[PATCH net-next] net: Kconfig: discourage drop_monitor enablement

[PATCH net-next] net: Kconfig: discourage drop_monitor enablement

[Florian Westphal]

Quoting Eric Dumazet:
"I do not understand the fascination with net/core/drop_monitor.c [..]
misses all the features, flexibility, scalability  that 'perf',
eBPF tracing, bpftrace, .... have today."

Reword DROP_MONITOR kconfig help text to clearly state that its not
related to perf-based drop monitoring and that its safe to disable
this unless support for the older netlink-based tools is needed.

Signed-off-by: Florian Westphal <fw@strlen.de>
---
 net/Kconfig | 8 ++++----
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/net/Kconfig b/net/Kconfig
index 1d3f757d4b07..62266eaf0e95 100644
--- a/net/Kconfig
+++ b/net/Kconfig
@@ -400,15 +400,15 @@ config NET_PKTGEN
 	  module will be called pktgen.
 
 config NET_DROP_MONITOR
-	tristate "Network packet drop alerting service"
+	tristate "Legacy network packet drop alerting service"
 	depends on INET && TRACEPOINTS
 	help
 	  This feature provides an alerting service to userspace in the
 	  event that packets are discarded in the network stack.  Alerts
 	  are broadcast via netlink socket to any listening user space
-	  process.  If you don't need network drop alerts, or if you are ok
-	  just checking the various proc files and other utilities for
-	  drop statistics, say N here.
+	  process. This feature is NOT related to "perf" based drop monitoring.
+	  Say N here unless you need to support older userspace tools like
+	  "dropwatch".
 
 endmenu # Network testing
 
-- 
2.51.0

Re: [PATCH net-next] net: Kconfig: discourage drop_monitor enablement

[Simon Horman]

On Thu, Oct 16, 2025 at 01:51:47PM +0200, Florian Westphal wrote:
> Quoting Eric Dumazet:
> "I do not understand the fascination with net/core/drop_monitor.c [..]
> misses all the features, flexibility, scalability  that 'perf',
> eBPF tracing, bpftrace, .... have today."
> 
> Reword DROP_MONITOR kconfig help text to clearly state that its not
> related to perf-based drop monitoring and that its safe to disable
> this unless support for the older netlink-based tools is needed.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Florian Westphal <fw@strlen.de>

I think it is always good to guide people in the right direction.

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

Re: [PATCH net-next] net: Kconfig: discourage drop_monitor enablement

[Eric Dumazet]

On Thu, Oct 16, 2025 at 9:58 AM Simon Horman <horms@kernel.org> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Oct 16, 2025 at 01:51:47PM +0200, Florian Westphal wrote:
> > Quoting Eric Dumazet:
> > "I do not understand the fascination with net/core/drop_monitor.c [..]
> > misses all the features, flexibility, scalability  that 'perf',
> > eBPF tracing, bpftrace, .... have today."
> >
> > Reword DROP_MONITOR kconfig help text to clearly state that its not
> > related to perf-based drop monitoring and that its safe to disable
> > this unless support for the older netlink-based tools is needed.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Florian Westphal <fw@strlen.de>
>
> I think it is always good to guide people in the right direction.
>
> Reviewed-by: Simon Horman <horms@kernel.org>

Thanks Florian :)

Reviewed-by: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>

Re: [PATCH net-next] net: Kconfig: discourage drop_monitor enablement

[patchwork-bot+netdevbpf]

Hello:

This patch was applied to netdev/net-next.git (main)
by Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>:

On Thu, 16 Oct 2025 13:51:47 +0200 you wrote:
> Quoting Eric Dumazet:
> "I do not understand the fascination with net/core/drop_monitor.c [..]
> misses all the features, flexibility, scalability  that 'perf',
> eBPF tracing, bpftrace, .... have today."
> 
> Reword DROP_MONITOR kconfig help text to clearly state that its not
> related to perf-based drop monitoring and that its safe to disable
> this unless support for the older netlink-based tools is needed.
> 
> [...]

Here is the summary with links:
  - [net-next] net: Kconfig: discourage drop_monitor enablement
    https://git.kernel.org/netdev/net-next/c/2af8ff1e472e

You are awesome, thank you!
-- 
Deet-doot-dot, I am a bot.
https://korg.docs.kernel.org/patchwork/pwbot.html