Re: [PATCH net-next v5 2/2] netconsole: allow selection of egress interface via MAC address

[Simon Horman <horms@kernel.org>]

On Thu, Feb 20, 2025 at 06:29:21PM -0700, Uday Shankar wrote:
> Currently, netconsole has two methods of configuration - module
> parameter and configfs. The former interface allows for netconsole
> activation earlier during boot (by specifying the module parameter on
> the kernel command line), so it is preferred for debugging issues which
> arise before userspace is up/the configfs interface can be used. The
> module parameter syntax requires specifying the egress interface name.
> This requirement makes it hard to use for a couple reasons:
> - The egress interface name can be hard or impossible to predict. For
>   example, installing a new network card in a system can change the
>   interface names assigned by the kernel.
> - When constructing the module parameter, one may have trouble
>   determining the original (kernel-assigned) name of the interface
>   (which is the name that should be given to netconsole) if some stable
>   interface naming scheme is in effect. A human can usually look at
>   kernel logs to determine the original name, but this is very painful
>   if automation is constructing the parameter.
> 
> For these reasons, allow selection of the egress interface via MAC
> address when configuring netconsole using the module parameter. Update
> the netconsole documentation with an example of the new syntax.
> Selection of egress interface by MAC address via configfs is far less
> interesting (since when this interface can be used, one should be able
> to easily convert between MAC address and interface name), so it is left
> unimplemented.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Uday Shankar <ushankar@purestorage.com>
> Reviewed-by: Breno Leitao <leitao@debian.org>
> Tested-by: Breno Leitao <leitao@debian.org>

Reviewed-by: Simon Horman <horms@kernel.org>