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authorSatyam Sharma <satyam@infradead.org>2007-08-10 15:35:05 -0700
committerDavid S. Miller <davem@sunset.davemloft.net>2007-10-10 16:48:06 -0700
commit0bcc1816188e570bde1d56a208996660f2633ae0 (patch)
tree8104c0b0c54a93a510b4b9b50a45cbaabad245f4 /drivers/net/Kconfig
parentb5427c27173e128dda1541bd9d3b05df79af5882 (diff)
[NET] netconsole: Support dynamic reconfiguration using configfs
Based upon initial work by Keiichi Kii <k-keiichi@bx.jp.nec.com>. This patch introduces support for dynamic reconfiguration (adding, removing and/or modifying parameters of netconsole targets at runtime) using a userspace interface exported via configfs. Documentation is also updated accordingly. Issues and brief design overview: (1) Kernel-initiated creation / destruction of kernel objects is not possible with configfs -- the lifetimes of the "config items" is managed exclusively from userspace. But netconsole must support boot/module params too, and these are parsed in kernel and hence netpolls must be setup from the kernel. Joel Becker suggested to separately manage the lifetimes of the two kinds of netconsole_target objects -- those created via configfs mkdir(2) from userspace and those specified from the boot/module option string. This adds complexity and some redundancy here and also means that boot/module param-created targets are not exposed through the configfs namespace (and hence cannot be updated / destroyed dynamically). However, this saves us from locking / refcounting complexities that would need to be introduced in configfs to support kernel-initiated item creation / destroy there. (2) In configfs, item creation takes place in the call chain of the mkdir(2) syscall in the driver subsystem. If we used an ioctl(2) to create / destroy objects from userspace, the special userspace program is able to fill out the structure to be passed into the ioctl and hence specify attributes such as local interface that are required at the time we set up the netpoll. For configfs, this information is not available at the time of mkdir(2). So, we keep all newly-created targets (via configfs) disabled by default. The user is expected to set various attributes appropriately (including the local network interface if required) and then write(2) "1" to the "enabled" attribute. Thus, netpoll_setup() is then called on the set parameters in the context of _this_ write(2) on the "enabled" attribute itself. This design enables the user to reconfigure existing netconsole targets at runtime to be attached to newly-come-up interfaces that may not have existed when netconsole was loaded or when the targets were actually created. All this effectively enables us to get rid of custom ioctls. (3) Ultra-paranoid configfs attribute show() and store() operations, with sanity and input range checking, using only safe string primitives, and compliant with the recommendations in Documentation/filesystems/sysfs.txt. (4) A new function netpoll_print_options() is created in the netpoll API, that just prints out the configured parameters for a netpoll structure. netpoll_parse_options() is modified to use that and it is also exported to be used from netconsole. Signed-off-by: Satyam Sharma <satyam@infradead.org> Acked-by: Keiichi Kii <k-keiichi@bx.jp.nec.com> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org> Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
Diffstat (limited to 'drivers/net/Kconfig')
-rw-r--r--drivers/net/Kconfig10
1 files changed, 10 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/drivers/net/Kconfig b/drivers/net/Kconfig
index 40ff9a5269a..10ed28ef356 100644
--- a/drivers/net/Kconfig
+++ b/drivers/net/Kconfig
@@ -3082,6 +3082,16 @@ config NETCONSOLE
If you want to log kernel messages over the network, enable this.
See <file:Documentation/networking/netconsole.txt> for details.
+config NETCONSOLE_DYNAMIC
+ bool "Dynamic reconfiguration of logging targets (EXPERIMENTAL)"
+ depends on NETCONSOLE && SYSFS && EXPERIMENTAL
+ select CONFIGFS_FS
+ help
+ This option enables the ability to dynamically reconfigure target
+ parameters (interface, IP addresses, port numbers, MAC addresses)
+ at runtime through a userspace interface exported using configfs.
+ See <file:Documentation/networking/netconsole.txt> for details.
+
config NETPOLL
def_bool NETCONSOLE