[NET] netconsole: Support dynamic reconfiguration using configfs

Based upon initial work by Keiichi Kii <k-keiichi@bx.jp.nec.com>.

This patch introduces support for dynamic reconfiguration (adding, removing
and/or modifying parameters of netconsole targets at runtime) using a
userspace interface exported via configfs.  Documentation is also updated
accordingly.

Issues and brief design overview:

(1) Kernel-initiated creation / destruction of kernel objects is not
    possible with configfs -- the lifetimes of the "config items" is managed
    exclusively from userspace.  But netconsole must support boot/module
    params too, and these are parsed in kernel and hence netpolls must be
    setup from the kernel.  Joel Becker suggested to separately manage the
    lifetimes of the two kinds of netconsole_target objects -- those created
    via configfs mkdir(2) from userspace and those specified from the
    boot/module option string.  This adds complexity and some redundancy here
    and also means that boot/module param-created targets are not exposed
    through the configfs namespace (and hence cannot be updated / destroyed
    dynamically).  However, this saves us from locking / refcounting
    complexities that would need to be introduced in configfs to support
    kernel-initiated item creation / destroy there.

(2) In configfs, item creation takes place in the call chain of the
    mkdir(2) syscall in the driver subsystem.  If we used an ioctl(2) to
    create / destroy objects from userspace, the special userspace program is
    able to fill out the structure to be passed into the ioctl and hence
    specify attributes such as local interface that are required at the time
    we set up the netpoll.  For configfs, this information is not available at
    the time of mkdir(2).  So, we keep all newly-created targets (via
    configfs) disabled by default.  The user is expected to set various
    attributes appropriately (including the local network interface if
    required) and then write(2) "1" to the "enabled" attribute.  Thus,
    netpoll_setup() is then called on the set parameters in the context of
    _this_ write(2) on the "enabled" attribute itself.  This design enables
    the user to reconfigure existing netconsole targets at runtime to be
    attached to newly-come-up interfaces that may not have existed when
    netconsole was loaded or when the targets were actually created.  All this
    effectively enables us to get rid of custom ioctls.

(3) Ultra-paranoid configfs attribute show() and store() operations, with
    sanity and input range checking, using only safe string primitives, and
    compliant with the recommendations in Documentation/filesystems/sysfs.txt.

(4) A new function netpoll_print_options() is created in the netpoll API,
    that just prints out the configured parameters for a netpoll structure.
    netpoll_parse_options() is modified to use that and it is also exported to
    be used from netconsole.

Signed-off-by: Satyam Sharma <satyam@infradead.org>
Acked-by: Keiichi Kii <k-keiichi@bx.jp.nec.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>

1 files changed, 10 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/drivers/net/Kconfig b/drivers/net/Kconfig
index 40ff9a5269a..10ed28ef356 100644
--- a/drivers/net/Kconfig
+++ b/drivers/net/Kconfig
@@ -3082,6 +3082,16 @@ config NETCONSOLE
 	If you want to log kernel messages over the network, enable this.
 	See <file:Documentation/networking/netconsole.txt> for details.
 
+config NETCONSOLE_DYNAMIC
+	bool "Dynamic reconfiguration of logging targets (EXPERIMENTAL)"
+	depends on NETCONSOLE && SYSFS && EXPERIMENTAL
+	select CONFIGFS_FS
+	help
+	  This option enables the ability to dynamically reconfigure target
+	  parameters (interface, IP addresses, port numbers, MAC addresses)
+	  at runtime through a userspace interface exported using configfs.
+	  See <file:Documentation/networking/netconsole.txt> for details.
+
 config NETPOLL
 	def_bool NETCONSOLE