These functions deprecate the function genlmsg_data() which did not
allow to specify the length of the user header. Use of the new API
will make code much clearer. The old function is still kept around
for backwards compatibility but marked deprecated in the API reference.
I have a patch against commit d378220c96
extending libnl with a facility to receive generic netlink messages sent
to multicast groups.
Essentially it add one new function genl_ctrl_resolve_grp which
prototype looks like this
int genl_ctrl_resolve_grp(struct nl_sock *sk, const char *family_name,
const char *grp_name)
It resolves the family name and the group name to group id. Then
the returned id can be used in nl_socket_add_membership to subscribe
to multicast messages.
Besides that it adds two more functions
uint32_t nl_socket_get_peer_groups(struct nl_sock *sk)
void nl_socket_set_peer_groups(struct nl_sock *sk, uint32_t groups)
allowing to modify the socket peer groups field. So it's possible to
multicast messages from the user space using the legacy interface.
Looks like there is no way (or I was not able to find one?) to modify
the netlink socket destination group from the user space, when the
group id is greater then 32.
The idea of a common handle is long revised and only misleading,
nl_handle really represents a socket with some additional
action handlers assigned to it.
Alias for nl_handle is kept for backwards compatibility.