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+title = "Introduction to Generic Netlink, or How to Talk with the Linux Kernel"
+date = 2023-02-10T22:38:08
++++
+
+![Tux has got some mail!](genl-tux.png)
+
+Are you writing some code in kernel-space and want to communicate with it from
+the comfort of user-space? You are not writing kernel code, but want to talk
+with the Linux kernel? Serve yourself some good java (the good hot kind, not the
+Oracle one), make yourself comfortable and read ahead!
+
+<!-- more -->
+
+I recently got myself into programming in the Linux Kernel, more specifically
+kernel space modules, and one of the APIs that I had to study was Generic
+Netlink. As is usual with most Linux Kernel APIs the documentation, outside of
+sometimes fairly well commented code, is a bit lacking and/or old.
+
+Hence why I decided to make a little example for myself on how to use Generic
+Netlink for kernel-user space communications, and an introductory guide using
+the aforementioned example for my colleagues and any other person interested in
+using Generic Netlink but not knowing where to start.
+
+This guide covers the following:
+
+* Registering Generic Netlink families in kernel.
+* Registering Generic Netlink operations and handling them in kernel.
+* Registering Generic Netlink multicast groups in kernel.
+* Sending "events" through Generic Netlink from kernel.
+* Connecting to Generic Netlink from a user program.
+* Resolving Generic Netlink families and multicast groups from a user program.
+* Sending a message to a Generic Netlink family from a user program.
+* Subscribing to a Generic Netlink multicast group from a user program.
+* Listening for Generic Netlink messages from a user program.
+
+## What is Netlink?
+
+Netlink is a socket domain created with the task of providing IPC for the Linux
+Kernel, especially kernel\<-\>user IPC. Netlink was created initially with the
+intention of replacing the aging ioctl() interface, by providing a more flexible
+way of communicating between kernel and user programs.
+
+Netlink communication happens over standard sockets using the `AF_NETLINK`
+domain. Nonetheless, on the user land side of things, libraries exist that
+provide a more convenient way of using the Netlink interface, such as libnl[^1].
+
+That said, new Netlink families aren't being created anymore and new code
+doesn't use Netlink directly. The classic use of Netlink is relegated to already
+existing families such as `NETLINK_ROUTE`, `NETLINK_SELINUX`, etc. The main
+problem with Netlink is that it uses static allocation of IDs which are limited
+to 32 unique families, which greatly limits its users and may cause conflicts
+with out-of-tree modules.
+
+## Presenting Generic Netlink
+
+Generic Netlink was created to fix the deficiencies of Netlink as well as
+bringing some quality of life improvements. It is not a separate socket domain
+though, it's more of an extension of Netlink. In fact, it is a Netlink family —
+`NETLINK_GENERIC`.
+
+Generic Netlink has been around since 2005 so it is a well established interface
+for kernel\<-\>userspace IPC. Some notable users of Generic Netlink include
+subsystems such as 802.11, ACPI, Wireguard, among others.
+
+The main features that Generic Netlink brings to the table are dynamic family
+registration, introspection and a simplified kernel API. This tutorial is
+focused specifically on Generic Netlink, since it's the standard way of
+communicating with the kernel in ways that are more sophisticated than a simple
+sysfs file.
+
+![Generic Netlink bus diagram](01-diagram.png)
+<figcaption>
+
+Generic Netlink bus diagram
+</figcaption>
+
+## Some theory
+
+As I've already mentioned, Netlink works over the usual BSD sockets. A Netlink
+message always starts with a Netlink header, followed by a protocol header, that
+is in the case of Generic Netlink, the Generic Netlink header.
+
+### Netlink messages
+
+The headers look like this:
+
+![Netlink header](02-nlmsghdr.png)
+<figcaption>
+
+Netlink Header
+</figcaption>
+
+![Generic Netlink header](03-genlmsghdr.png)
+<figcaption>
+
+Generic Netlink Header
+</figcaption>
+
+Or as described by the following C structures:
+
+```C
+struct nlmsghdr {
+ __u32 nlmsg_len;
+ __u16 nlmsg_type;
+ __u16 nlmsg_flags;
+ __u32 nlmsg_seq;
+ __u32 nlmsg_pid;
+};
+
+struct genlmsghdr {
+ __u8 cmd;
+ __u8 version;
+ __u16 reserved;
+};
+```
+
+Netlink header fields meaning:
+
+* Length — the length of the whole message, including headers.
+* Type — the Netlink family ID, in our case Generic Netlink.
+* Flags — a do or dump; more on that later.
+* Sequence — sequence number; also more on that later.
+* Port ID — set to 0, since we are sending from kernel.
+
+and for Generic Netlink:
+
+* Command: operation identifier as defined by the Generic Netlink family.
+* Version: the version of the Generic Netlink family protocol.
+* Reserved: as its name implies ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯.
+
+Most of the fields are pretty straight forward, and the header is not usually
+filled manually by the Netlink user. Some of the information contained in the
+headers is provided by the user through the API when calling the different
+functions. Some of that information are things like the flags and sequence
+numbers.
+
+There are three types of message operations that are usually performed over a
+Netlink socket:
+
+* A do operation
+* A dump operation
+* And multicast messages, or asynchronous notifications.
+
+There are many different ways of sending messages over Netlink, but these are
+the most used in Generic Netlink.
+
+A do operation is a single action kind of operation in which the user program
+sends the message and receives a reply that could be an acknowledgment or error
+message, or maybe even a message with some information.
+
+A dump operation is one for (duh) dumping information, usually more than fits in
+one message. The user program also sends a message but receives multiple reply
+message until received a `NLMSG_DONE` message that signals the end of the dump.
+
+Whether an operation is a do or a dump is set using the flags field:
+
+* `NLM_F_REQUEST | NLM_F_ACK` for do.
+* `NLM_F_REQUEST | NLM_F_ACK | NLM_F_DUMP` for dump.
+
+Now the third type, the multicast messages, are used for sending notifications
+to the users that are subscribed to them via the generic netlink multicast
+group.
+
+As we saw, there's also a sequence number field in the Netlink header. However,
+unlike in other protocols, Netlink doesn't manipulate or enforce the sequence
+number itself. It's provided as a way to help keep track of messages and
+replies. In practice, the user program would increase the sequence number with
+each message sent, and the kernel module would send the reply(ies) with the same
+sequence as the command message. Multicast message are usually sent with a
+sequence number of 0.
+
+### Message payload
+
+Netlink provides a system of attributes to encode data with information such as
+type and length. The use of attributes allows for validation of data and for a
+supposedly easy way to extend protocols without breaking backward compatibility.
+
+You can also encode your own types, such as a struct in a single attribute.
+However, the use of Netlink attributes for each field is encouraged.
+
+The attributes are encoded in LTV format and are padded such that each attribute
+begins at an offset that is a multiple of 4 bytes. The length fields, both in
+the message header and attribute, always include the header, but not the
+padding.
+
+![Netlink attribute diagram](04-nlattr.png)
+<figcaption>
+
+Netlink attribute diagram
+</figcaption>
+
+The attributes in a Netlink, and hence Generic Netlink, message are not
+necessarily added always in the same order, which is why they should be walked
+and parsed.
+
+Netlink provides for a way to validate that a message is correctly formatted
+using so called "attribute validation policies", represented by `struct
+nla_policy`. I do find it a bit strange that the structure is not exposed to
+user space and hence validation seems to be performed by default only on the
+kernel side. It can also be done on user space and libnl also provides its own
+`struct nla_policy` but it differs from the kernel one which means you basically
+have to do duplicate work to validate the attributes on both sides.
+
+The types of messages and operations are defined by the so called Netlink
+commands. A command correlates to one message type, and also might correlate to
+one op(eration).
+
+Each command or message type can have or use one or more attributes.
+
+### Families
+
+I have already mentioned families in this text and in different contexts.
+Unfortunately, as is common in the world of computer programming, things
+sometimes aren't named in the very best way hence we end up with situations like
+this one.
+
+Sockets have families, of which we use the `AF_NETLINK`. Netlink also has
+families, of which there are only 32, and no more are planned or should be
+introduced to the Linux kernel; the family we use is `NETLINK_GENERIC`. Last but
+not least, Generic Netlink also has families, although these are dynamically
+registered and a whopping total of 1024 can be registered at a single time.
+
+Generic Netlink families are identified by a string, such as "nl80211", for
+example. Since the families are registered dynamically, that means that their ID
+can change from one computer to another or even one boot to another, so we need
+to resolve them before we can send messages to a family.
+
+Generic Netlink in itself provides a single statically allocated family called
+`nlctrl` which provides with a command to resolve said families. It also
+provides since not long ago a way for introspecting operations and exposing
+policies to user space, but we are not going to go into detail on this in this
+tutorial.
+
+One more thing of note is that a single Generic Netlink socket is not bound to
+any one family. A Generic Netlink socket can talk to any family at any time, it
+just needs to provide the family ID when sending the message, by using the type
+field as we saw earlier.
+
+### Multicast groups
+
+There are some message that we would like to send asynchronously to user
+programs in order to notify them of some events, or just communicate information
+as it becomes available. This is where multicast groups come in.
+
+Generic Netlink multicast groups, just like families, are dynamically registered
+with a string name and receiving a numeric ID upon registration. In other words,
+they must also be resolved before being to subscribe to them. Once subscribed to
+a multicast group, the user program will receive all message sent to the group.
+
+In order to avoid mixing sequence numbers with unicast messages and to make
+handling easier, it is recommended to use a different socket for multicast
+messages.
+
+## Getting our hands dirty
+
+There's much more about Generic Netlink and especially classic Netlink, but
+those were the most important concepts to know about when working with Generic
+Netlink. That said, it's not very interesting just knowing about something, we
+are here for the action after all.
+
+I have made an example of using Generic Netlink that consists of two parts. A
+kernel module, and a userland program.
+
+The kernel module provides a single generic netlink operation and a multicast
+group. The message structure is the same for the do op and the multicast
+notification. The first reads a string message, prints it to the kernel log, and
+sends its own message back; and the second sends a notification upon reading a
+message from sysfs, echoing it.
+
+The user space program connects to Generic Netlink, subscribes to the multicast
+group, sends a message to our family and prints out the received messages.
+
+I'll be explaining them step by step with code listings in this article. The
+full source code for both parts can be found at
+<https://git.yaroslavps.com/genltest/>.
+
+### The land of the Kernel
+
+Using Generic Netlink from kernel space is pretty straightforward. All we need
+to start using it is to include a single header in our file, `net/genetlink.h`.
+In total all the headers that we need to start working with our example are as
+follows:
+
+```C
+#include <linux/module.h>
+#include <net/genetlink.h>
+```
+
+We'll need some definitions and enumerations that will be shared between kernel
+space and user space, we'll put them in a header file that we'll call
+`genltest.h`:
+
+```C
+#define GENLTEST_GENL_NAME "genltest"
+#define GENLTEST_GENL_VERSION 1
+#define GENLTEST_MC_GRP_NAME "mcgrp"
+
+/* Attributes */
+enum genltest_attrs {
+ GENLTEST_A_UNSPEC,
+ GENLTEST_A_MSG,
+ __GENLTEST_A_MAX,
+};
+
+#define GENLTEST_A_MAX (__GENLTEST_A_MAX - 1)
+
+/* Commands */
+enum genltest_cmds {
+ GENLTEST_CMD_UNSPEC,
+ GENLTEST_CMD_ECHO,
+ __GENLTEST_CMD_MAX,
+};
+
+#define GENLTEST_CMD_MAX (__GENLTEST_CMD_MAX - 1)
+```
+
+There we defined the name of our family, our protocol version, our multicast
+group name, the attributes that we will use in our messages and our commands.
+
+Back in our kernel code, we make a validation policy for our "echo" command:
+
+```C
+/* Attribute validation policy for our echo command */
+static struct nla_policy echo_pol[GENLTEST_A_MAX + 1] = {
+ [GENLTEST_A_MSG] = { .type = NLA_NUL_STRING },
+};
+```
+
+Make an array with our Generic Netlink operations:
+
+```C
+/* Operations for our Generic Netlink family */
+static struct genl_ops genl_ops[] = {
+ {
+ .cmd = GENLTEST_CMD_ECHO,
+ .policy = echo_pol,
+ .doit = echo_doit,
+ },
+};
+```
+
+Similarly an array with our multicast groups:
+
+```C
+/* Multicast groups for our family */
+static const struct genl_multicast_group genl_mcgrps[] = {
+ { .name = GENLTEST_MC_GRP_NAME },
+};
+```
+
+Finally the struct describing our family, where we include everything so far:
+
+```C
+/* Generic Netlink family */
+static struct genl_family genl_fam = {
+ .name = GENLTEST_GENL_NAME,
+ .version = GENLTEST_GENL_VERSION,
+ .maxattr = GENLTEST_A_MAX,
+ .ops = genl_ops,
+ .n_ops = ARRAY_SIZE(genl_ops),
+ .mcgrps = genl_mcgrps,
+ .n_mcgrps = ARRAY_SIZE(genl_mcgrps),
+};
+```
+
+On initialization of our module, we need to register our family with Generic
+Netlink. For that we just need to pass it our `genl_family` structure:
+
+```C
+ret = genl_register_family(&genl_fam);
+if (unlikely(ret)) {
+ pr_crit("failed to register generic netlink family\n");
+ // etc...
+}
+```
+
+And similarly, on module exit we need to unregister it:
+
+```C
+if (unlikely(genl_unregister_family(&genl_fam))) {
+ pr_err("failed to unregister generic netlink family\n");
+}
+```
+
+As you may have noticed, we set our doit callback for our "echo" command to a
+`echo_doit` function. Here's what it looks like:
+
+```C
+/* Handler for GENLTEST_CMD_ECHO messages received */
+static int echo_doit(struct sk_buff *skb, struct genl_info *info)
+{
+ int ret = 0;
+ void *hdr;
+ struct sk_buff *msg;
+
+ /* Check if the attribute is present and print it */
+ if (info->attrs[GENLTEST_A_MSG]) {
+ char *str = nla_data(info->attrs[GENLTEST_A_MSG]);
+ pr_info("message received: %s\n", str);
+ } else {
+ pr_info("empty message received\n");
+ }
+
+ /* Allocate a new buffer for the reply */
+ msg = nlmsg_new(NLMSG_DEFAULT_SIZE, GFP_KERNEL);
+ if (!msg) {
+ pr_err("failed to allocate message buffer\n");
+ return -ENOMEM;
+ }
+
+ /* Put the Generic Netlink header */
+ hdr = genlmsg_put(msg, info->snd_portid, info->snd_seq, &genl_fam, 0,
+ GENLTEST_CMD_ECHO);
+ if (!hdr) {
+ pr_err("failed to create genetlink header\n");
+ nlmsg_free(msg);
+ return -EMSGSIZE;
+ }
+ /* And the message */
+ if ((ret = nla_put_string(msg, GENLTEST_A_MSG,
+ "Hello from Kernel Space, Netlink!"))) {
+ pr_err("failed to create message string\n");
+ genlmsg_cancel(msg, hdr);
+ nlmsg_free(msg);
+ goto out;
+ }
+
+ /* Finalize the message and send it */
+ genlmsg_end(msg, hdr);
+
+ ret = genlmsg_reply(msg, info);
+ pr_info("reply sent\n");
+
+out:
+ return ret;
+}
+```
+
+In summary, when handling a do command we follow these steps:
+
+1. Get the data from the incoming message from the `genl_info` structure.
+2. Allocate a new message buffer for the reply.
+3. Put the Generic Netlink header in the message buffer; notice that we use the
+ same port id and sequence number as in the incoming message since this is a
+ reply.
+4. Put all our payload attributes.
+5. Send the reply.
+
+Now let's take a look at how to send multicast notifications. I've used sysfs to
+make this example a little bit more fun; I've created a kobj called `genltest`
+which contains a `ping` attribute from which we will echo what is written to it.
+For brevity I'll elide the sysfs code from the article and just add the function
+that forms and sends the message here:
+
+```C
+/* Multicast ping message to our genl multicast group */
+static int echo_ping(const char *buf, size_t cnt)
+{
+ int ret = 0;
+ void *hdr;
+ /* Allocate message buffer */
+ struct sk_buff *skb = genlmsg_new(NLMSG_DEFAULT_SIZE, GFP_KERNEL);
+
+ if (unlikely(!skb)) {
+ pr_err("failed to allocate memory for genl message\n");
+ return -ENOMEM;
+ }
+
+ /* Put the Generic Netlink header */
+ hdr = genlmsg_put(skb, 0, 0, &genl_fam, 0, GENLTEST_CMD_ECHO);
+ if (unlikely(!hdr)) {
+ pr_err("failed to allocate memory for genl header\n");
+ nlmsg_free(skb);
+ return -ENOMEM;
+ }
+
+ /* And the message */
+ if ((ret = nla_put_string(skb, GENLTEST_A_MSG, buf))) {
+ pr_err("unable to create message string\n");
+ genlmsg_cancel(skb, hdr);
+ nlmsg_free(skb);
+ return ret;
+ }
+
+ /* Finalize the message */
+ genlmsg_end(skb, hdr);
+
+ /* Send it over multicast to the 0-th mc group in our array. */
+ ret = genlmsg_multicast(&genl_fam, skb, 0, 0, GFP_KERNEL);
+ if (ret == -ESRCH) {
+ pr_warn("multicast message sent, but nobody was listening...\n");
+ } else if (ret) {
+ pr_err("failed to send multicast genl message\n");
+ } else {
+ pr_info("multicast message sent\n");
+ }
+
+ return ret;
+}
+```
+
+The process is very similar to the do operation, except that we are not
+responding to a request but sending an asynchronous message. Because of that we
+are setting the sequence number to 0, since it is not of consequence here, and
+the port id to 0, the kernel port/PID. We also sent the message via the
+`genlmsg_multicast()` function.
+
+This is all for the kernel side of things for this tutorial. Now let's take a
+look at the user side of things.
+
+### User land
+
+Netlink is a socket family and so it's possible to communicate over Netlink by
+just opening a socket and send and receiving messages over it, something like
+this:
+
+```C
+int fd = socket(AF_NETLINK, SOCK_RAW, NETLINK_GENERIC);
+
+/* Format request message... */
+/* ... */
+
+/* Send it */
+send(fd, &req, sizeof(req), 0);
+/* Receive response */
+recv(fd, &resp, BUF_SIZE, 0);
+
+/* Do something with response... */
+/* ... */
+```
+
+That said, it's better to make use of the libnl[^1] library or similar since
+they provide a better way to interface with Generic Netlink that is less prone
+to errors and already contains all the boilerplate that you would need to write
+anyway. This library is precisely the one that I'll be using in this example.
+
+We'll need to include some headers from the libnl library to get started:
+
+```C
+#include <netlink/socket.h>
+#include <netlink/netlink.h>
+#include <netlink/genl/ctrl.h>
+#include <netlink/genl/genl.h>
+#include <netlink/genl/family.h>
+```
+
+As well as our shared header with the enumerations and defines from the kernel
+module:
+
+```C
+#include "../ks/genltest.h"
+```
+
+I've also made a little helper macro for printing errors:
+
+```C
+#define prerr(...) fprintf(stderr, "error: " __VA_ARGS__)
+```
+
+As I mentioned in the introduction, it's easier to use different sockets for
+unicast and multicast messages, so that's what I'm going to be doing here,
+opening two different sockets to connect to Generic Netlink:
+
+```C
+/* Allocate netlink socket and connect to generic netlink */
+static int conn(struct nl_sock **sk)
+{
+ *sk = nl_socket_alloc();
+ if (!sk) {
+ return -ENOMEM;
+ }
+
+ return genl_connect(*sk);
+}
+
+/*
+ * ...
+ */
+
+struct nl_sock *ucsk, *mcsk;
+
+/*
+ * We use one socket to receive asynchronous "notifications" over
+ * multicast group, and another for ops. We do this so that we don't mix
+ * up responses from ops with notifications to make handling easier.
+ */
+if ((ret = conn(&ucsk)) || (ret = conn(&mcsk))) {
+ prerr("failed to connect to generic netlink\n");
+ goto out;
+}
+```
+
+Next we need to resolve the ID of the Generic Netlink family that we want to
+connect to:
+
+```C
+/* Resolve the genl family. One family for both unicast and multicast. */
+int fam = genl_ctrl_resolve(ucsk, GENLTEST_GENL_NAME);
+if (fam < 0) {
+ prerr("failed to resolve generic netlink family: %s\n",
+ strerror(-fam));
+ goto out;
+}
+```
+
+A (Generic) Netlink socket is not associated with a family, we are going to need
+the family ID when sending the message a little bit later.
+
+The libnl library can do sequence checking for us, but we don't need it for
+multicast messages, so we disable it for our multicast socket:
+
+```C
+nl_socket_disable_seq_check(mcsk);
+```
+
+We also need to resolve the multicast group name. In this case we are going to
+be using the resolved ID right away to subscribe to the group and start
+receiving the notifications:
+
+```C
+/* Resolve the multicast group. */
+int mcgrp = genl_ctrl_resolve_grp(mcsk, GENLTEST_GENL_NAME,
+ GENLTEST_MC_GRP_NAME);
+if (mcgrp < 0) {
+ prerr("failed to resolve generic netlink multicast group: %s\n",
+ strerror(-mcgrp));
+ goto out;
+}
+/* Join the multicast group. */
+if ((ret = nl_socket_add_membership(mcsk, mcgrp) < 0)) {
+ prerr("failed to join multicast group: %s\n", strerror(-ret));
+ goto out;
+}
+```
+
+We need to modify the default callback so that we can handle the incoming
+messages:
+
+```C
+/* Modify the callback for replies to handle all received messages */
+static inline int set_cb(struct nl_sock *sk)
+{
+ return -nl_socket_modify_cb(sk, NL_CB_VALID, NL_CB_CUSTOM,
+ echo_reply_handler, NULL);
+}
+
+/*
+ * ...
+ */
+
+if ((ret = set_cb(ucsk)) || (ret = set_cb(mcsk))) {
+ prerr("failed to set callback: %s\n", strerror(-ret));
+ goto out;
+}
+```
+
+As you can see, we set the handler function to the same for both sockets, since
+we will be basically receiving the same message format for both the do request
+and the notifications. Our handler looks like this:
+
+```C
+/*
+ * Handler for all received messages from our Generic Netlink family, both
+ * unicast and multicast.
+ */
+static int echo_reply_handler(struct nl_msg *msg, void *arg)
+{
+ int err = 0;
+ struct genlmsghdr *genlhdr = nlmsg_data(nlmsg_hdr(msg));
+ struct nlattr *tb[GENLTEST_A_MAX + 1];
+
+ /* Parse the attributes */
+ err = nla_parse(tb, GENLTEST_A_MAX, genlmsg_attrdata(genlhdr, 0),
+ genlmsg_attrlen(genlhdr, 0), NULL);
+ if (err) {
+ prerr("unable to parse message: %s\n", strerror(-err));
+ return NL_SKIP;
+ }
+ /* Check that there's actually a payload */
+ if (!tb[GENLTEST_A_MSG]) {
+ prerr("msg attribute missing from message\n");
+ return NL_SKIP;
+ }
+
+ /* Print it! */
+ printf("message received: %s\n", nla_get_string(tb[GENLTEST_A_MSG]));
+
+ return NL_OK;
+}
+```
+
+Nothing that fancy going on here, much of it is very similar to what we were
+doing on the kernel side of things. The main difference is that the message was
+already parsed for us by the kernel API, while here we have the option to walk
+the attributes manually or parse them all onto an array with the help of library
+function.
+
+Next we want to send a message to kernel space:
+
+```C
+/* Send (unicast) GENLTEST_CMD_ECHO request message */
+static int send_echo_msg(struct nl_sock *sk, int fam)
+{
+ int err = 0;
+ struct nl_msg *msg = nlmsg_alloc();
+ if (!msg) {
+ return -ENOMEM;
+ }
+
+ /* Put the genl header inside message buffer */
+ void *hdr = genlmsg_put(msg, NL_AUTO_PORT, NL_AUTO_SEQ, fam, 0, 0,
+ GENLTEST_CMD_ECHO, GENLTEST_GENL_VERSION);
+ if (!hdr) {
+ return -EMSGSIZE;
+ }
+
+ /* Put the string inside the message. */
+ err = nla_put_string(msg, GENLTEST_A_MSG,
+ "Hello from User Space, Netlink!");
+ if (err < 0) {
+ return -err;
+ }
+ printf("message sent\n");
+
+ /* Send the message. */
+ err = nl_send_auto(sk, msg);
+ err = err >= 0 ? 0 : err;
+
+ nlmsg_free(msg);
+
+ return err;
+}
+
+/*
+ * ...
+ */
+
+/* Send unicast message and listen for response. */
+if ((ret = send_echo_msg(ucsk, fam))) {
+ prerr("failed to send message: %s\n", strerror(-ret));
+}
+```
+
+Also not that different from the kernel API. Now we listen once for the response
+to our command and indefinitely for incoming notifications:
+
+
+```C
+printf("listening for messages\n");
+nl_recvmsgs_default(ucsk);
+
+/* Listen for "notifications". */
+while (1) {
+ nl_recvmsgs_default(mcsk);
+}
+```
+
+As good hygiene, let's close the connection and socket before exiting our
+program:
+
+```C
+/* Disconnect and release socket */
+static void disconn(struct nl_sock *sk)
+{
+ nl_close(sk);
+ nl_socket_free(sk);
+}
+
+/*
+ * ...
+ */
+
+disconn(ucsk);
+disconn(mcsk);
+```
+
+That's about it!
+
+## Conclusion
+
+The old ways of interacting with the kernel and its different subsystems through
+such interfaces as sysfs and especially ioctl had many downsides and lacked some
+very needed features such as asynchronous operations and a properly structured
+format.
+
+Netlink, and its extended form, Generic Netlink, provide a very flexible way of
+communicating with the kernel, solving many of the downsides and problems of the
+interfaces of old. It's certainly not a perfect solution (not very Unixy for
+instance), but it's certainly the best way we have to communicate with the
+kernel for things more complicated than setting simple parameters.
+
+## Post scriptum
+
+At the moment when I started learning to use Generic Netlink, the 6.0 kernel
+wasn't yet stable, hence the excellent kernel docs Netlink intro[^2] wasn't yet
+in the "latest" section, but rather in the "next" section. Since I was looking
+inside the then "latest" (v5.19) docs, I didn't notice it until I started
+writing my own article.
+
+I'm not sure if I had started writing this article had I come across the new
+kernel docs page, but in the end I think it was worth it since this one is a
+good complement to the official docs if you want to get your hands dirty
+straight away, especially considering that it provides a practical example.
+
+Do give a read to the kernel docs page! It covers some things that might not be
+covered here.
+
+[^1]: Original site with documentation <https://www.infradead.org/~tgr/libnl/>,
+ up-to-date repository: <https://github.com/thom311/libnl>
+
+[^2]: Very good introductory Netlink article, from the kernel docs themselves:
+ <https://kernel.org/doc/html/latest/userspace-api/netlink/intro.html>