kobject: support passing in variables for synthetic uevents

This patch makes it possible to pass additional arguments in addition
to uevent action name when writing /sys/.../uevent attribute. These
additional arguments are then inserted into generated synthetic uevent
as additional environment variables.

Before, we were not able to pass any additional uevent environment
variables for synthetic uevents. This made it hard to identify such uevents
properly in userspace to make proper distinction between genuine uevents
originating from kernel and synthetic uevents triggered from userspace.
Also, it was not possible to pass any additional information which would
make it possible to optimize and change the way the synthetic uevents are
processed back in userspace based on the originating environment of the
triggering action in userspace. With the extra additional variables, we are
able to pass through this extra information needed and also it makes it
possible to synchronize with such synthetic uevents as they can be clearly
identified back in userspace.

The format for writing the uevent attribute is following:

    ACTION [UUID [KEY=VALUE ...]

There's no change in how "ACTION" is recognized - it stays the same
("add", "change", "remove"). The "ACTION" is the only argument required
to generate synthetic uevent, the rest of arguments, that this patch
adds support for, are optional.

The "UUID" is considered as transaction identifier so it's possible to
use the same UUID value for one or more synthetic uevents in which case
we logically group these uevents together for any userspace listeners.
The "UUID" is expected to be in "xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx"
format where "x" is a hex digit. The value appears in uevent as
"SYNTH_UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx" environment variable.

The "KEY=VALUE" pairs can contain alphanumeric characters only. It's
possible to define zero or more more pairs - each pair is then delimited
by a space character " ". Each pair appears in synthetic uevents as
"SYNTH_ARG_KEY=VALUE" environment variable. That means the KEY name gains
"SYNTH_ARG_" prefix to avoid possible collisions with existing variables.
To pass the "KEY=VALUE" pairs, it's also required to pass in the "UUID"
part for the synthetic uevent first.

If "UUID" is not passed in, the generated synthetic uevent gains
"SYNTH_UUID=0" environment variable automatically so it's possible to
identify this situation in userspace when reading generated uevent and so
we can still make a difference between genuine and synthetic uevents.

Signed-off-by: Peter Rajnoha <prajnoha@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>

1 files changed, 1 insertions, 3 deletions

diff --git a/include/linux/kobject.h b/include/linux/kobject.h
index ca85cb80e99a..eeab34b0f589 100644
--- a/include/linux/kobject.h
+++ b/include/linux/kobject.h
@@ -217,11 +217,9 @@ extern struct kobject *firmware_kobj;
 int kobject_uevent(struct kobject *kobj, enum kobject_action action);
 int kobject_uevent_env(struct kobject *kobj, enum kobject_action action,
 			char *envp[]);
+int kobject_synth_uevent(struct kobject *kobj, const char *buf, size_t count);
 
 __printf(2, 3)
 int add_uevent_var(struct kobj_uevent_env *env, const char *format, ...);
 
-int kobject_action_type(const char *buf, size_t count,
-			enum kobject_action *type);
-
 #endif /* _KOBJECT_H_ */