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From: Chris Friesen <chris.friesen@genband.com>
To: netdev <netdev@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: why is it not allowed to add a new socket protocol family as an external module?
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2013 10:56:13 -0600	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <5125002D.9080008@genband.com> (raw)

Hi,

I was just wondering why the kernel doesn't allow a new network protocol 
family to be loaded as as a kernel module built outside the kernel 
source tree.

Most of the networking code would seem to allow this, but the check for
"if (ops->family >= NPROTO)" in sock_register() means that only protocol 
families defined in socket.h can be registered.

Was this intentional for ideological reasons, or has nobody wanted to be 
able to add arbitrary network protocols without patching the kernel and 
rebuilding?

Thanks,
Chris

             reply	other threads:[~2013-02-20 16:58 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 11+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2013-02-20 16:56 Chris Friesen [this message]
2013-02-20 23:23 ` why is it not allowed to add a new socket protocol family as an external module? Stephen Hemminger
2013-02-21  0:44   ` Chris Friesen
2013-02-21  1:05     ` David Miller
2013-02-21 15:19       ` Chris Friesen
2013-02-21  1:39     ` Eric Dumazet
2013-02-21 15:47       ` Chris Friesen
2013-02-21 16:04         ` Stephen Hemminger
2013-02-21 16:19           ` Chris Friesen
2013-02-21 16:43         ` Eric Dumazet
2013-02-21 17:58           ` Chris Friesen

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