netpoll and netconsole were created together and their code has
been intermixed in net/core/netpoll.c for decades. The result is
that netpoll exposes two send-side interfaces:
* a generic "give me an sk_buff" path used by every stacked-device
driver (bonding, team, vlan, bridge, macvlan, dsa),
* a second path that takes raw bytes and builds a UDP/IP/Ethernet
packet -- exclusively for netconsole.
The packet builder, an skb pool allocator, and several
netconsole-specific helpers all live next to the generic plumbing even
though no other consumer ever touches them.
Worse, every netpoll user pays for that overlap: struct netpoll carries
an skb_pool and a refill work_struct that only netconsole's find_skb()
ever reads from, and net-core has to review unrelated changes (TTL, hop
limit, IP ID generation, source MAC selection, pool sizing) just because
they happen to be coded inside netpoll.
This is a waste of memory for something useless.
This series splits the netconsole-specific code out:
* netpoll_send_udp() and its private helpers (push_ipv6, push_ipv4,
push_eth, push_udp, netpoll_udp_checksum, find_skb) move into
drivers/net/netconsole.c, leaving netpoll with a single skb-only
send interface that is the same for every user.
The moves are one function per patch for reviewability; helpers are
temporarily EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL'd while netpoll_send_udp() is still in
netpoll calling them, then those exports are dropped together once
netpoll_send_udp() itself moves.
The only new permanent export is zap_completion_queue(), needed because
find_skb() still drains the per-CPU TX completion queue before
allocating.
struct netpoll is unchanged in this series; making the pool itself
netconsole-private (and reclaiming the skb_pool / refill_wq fields for
the rest of netpoll's users) is the natural follow-up, once this patchset
lands.
Signed-off-by: Breno Leitao <leitao@debian.org>
---
Changes in v2:
- rename and export {netpoll_}zap_completion_queue (Jakub)
- Change the commit to remove #include <net/udp.h> (Sashiko)
- Link to v1: https://patch.msgid.link/20260508-netconsole_split-v1-0-0f660e62841f@debian.org
---
Breno Leitao (9):
netpoll: expose UDP packet builder helpers for netconsole
netconsole: move netpoll_send_udp() from netpoll
netconsole: move push_ipv6() from netpoll
netconsole: move push_ipv4() from netpoll
netconsole: move push_eth() from netpoll
netconsole: move push_udp() from netpoll
netconsole: move netpoll_udp_checksum() from netpoll
netpoll: rename and export netpoll_zap_completion_queue()
netconsole: move find_skb() from netpoll
drivers/net/netconsole.c | 175 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
include/linux/netpoll.h | 2 +-
net/core/netpoll.c | 182 ++---------------------------------------------
3 files changed, 180 insertions(+), 179 deletions(-)
---
base-commit: 73d587ae684d176fac9db94173f77d78a794ea4f
change-id: 20260508-netconsole_split-4f8402a9a9ff
Best regards,
--
Breno Leitao <leitao@debian.org>