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Date:   Fri, 9 Dec 2022 21:09:31 +0100
From:   Pablo Neira Ayuso <pablo@netfilter.org>
To:     Phil Sutter <phil@nwl.cc>, netfilter-devel@vger.kernel.org,
        Florian Westphal <fw@strlen.de>
Subject: Re: [iptables PATCH 1/7] ebtables: Implement --check command
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On Fri, Dec 09, 2022 at 05:51:55PM +0100, Phil Sutter wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 09, 2022 at 04:23:49PM +0100, Pablo Neira Ayuso wrote:
> > On Fri, Dec 09, 2022 at 01:41:24AM +0100, Phil Sutter wrote:
> > > On Thu, Dec 08, 2022 at 10:40:22PM +0100, Pablo Neira Ayuso wrote:
> > > > On Thu, Dec 01, 2022 at 05:39:10PM +0100, Phil Sutter wrote:
> > > > > Sadly, '-C' is in use already for --change-counters (even though
> > > > > ebtables-nft does not implement this), so add a long-option only. It is
> > > > > needed for xlate testsuite in replay mode, which will use '--check'
> > > > > instead of '-C'.
> > > > 
> > > > Hm, yet another of those exotic deviations (from ip{6}tables) in
> > > > ebtables.
> > > > 
> > > > This -C is not supported by ebtables-nft, right? If so,
> > > > according to manpage, ebtables -C takes start_nr[:end_nr].
> > > > 
> > > > Maybe there is a chance to get this aligned with other ip{6}tables
> > > > tools by checking if optarg is available? Otherwise, really check the
> > > > ruleset?
> > > > 
> > > > BTW, I'm re-reading the ebtables manpage, not sure how this feature -C
> > > > was supposed to be used. Do you understand the usecase?
> > > 
> > > Yes, it's odd - so fits perfectly the rest of ebtables syntax. ;)
> > > 
> > > There are two ways to use it:
> > > 
> > > 1) ebtables -C <CHAIN> <RULENO> <PCNT> <BCNT>
> > > 2) ebtables -C <CHAIN> <PCNT> <BCNT> <RULESPEC>
> > > 
> > > So I could check if the two parameters following the chain name are
> > > numbers or not to distinguish between --change-counters and --check, but
> > > it's ugly and with ebtables-nft not supporting one of them makes things
> > > actually worse.
> > > 
> > > We need --check only for internal purposes, let's please just leave it
> > > like this - there are much more important things to work on.
> > 
> > OK, just an idea in case there is a need for getting ebtables more
> > aligned with other xtables userspace.
> 
> I'd love to, but the syntax is so far off, it's almost futile. :(

That's just one way to put it.