On Thu, May 22, 2014 at 2:22 PM, Carsten Andrich <carsten.andrich@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Thanks for the feedback, Daniel and Willem. > > Executive summary: We need a good concept for distributing (preferably > mutually exclusive) information among packet(7) and packet_mmap.txt. > > Willem de Bruijn schrieb: >>> 0. Perhaps a general writeup on how the RX/TX_RING works in Linux, >>> it's layout, constraints etc. Btw, not sure if that's also >> >> This would duplicate the contents of >> Documentation/networking/packet_mmap.txt? I would caution against >> having two sources of documentation that may become inconsistent over >> time. A detailed discussion could also become too long for a manual >> page: packet_mmap.txt is already 1067 lines (albeit about half in >> example code). If that document is confusing, a thorough edit of that >> would be very helpful, though. >> >>> included already, but the same mmap-technique exists also for >>> netlink sockets. >> >> See also Documentation/networking/netlink_mmap.txt . If the ring is a >> generic netlink feature (i.e., not specific to nfnetlink), then man 7 >> netlink is the right place for user documentation (in as far as this >> is a user-oriented feature). > > Some deduplication between netlink(7), packet(7), netlink_mmap.txt and > packet_mmap.txt is probably a good idea. However, this is much more than > I initially bargained for :) > I had a superficial look at the netlink documents, and most concepts > appear to be very much alike. The operational aspects make quite a large > exception, though, since the netlink header (usage) is a lot simpler > than tpacket_hdr including its different versions. > > IMHO user-space API documentation should reside in the man page and not > Documentation/, but I'd like to heard Michael's opinion on that. Maybe > it's a good idea to have at least a basic description on packet(7) and > reserve packet_mmap.txt for the more advanced topics? Yes, user-space API documentation is best in the man pages, IMO. The split you suggest seems okay to me: the essentials in packet(7) and referring as needed for advanced stuff to Documentation/ Cheers, Michael -- Michael Kerrisk Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/ Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/ -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-man" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
