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+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause
+
+.. _kernel_netlink:
+
+===================================
+Netlink notes for kernel developers
+===================================
+
+General guidance
+================
+
+Attribute enums
+---------------
+
+Older families often define "null" attributes and commands with value
+of ``0`` and named ``unspec``. This is supported (``type: unused``)
+but should be avoided in new families. The ``unspec`` enum values are
+not used in practice, so just set the value of the first attribute to ``1``.
+
+Message enums
+-------------
+
+Use the same command IDs for requests and replies. This makes it easier
+to match them up, and we have plenty of ID space.
+
+Use separate command IDs for notifications. This makes it easier to
+sort the notifications from replies (and present them to the user
+application via a different API than replies).
+
+Answer requests
+---------------
+
+Older families do not reply to all of the commands, especially NEW / ADD
+commands. User only gets information whether the operation succeeded or
+not via the ACK. Try to find useful data to return. Once the command is
+added whether it replies with a full message or only an ACK is uAPI and
+cannot be changed. It's better to err on the side of replying.
+
+Specifically NEW and ADD commands should reply with information identifying
+the created object such as the allocated object's ID (without having to
+resort to using ``NLM_F_ECHO``).
+
+NLM_F_ECHO
+----------
+
+Make sure to pass the request info to genl_notify() to allow ``NLM_F_ECHO``
+to take effect.  This is useful for programs that need precise feedback
+from the kernel (for example for logging purposes).
+
+Support dump consistency
+------------------------
+
+If iterating over objects during dump may skip over objects or repeat
+them - make sure to report dump inconsistency with ``NLM_F_DUMP_INTR``.
+This is usually implemented by maintaining a generation id for the
+structure and recording it in the ``seq`` member of struct netlink_callback.
+
+Netlink specification
+=====================
+
+Documentation of the Netlink specification parts which are only relevant
+to the kernel space.
+
+Globals
+-------
+
+kernel-policy
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Defines whether the kernel validation policy is ``global`` i.e. the same for all
+operations of the family, defined for each operation individually - ``per-op``,
+or separately for each operation and operation type (do vs dump) - ``split``.
+New families should use ``per-op`` (default) to be able to narrow down the
+attributes accepted by a specific command.
+
+checks
+------
+
+Documentation for the ``checks`` sub-sections of attribute specs.
+
+unterminated-ok
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+Accept strings without the null-termination (for legacy families only).
+Switches from the ``NLA_NUL_STRING`` to ``NLA_STRING`` policy type.
+
+max-len
+~~~~~~~
+
+Defines max length for a binary or string attribute (corresponding
+to the ``len`` member of struct nla_policy). For string attributes terminating
+null character is not counted towards ``max-len``.
+
+The field may either be a literal integer value or a name of a defined
+constant. String types may reduce the constant by one
+(i.e. specify ``max-len: CONST - 1``) to reserve space for the terminating
+character so implementations should recognize such pattern.
+
+min-len
+~~~~~~~
+
+Similar to ``max-len`` but defines minimum length.