On Mon, 15 Oct 2018 12:58:07 -0700, Alexei Starovoitov wrote: > > > > fprintf(stderr, > > > > "Usage: %s %s { show | list } [MAP]\n" > > > > + " %s %s create FILE type TYPE key KEY_SIZE > > > > value VALUE_SIZE \\\n" > > > > + " entries MAX_ENTRIES > > > > [name NAME] [flags FLAGS] \\\n" > > > > + " [dev NAME]\n" > > > > > > I suspect as soon as bpftool has an ability to create standalone maps > > > some folks will start relying on such interface. > > > > That'd be cool, do you see any real life use cases where its useful > > outside of corner case testing? > > In our XDP use case we have an odd protocol for different apps to share > common prog_array that is pinned in bpffs. > If cmdline creation of it via bpftool was available that would have been > an option to consider. Not saying that it would have been a better option. > Just another option.
I see, I didn't think of prog arrays. > > > Therefore I'd like to request to make 'name' argument to be mandatory. > > > > Will do in v2! > > thx! > > > > I think in the future we will require BTF to be mandatory too. > > > We need to move towards more transparent and debuggable infra. > > > Do you think requiring json description of key/value would be managable > > > to implement? > > > Then bpftool could convert it to BTF and the map full be fully defined. > > > I certainly understand that bpf prog can disregard the key/value layout > > > today, > > > but we will make verifier to enforce that in the future too. > > > > I was hoping that we can leave BTF support as a future extension, and > > then once we have the option for the verifier to enforce BTF (a sysctl?) > > the bpftool map create without a BTF will get rejected as one would > > expect. > > right. something like sysctl in the future. > > > IOW it's fine not to make BTF required at bpftool level and > > leave it to system configuration. > > > > I'd love to implement the BTF support right away, but I'm not sure I > > can afford that right now time-wise. The whole map create command is > > pretty trivial, but for BTF we don't even have a way of dumping it > > AFAICT. We can pretty print values, but what is the format in which to > > express the BTF itself? We could do JSON, do we use an external > > library? Should we have a separate BTF command for that? > > I prefer standard C type description for both input and output :) > Anyway that wasn't a request for you to do it now. More of the feature > request for somebody to put on todo list :) Oh, okay :) I will wait for John's patches to get merged and post v2, otherwise we'd conflict on the man page.