Re: [PATCH v2] net/af_packet: fix build with old kernel headers

[Stephen Hemminger <stephen@networkplumber.org>]

On Mon, 9 Nov 2026 17:47:30 +0200
Bing Zhao <bingz@nvidia.com> wrote:

> The PACKET_IGNORE_OUTGOING socket option is used unconditionally,
> but it was only added to the uapi headers in Linux 4.20. The build
> fails on distributions shipping older kernel headers, like RHEL 8
> (kernel-headers 4.18.0):
> 
>   rte_eth_af_packet.c:1057:41: error: 'PACKET_IGNORE_OUTGOING'
>     undeclared (first use in this function)
> 
> DPDK requires Linux 5.4, so the driver does not need to support older
> kernels. Check for the symbol at configure time and skip the driver
> when the headers lack it, instead of failing the whole build.
> 
> Fixes: 3db7aa7868b2 ("net/af_packet: use kernel to filter single-queue Rx")
> 
> Signed-off-by: Bing Zhao <bingz@nvidia.com>
> ---

No. DPDK should just fail build on older kernels.
Since current DPDK is not tested with those releases, anyone doing that is
working outside the tested environment and has to fix it themselves.