[dpdk-dev] [PATCH] net/memif: use abstract socket address

[Ferruh Yigit]

On 10/5/2020 7:17 PM, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> On Mon, 5 Oct 2020 14:09:20 +0100
> Ferruh Yigit <ferruh.yigit at intel.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 10/5/2020 1:39 PM, Jakub Grajciar wrote:
>>> Abstract socket address has no connection with
>>> filesystem pathnames and the socket dissapears
>>> once all open references are closed.
>>>
>>> Memif pmd will use abstract socket address by default.
>>> For backwards compatibility use new argument
>>> 'socket-abstract=no'
>>>    
>>
>> Why this backward compatibility is required? How the end user affected from
>> swithching to abstract sockets?
> 
> It would only matter if mixing applications with different versions.
> 
>> Since when linux supports abstract sockets, does this switch will cause problem
>> with old kernel versions?
> 
> This is not new, it dates back to Linux 2.4 or earlier.
> 
>>
>> Is there any benefit of the abstract sockets other than socket cleaned
>> automatically (I assume for unix sockets it is done when file filesystem
>> reference removed)?
> 
> The big one is that applications don't have to blindly unlink the old filesystem
> remnant. This means that if application can't bind it means another application
> is still running with that name. So abstract sockets are safer.
> 
> 
> Abstract sockets are not pathnames so they get handled differently by security
> systems (like SELinux and AppArmor). This can be helpful in containers.
> 

Hi Stephen, thank you for clarification.