Getting list of network devices inside the Linux kernel

Question

I've been looking through net/core/dev.c and other files to try to find out how to get the list of network devices that are currently configured and it's proving to be a little difficult to find.

The end goal is to be able to get network device statistics using dev_get_stats in dev.c, but I need to know the current interfaces so I can grab the net_device struct to pass in. I'm having to do this inside the kernel as I'm writing a module which adds in a new /proc/ entry which relates to some statistics from the current network devices so from what I can gather this must be done inside the kernel.

If someone could point me to how to get the interfaces it would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

Given a struct net *net identifying the net namespace that you are interested in, you should grab the dev_base_lock and use for_each_netdev():

read_lock(&dev_base_lock);
for_each_netdev(net, dev) {
   /* Inspect dev */
}
read_unlock(&dev_base_lock);

(In newer kernels, you can use RCU instead, but that is probably an overcomplication in this case).

---

To obtain the net namespace to use, you should be registering your proc file with register_pernet_subsys():

static const struct file_operations foostats_seq_fops = {
    .owner   = THIS_MODULE,
    .open    = foostats_seq_open,
    .read    = seq_read,
    .llseek  = seq_lseek,
    .release = foostats_seq_release,
};

static int foo_proc_init_net(struct net *net)
{
    if (!proc_net_fops_create(net, "foostats", S_IRUGO,
            &foostats_seq_fops))
        return -ENOMEM;
    return 0;
}

static void foo_proc_exit_net(struct net *net)
{
    proc_net_remove(net, "foostats");
}


static struct pernet_operations foo_proc_ops = {
    .init = foo_proc_init_net,
    .exit = foo_proc_exit_net,
};

register_pernet_subsys(&foo_proc_ops)

In your foostats_seq_open() function, you take a reference on the net namespace, and drop it in the release function:

static int foostats_seq_open(struct inode *inode, struct file *file)
{
    int err;
    struct net *net;

    err = -ENXIO;
    net = get_proc_net(inode);
    if (net == NULL)
        goto err_net;

    err = single_open(file, foostats_seq_show, net);
    if (err < 0)
        goto err_open;

    return 0;

err_open:
    put_net(net);
err_net:
    return err;
}

static int foostats_seq_release(struct inode *inode, struct file *file)
{
    struct net *net = ((struct seq_file *)file->private_data)->private;

    put_net(net);
    return single_release(inode, file);
}

The foostats_seq_show() function can then obtain the net, walk the devices, gather the statistics and produce the output:

static int sockstat6_seq_show(struct seq_file *seq, void *v)
{
    struct net *net = seq->private;
    struct net_device *dev;

    int foostat, barstat;

    read_lock(&dev_base_lock);
    for_each_netdev(net, dev) {
       /* Inspect dev */
    }
    read_unlock(&dev_base_lock);

    seq_printf(seq, "Foo: %d\n", foostat);
    seq_printf(seq, "Bar: %d\n", barstat);

    return 0;
}