Re: [PATCH] netpoll: support sending over raw IP interfaces

From: Jakub Kicinski
Date: Thu Mar 14 2024 - 14:35:06 EST


On Wed, 13 Mar 2024 13:46:13 +0100 Mark Cilissen wrote:
> Currently, netpoll only supports interfaces with an ethernet-compatible
> link layer. Certain interfaces like SLIP do not have a link layer
> on the network interface level at all and expect raw IP packets,
> and could benefit from being supported by netpoll.
>
> This commit adds support for such interfaces by using the network device's
> `hard_header_len` field as an indication that no link layer is present.
> If that is the case we simply skip adding the ethernet header, causing
> a raw IP packet to be sent over the interface. This has been confirmed
> to add netconsole support to at least SLIP and WireGuard interfaces.

Would be great if this could come with a simple selftest under
tools/testing/selftests/net. Preferably using some simple tunnel
device, rather than wg to limit tooling dependencies ;)