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0001 .. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
0002 
0003 ================
0004 Kernel Connector
0005 ================
0006 
0007 Kernel connector - new netlink based userspace <-> kernel space easy
0008 to use communication module.
0009 
0010 The Connector driver makes it easy to connect various agents using a
0011 netlink based network.  One must register a callback and an identifier.
0012 When the driver receives a special netlink message with the appropriate
0013 identifier, the appropriate callback will be called.
0014 
0015 From the userspace point of view it's quite straightforward:
0016 
0017         - socket();
0018         - bind();
0019         - send();
0020         - recv();
0021 
0022 But if kernelspace wants to use the full power of such connections, the
0023 driver writer must create special sockets, must know about struct sk_buff
0024 handling, etc...  The Connector driver allows any kernelspace agents to use
0025 netlink based networking for inter-process communication in a significantly
0026 easier way::
0027 
0028   int cn_add_callback(const struct cb_id *id, char *name, void (*callback) (struct cn_msg *, struct netlink_skb_parms *));
0029   void cn_netlink_send_mult(struct cn_msg *msg, u16 len, u32 portid, u32 __group, int gfp_mask);
0030   void cn_netlink_send(struct cn_msg *msg, u32 portid, u32 __group, int gfp_mask);
0031 
0032   struct cb_id
0033   {
0034         __u32                   idx;
0035         __u32                   val;
0036   };
0037 
0038 idx and val are unique identifiers which must be registered in the
0039 connector.h header for in-kernel usage.  `void (*callback) (void *)` is a
0040 callback function which will be called when a message with above idx.val
0041 is received by the connector core.  The argument for that function must
0042 be dereferenced to `struct cn_msg *`::
0043 
0044   struct cn_msg
0045   {
0046         struct cb_id            id;
0047 
0048         __u32                   seq;
0049         __u32                   ack;
0050 
0051         __u16                   len;    /* Length of the following data */
0052         __u16                   flags;
0053         __u8                    data[0];
0054   };
0055 
0056 Connector interfaces
0057 ====================
0058 
0059  .. kernel-doc:: include/linux/connector.h
0060 
0061  Note:
0062    When registering new callback user, connector core assigns
0063    netlink group to the user which is equal to its id.idx.
0064 
0065 Protocol description
0066 ====================
0067 
0068 The current framework offers a transport layer with fixed headers.  The
0069 recommended protocol which uses such a header is as following:
0070 
0071 msg->seq and msg->ack are used to determine message genealogy.  When
0072 someone sends a message, they use a locally unique sequence and random
0073 acknowledge number.  The sequence number may be copied into
0074 nlmsghdr->nlmsg_seq too.
0075 
0076 The sequence number is incremented with each message sent.
0077 
0078 If you expect a reply to the message, then the sequence number in the
0079 received message MUST be the same as in the original message, and the
0080 acknowledge number MUST be the same + 1.
0081 
0082 If we receive a message and its sequence number is not equal to one we
0083 are expecting, then it is a new message.  If we receive a message and
0084 its sequence number is the same as one we are expecting, but its
0085 acknowledge is not equal to the sequence number in the original
0086 message + 1, then it is a new message.
0087 
0088 Obviously, the protocol header contains the above id.
0089 
0090 The connector allows event notification in the following form: kernel
0091 driver or userspace process can ask connector to notify it when
0092 selected ids will be turned on or off (registered or unregistered its
0093 callback).  It is done by sending a special command to the connector
0094 driver (it also registers itself with id={-1, -1}).
0095 
0096 As example of this usage can be found in the cn_test.c module which
0097 uses the connector to request notification and to send messages.
0098 
0099 Reliability
0100 ===========
0101 
0102 Netlink itself is not a reliable protocol.  That means that messages can
0103 be lost due to memory pressure or process' receiving queue overflowed,
0104 so caller is warned that it must be prepared.  That is why the struct
0105 cn_msg [main connector's message header] contains u32 seq and u32 ack
0106 fields.
0107 
0108 Userspace usage
0109 ===============
0110 
0111 2.6.14 has a new netlink socket implementation, which by default does not
0112 allow people to send data to netlink groups other than 1.
0113 So, if you wish to use a netlink socket (for example using connector)
0114 with a different group number, the userspace application must subscribe to
0115 that group first.  It can be achieved by the following pseudocode::
0116 
0117   s = socket(PF_NETLINK, SOCK_DGRAM, NETLINK_CONNECTOR);
0118 
0119   l_local.nl_family = AF_NETLINK;
0120   l_local.nl_groups = 12345;
0121   l_local.nl_pid = 0;
0122 
0123   if (bind(s, (struct sockaddr *)&l_local, sizeof(struct sockaddr_nl)) == -1) {
0124         perror("bind");
0125         close(s);
0126         return -1;
0127   }
0128 
0129   {
0130         int on = l_local.nl_groups;
0131         setsockopt(s, 270, 1, &on, sizeof(on));
0132   }
0133 
0134 Where 270 above is SOL_NETLINK, and 1 is a NETLINK_ADD_MEMBERSHIP socket
0135 option.  To drop a multicast subscription, one should call the above socket
0136 option with the NETLINK_DROP_MEMBERSHIP parameter which is defined as 0.
0137 
0138 2.6.14 netlink code only allows to select a group which is less or equal to
0139 the maximum group number, which is used at netlink_kernel_create() time.
0140 In case of connector it is CN_NETLINK_USERS + 0xf, so if you want to use
0141 group number 12345, you must increment CN_NETLINK_USERS to that number.
0142 Additional 0xf numbers are allocated to be used by non-in-kernel users.
0143 
0144 Due to this limitation, group 0xffffffff does not work now, so one can
0145 not use add/remove connector's group notifications, but as far as I know,
0146 only cn_test.c test module used it.
0147 
0148 Some work in netlink area is still being done, so things can be changed in
0149 2.6.15 timeframe, if it will happen, documentation will be updated for that
0150 kernel.
0151 
0152 Code samples
0153 ============
0154 
0155 Sample code for a connector test module and user space can be found
0156 in samples/connector/. To build this code, enable CONFIG_CONNECTOR
0157 and CONFIG_SAMPLES.