On Wed, Sep 25, 2024 at 05:11:01PM +0200, Ahelenia Ziemiańska wrote: > On Wed, Sep 25, 2024 at 04:53:49PM +0200, Pablo Neira Ayuso wrote: > > On Tue, Sep 03, 2024 at 04:53:46PM +0200, Ahelenia Ziemiańska wrote: > > > On Tue, Sep 03, 2024 at 10:22:09AM +0200, Pablo Neira Ayuso wrote: > > > > On Tue, Sep 03, 2024 at 04:16:21AM +0200, Ahelenia Ziemiańska wrote: > > > > > The manual says > > > > > COMMANDS > > > > > These options specify the particular operation to perform. > > > > > Only one of them can be specified at any given time. > > > > > > > > > > -L --dump > > > > > List connection tracking or expectation table > > > > > > > > > > So, naturally, "conntrack -Lo extended" should work, > > > > > but it doesn't, it's equivalent to "conntrack -L", > > > > > and you need "conntrack -L -o extended". > > > > > This violates user expectations (borne of the Utility Syntax Guidelines) > > > > > and contradicts the manual. > > > > > > > > > > optarg is unused, anyway. Unclear why any of these were :: at all? > > > > Because this supports: > > > > -L > > > > -L conntrack > > > > -L expect > > > Well that's not what :: does, though; we realise this, right? > > > > > > "L::" means that getopt() will return > > > "-L", "conntrack" -> 'L',optarg=NULL > > > "-Lconntrack" -> 'L',optarg="conntrack" > > > and the parser for -L (&c.) doesn't... use optarg. > > Are you sure it does not use optarg? > > > > static unsigned int check_type(int argc, char *argv[]) > > { > > const char *table = get_optional_arg(argc, argv); > > > > and get_optional_arg() uses optarg. > > This I've missed, but actually my diagnosis still holds: > static unsigned int check_type(int argc, char *argv[]) > { > const char *table = get_optional_arg(argc, argv); > > /* default to conntrack subsystem if nothing has been specified. */ > if (table == NULL) > return CT_TABLE_CONNTRACK; > > static char *get_optional_arg(int argc, char *argv[]) > { > char *arg = NULL; > > /* Nasty bug or feature in getopt_long ? > * It seems that it behaves badly with optional arguments. > * Fortunately, I just stole the fix from iptables ;) */ > if (optarg) > return arg; > > So, if you say -Lanything, then > optarg=anything > get_optional_arg=(null) > (notice that it says "return arg;", not "return optarg;", > i.e. this is "return NULL"). > > It /doesn't/ use optarg, because it explicitly treats an optarg as no optarg. > > It's unclear to me what the comment is referencing, > but I'm assuming some sort of confusion with what :: does? > Anyway, that if(){ can be removed now, since it can never be taken now. The issue that I'm observing is that # conntrack -Lconntrack now optarg is NULL after your patch, so 'conntrack' is ignored, so it falls back to list the conntrack table. Then, this breaks: # conntrack -Lexpect conntrack v1.4.9 (conntrack-tools): Bad parameter `xpect' Try `conntrack -h' or 'conntrack --help' for more information. Maybe your patch needs an extension to deal with this case too? Regarding your question, this parser is old and I shamelessly took it from the original iptables to make syntax similar.