netlink_poli...t_policy_idx(9)

✨ NAME ✨

netlink_policy_dump_get_policy_idx — bestie, this is literally how you retrieve a policy index 💅

(we're in the Kernel API Manual btw, and this whole page is about that one function, ok? 🫶)

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

int netlink_policy_dump_get_policy_idx (struct netlink_policy_dump_state
*state , const struct nla_policy *policy , unsigned int maxtype );

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🎀 ARGUMENTS 🎀

• state — the policy dump state, like the little notebook where everything's written down 📓
• policy — the policy you're tryna find 🔍
• maxtype — the policy's maxattr. yes that's its name. no we're not changing it 🙈

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⭐ RETURN ⭐

It hands you back the index of the given policy in the dump state. that's it, that's the gift 🎁

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

okay so picture this: you've added multiple policies, and now you gotta tell userspace which command has which policy — by index, iykyk. That's exactly when you call this. It's the "wait which one was that again" function, but make it kernel ✨

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👑 NOTE 👑

⚠️ heads up bestie: this will WARN and return 0 if the policy isn't found. And if it's not found, that means it wasn't added in the first place — which would be an internal consistency bug. so yeah. not a cute look. 💀

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

Kernel file ./net/netlink/policy.c plus the whole squad:

• netlink_policy_dump_add_policy(9)
• netlink_policy_dump_loop(9)
• netlink_policy_dump_write_attr(9)
• netlink_policy_dump_write(9)
• netlink_policy_dump_free(9)

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k bye ily, this page came from ./net/netlink, dated October 2026, and it lives in the Kernel API Manual — slay and goodbye 💜🧚‍♀️🌸