GENL(8)

📦
version 7.3.0 · 2 versions
, in alpine 3.24, arch rolling, centos-stream 10, nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable, ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking

💖 GENL(8) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the genl(8) page from the Linux manual, no cap 💅 this is the group chat where the generic netlink utility finally gets to speak for itself.

✨ NAME ✨

genl — generic netlink utility frontend 🦋

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

genl[ OPTIONS ] OBJECT
genl { -V[ersion] | -h[elp] }

OPTIONS := { -s[tatistics] | -d[etails] | -j[son] | -p[retty] }

OBJECT := { ctrl CTRL_OPTS }

CTRL_OPTS := { help | list | monitor | get PARMS }

PARMS := { name NAME | id ID }

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so basically genl is your little lowkey frontend to the generic netlink library 🫶 it's built to handle multiple OBJECTs (iconic, ambitious, we love that for it), but for now the only OBJECT that actually showed up to the party is ctrl, and ctrl is the one that talks to the generic netlink controller. periodt.

🌸 ctrl 🌸

the generic netlink controller can be queried in a bunch of different ways, and each one is giving its own vibe:

  • help — this command literally just prints a help text for the ctrl object. that's it. that's the whole job 💀
  • list — show the registered netlink users 👑
  • monitor — listen for generic netlink notifications 👂✨
  • get — query the controller for a given user, identified either by name or by id 🔍

✨ OPTIONS ✨

genl supports the following options, and bestie, we're going through every single one:

  • -h, -help — show summary of options 🎀
  • -V, -Version — show version of program ⭐
  • -s, -stats, -statistics — show object statistics 📊
  • -d, -details — show object details 🔎
  • -j, -json — output results in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) 🌈
  • -p, -pretty — add indentation for readability 💅 (your eyes will thank you)
  • -r, -raw — dump raw output only 🍓

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

✨ AUTHOR ✨

genl was written by Jamal Hadi Salim <hadi@cyberus.ca> 💜

This manual page was written by Petr Sabata <contyk@redhat.com> 💜

and that's the whole page, bestie!! this one came from the iproute2 era, dated 29 Oct 2015, so it's vintage but it still ate 🫶✨ slay, go forth and query that controller 🧚💖

📦 where this page comes from