Re: [PATCH net-next v2] block/drbd: use nla_put_u64_64bit()

From: Eric Dumazet
Date: Wed May 04 2016 - 13:13:42 EST


On Wed, 2016-05-04 at 12:50 -0400, David Miller wrote:
> From: Eric Dumazet <eric.dumazet@xxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Wed, 04 May 2016 07:27:06 -0700
>
> > kernel was fine, and most user land apps were fine as well.
>
> Userland should really not have to deal with garbage like this.
>
> And because it quietly works just fine on x86-64, nothing makes
> sure that applications will universally get this right anyways.
>
> Better to align things properly and magically all of these issues
> simply disappear.

Sure, but in practice we end up consuming 16 bytes (instead of 12) per
u64 attribute, only on some arches. 33 % space overhead.

So maybe some dumps will abort on those arches, while on x86 the size of
skb might be below some magic limit.

I guess this is fine, we do not break ABI in any way.