tools: ynl: user space helpers

Add "fixed" part of the user space Netlink Spec-based library.
This will get linked with the protocol implementations to form
a full API.

Acked-by: Willem de Bruijn <willemb@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>

1 files changed, 79 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/userspace-api/netlink/intro-specs.rst b/Documentation/userspace-api/netlink/intro-specs.rst
index a3b847eafff71..bada89699455c 100644
--- a/Documentation/userspace-api/netlink/intro-specs.rst
+++ b/Documentation/userspace-api/netlink/intro-specs.rst
@@ -78,3 +78,82 @@ to see other examples.
 The code generation itself is performed by ``tools/net/ynl/ynl-gen-c.py``
 but it takes a few arguments so calling it directly for each file
 quickly becomes tedious.
+
+YNL lib
+=======
+
+``tools/net/ynl/lib/`` contains an implementation of a C library
+(based on libmnl) which integrates with code generated by
+``tools/net/ynl/ynl-gen-c.py`` to create easy to use netlink wrappers.
+
+YNL basics
+----------
+
+The YNL library consists of two parts - the generic code (functions
+prefix by ``ynl_``) and per-family auto-generated code (prefixed
+with the name of the family).
+
+To create a YNL socket call ynl_sock_create() passing the family
+struct (family structs are exported by the auto-generated code).
+ynl_sock_destroy() closes the socket.
+
+YNL requests
+------------
+
+Steps for issuing YNL requests are best explained on an example.
+All the functions and types in this example come from the auto-generated
+code (for the netdev family in this case):
+
+.. code-block:: c
+
+   // 0. Request and response pointers
+   struct netdev_dev_get_req *req;
+   struct netdev_dev_get_rsp *d;
+
+   // 1. Allocate a request
+   req = netdev_dev_get_req_alloc();
+   // 2. Set request parameters (as needed)
+   netdev_dev_get_req_set_ifindex(req, ifindex);
+
+   // 3. Issues the request
+   d = netdev_dev_get(ys, req);
+   // 4. Free the request arguments
+   netdev_dev_get_req_free(req);
+   // 5. Error check (the return value from step 3)
+   if (!d) {
+	// 6. Print the YNL-generated error
+	fprintf(stderr, "YNL: %s\n", ys->err.msg);
+        return -1;
+   }
+
+   // ... do stuff with the response @d
+
+   // 7. Free response
+   netdev_dev_get_rsp_free(d);
+
+YNL dumps
+---------
+
+Performing dumps follows similar pattern as requests.
+Dumps return a list of objects terminated by a special marker,
+or NULL on error. Use ``ynl_dump_foreach()`` to iterate over
+the result.
+
+YNL notifications
+-----------------
+
+YNL lib supports using the same socket for notifications and
+requests. In case notifications arrive during processing of a request
+they are queued internally and can be retrieved at a later time.
+
+To subscribed to notifications use ``ynl_subscribe()``.
+The notifications have to be read out from the socket,
+``ynl_socket_get_fd()`` returns the underlying socket fd which can
+be plugged into appropriate asynchronous IO API like ``poll``,
+or ``select``.
+
+Notifications can be retrieved using ``ynl_ntf_dequeue()`` and have
+to be freed using ``ynl_ntf_free()``. Since we don't know the notification
+type upfront the notifications are returned as ``struct ynl_ntf_base_type *``
+and user is expected to cast them to the appropriate full type based
+on the ``cmd`` member.