Linux Devlink Documentation¶

devlink is an API to expose device information and resources not directly related to any device class, such as chip-wide/switch-ASIC-wide configuration.

Locking¶

Driver facing APIs are currently transitioning to allow more explicit locking. Drivers can use the existing devlink_* set of APIs, or new APIs prefixed by devl_*. The older APIs handle all the locking in devlink core, but don’t allow registration of most sub-objects once the main devlink object is itself registered. The newer devl_* APIs assume the devlink instance lock is already held. Drivers can take the instance lock by calling devl_lock(). It is also held in most of the callbacks. Eventually all callbacks will be invoked under the devlink instance lock, refer to the use of the DEVLINK_NL_FLAG_NO_LOCK flag in devlink core to find out which callbacks are not converted, yet.

Drivers are encouraged to use the devlink instance lock for their own needs.

Interface documentation¶

The following pages describe various interfaces available through devlink in general.

Driver-specific documentation¶

Each driver that implements devlink is expected to document what parameters, info versions, and other features it supports.