[PATCH net-next 0/6] netconsole: Add support for userdata release

[Breno Leitao <leitao@debian.org>]

I am submitting a series of patches that introduce a new feature for the
netconsole subsystem, specifically the addition of the 'release' field
to the sysdata structure. This feature allows the kernel release/version
to be appended to the userdata dictionary in every message sent,
enhancing the information available for debugging and monitoring
purposes.

This complements the already supported release prepend feature, which
was added some time ago. The release prepend appends the release
information at the message header, which is not ideal for two reasons:

 1) It is difficult to determine if a message includes this information,
    making it hard and resource-intensive to parse.

 2) When a message is fragmented, the release information is appended to
    every message fragment, consuming valuable space in the packet.

The "release prepend" feature was created before the concept of userdata
and sysdata. Now that this format has proven successful, we are
implementing the release feature as part of this enhanced structure.

This patch series aims to improve the netconsole subsystem by providing
a more efficient and user-friendly way to include kernel release
information in messages. I believe these changes will significantly aid
in system analysis and troubleshooting.

Suggested-by: Manu Bretelle <chantr4@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Breno Leitao <leitao@debian.org>

---
Breno Leitao (6):
      netconsole: introduce 'release' as a new sysdata field
      netconsole: implement configfs for release_enabled
      netconsole: add 'sysdata' suffix to related functions
      netconsole: append release to sysdata
      selftests: netconsole: Add tests for 'release' feature in sysdata
      docs: netconsole: document release feature

 Documentation/networking/netconsole.rst            | 25 ++++++++
 drivers/net/netconsole.c                           | 71 ++++++++++++++++++++--
 .../selftests/drivers/net/netcons_sysdata.sh       | 44 +++++++++++++-
 3 files changed, 133 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
---
base-commit: 941defcea7e11ad7ff8f0d4856716dd637d757dd
change-id: 20250314-netcons_release-dc1f1f5ca0f7

Best regards,
-- 
Breno Leitao <leitao@debian.org>