kernel/git/stable/linux.git/Documentation/networking/driver.rst, branch master

docs: networking: add guidance on what to push via extack

2026-06-13T00:55:48+00:00

Every now and then someone tries to duplicated extack messages to dmesg. Document our guidance against this. Also indicate that system level faults should continue to go to system logs. The high level thinking is to try to distinguish between what's important to the user vs system admin. Reviewed-by: Joe Damato Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260611172149.1877704-1-kuba@kernel.org Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski

docs: net: fix minor issues with driver guide

2026-05-28T21:37:46+00:00

Update the driver documentation TX queue example to match current APIs: - use the ring-local tx_ring_mask field in drv_tx_avail() - stop the selected netdev_queue with netif_tx_stop_queue() instead of stopping queue 0 with netif_stop_queue() Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260526160151.2793354-3-kuba@kernel.org Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski

net: docs: update the sample code in driver.rst

2023-04-13T11:30:21+00:00

The sample code talks about single-queue devices and uses locks. Update it to something resembling more modern code. Make sure we mention use of READ_ONCE() / WRITE_ONCE(). Change the comment which talked about consumer on the xmit side. AFAIU xmit is the producer and completions are a consumer. Reviewed-by: Eric Dumazet Reviewed-by: Jesse Brandeburg Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski Signed-off-by: Paolo Abeni

net: provide macros for commonly copied lockless queue stop/wake code

2023-04-11T00:56:18+00:00

A lot of drivers follow the same scheme to stop / start queues without introducing locks between xmit and NAPI tx completions. I'm guessing they all copy'n'paste each other's code. The original code dates back all the way to e1000 and Linux 2.6.19. Smaller drivers shy away from the scheme and introduce a lock which may cause deadlocks in netpoll. Provide macros which encapsulate the necessary logic. The macros do not prevent false wake ups, the extra barrier required to close that race is not worth it. See discussion in: https://lore.kernel.org/all/c39312a2-4537-14b4-270c-9fe1fbb91e89@gmail.com/ Acked-by: Herbert Xu Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski

docs: net: use C syntax highlight in driver.rst

2023-04-11T00:56:17+00:00

Use syntax highlight, comment out the "..." since they are not valid C. Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski

docs: net: move the probe and open/close sections of driver.rst up

2023-04-11T00:56:17+00:00

Somehow it feels more right to start from the probe then open, then tx... Much like the lifetime of the driver itself. Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski

docs: net: reformat driver.rst from a list to sections

2023-04-11T00:56:17+00:00

driver.rst had a historical form of list of common problems. In the age os Sphinx and rendered documentation it's better to use the more usual title + text format. This will allow us to render kdoc into the output more naturally. No changes to the actual text. Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski

Documentation: networking: correct possessive "its"

2022-08-31T19:36:08+00:00

Change occurrences of "it's" that are possessive to "its" so that they don't read as "it is". Signed-off-by: Randy Dunlap Cc: Jonathan Corbet Cc: Eric Dumazet Cc: Paolo Abeni Cc: Jiri Pirko Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20220829235414.17110-1-rdunlap@infradead.org Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski

docs: networking: convert driver.txt to ReST

2020-04-28T21:39:46+00:00

- add SPDX header; - add a document title; - mark code blocks and literals as such; - adjust identation, whitespaces and blank lines; - add to networking/index.rst. Signed-off-by: Mauro Carvalho Chehab Signed-off-by: David S. Miller