Re: [PATCH 4/7] xt_mark match rev 1

[Patrick McHardy <kaber@trash.net>]

Pablo Neira Ayuso wrote:
> Jan Engelhardt wrote:
>> What will netlink bring us, with respect to the two states:
>> - old iptables, new kernel
>> - new iptables, old kernel
>> so matching some UUIDs (and .revision is one, more or less) seems like the way
>> to go.
> 
> Netlink doesn't stick us to fixed structure layouts as it happens to the
> current interface since we represent the messages kernel <-> userspace
> in TLV (type-length-value) format. Thus, userspace and kernel won't
> share structures and new features just require a new type. For that
> reason, the netlink interface won't require such revision infrastructure.
> 
> Not that I'm against your patches, I'm just stating the right direction
> to go for those 5-10 years that you have mentioned. And of course, we
> don't have a single line of such interface at the moment :)


Actually we do, I've been working on it, but had to interrupt
for some other stuff. I hope to get back to it over christmas
and beginning of next year. The goal is to add a compat layer
for old iptables userspace, but I don't really care about how
ugly it gets since we hopefully never have to look at it again
until its removal :)