iproute2 and libbpf: vendoring on the small scale

Posted Nov 16, 2020 19:22 UTC (Mon) by nivedita76 (subscriber, #121790)
In reply to: iproute2 and libbpf: vendoring on the small scale by foom
Parent article: iproute2 and libbpf: vendoring on the small scale

From the bpf side, the argument seems to boil down to the assumption that distro's would keep updating iproute2 with every kernel release, but would not update libbpf the same way. I don't understand why this would happen though.

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iproute2 and libbpf: vendoring on the small scale

Posted Nov 16, 2020 23:49 UTC (Mon) by mkubecek (guest, #130791) [Link] (3 responses)

I think this is exactly the problem and I'm afraid it's an observation rather than an assumption. As for why, my guess is that while iproute2 is considered to be one of core packages so that there is a pressure to keep it up-to-date, this may not always be the case for libbpf, unless there is a sufficiently enthusiastic maintainer.

iproute2 and libbpf: vendoring on the small scale

Posted Nov 17, 2020 5:11 UTC (Tue) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link] (1 responses)

If the next iproute2 requires a new-enough libbpf version in order to build, this problem quite simply solves itself -- the priority of updating iproute2 will transfer to libbpf, and the package will get updated.

iproute2 and libbpf: vendoring on the small scale

Posted Nov 17, 2020 17:48 UTC (Tue) by mkubecek (guest, #130791) [Link]

This IMHO the best solution. It is already mentioned in the paragraph starting "Toward the end...", I just don't understand its last sentence as the e-mail linked by "seems unwilling" doesn't really seem to disagree with this approach. AFAICS Stephen just wanted to make sure the requirement for new iproute2 to work with old kernel (even if with features limited to what that kernel supports) is going to be preserved.

iproute2 and libbpf: vendoring on the small scale

Posted Nov 17, 2020 10:24 UTC (Tue) by bluca (subscriber, #118303) [Link]

If it's an observation, then where was it observed?