of problems have caused repeated issues in the past. To
solve this, once an interface has been renamed, its name is labelled
NET_NAME_RENAMED.

In many cases, the kernel is actually able to name interfaces in such a
way that there is no need for userspace to rename them. This is the case when
the enumeration order of devices, or in fact any other (non-parent) device on
the system, can not influence the name of the interface. Examples include
statically created devices, or any naming schemes based on hardware properties
of the interface. In this case the admin may prefer to use the kernel-provided
names, and to make that possible we label such names NET_NAME_PREDICTABLE.
We want the kernel to have tho possibilty of performing predictable interface
naming itself (and exposing to userspace that it has), as the information
necessary for a proper naming scheme for a certain class of devices may not
be exposed to userspace.

The case where renaming is almost certainly desired, is when the kernel has
given the interface a name using global device enumeration based on order of
discovery (ethX, wlanY, etc). These naming schemes are labelled NET_NAME_ENUM.

Lastly, a fallback is left as NET_NAME_UNKNOWN, to indicate that a driver has
not yet been ported. This is mostly useful as a transitionary measure, allowing
us to label the various naming schemes bit by bit.

v8: minor documentation fixes
v9: move comment to the right commit

Signed-off-by: Tom Gundersen <teg@jklm.no>
Reviewed-by: David Herrmann <dh.herrmann@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Kay Sievers <kay@vrfy.org>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>


# 339e0223 28-Mar-2014 Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@gmail.com>

net: export NET_ADDR_* values to user-space API

NET_ADDR_* values are exported in the
/sys/class/net/<iface>/addr_assign_type sysfs attributes, and as such
constitutes an user-space ABI. Move the NET_ADDR_* definitions from
include/linux/netdevice.h to include/uapi/linux/netdevice.h

Signed-off-by: Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>


# 607ca46e 13-Oct-2012 David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>

UAPI: (Scripted) Disintegrate include/linux

Signed-off-by: David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com>
Acked-by: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
Acked-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Acked-by: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Paul E. McKenney <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
Acked-by: Dave Jones <davej@redhat.com>