STRUCT NETCONSOLE_TARGET(9)

💖 NAME 💖

struct netconsole_target — lowkey the struct that represents a configured netconsole target, and yes bestie, this is from the Kernel API Manual ✨

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

okay so here's the whole vibe, literally character for character:

struct netconsole_target {
    struct list_head        list;
  #ifdef CONFIG_NETCONSOLE_DYNAMIC;
    struct config_group     group;
    struct config_group     userdata_group;
    struct netcons_userdata *userdata;
    char sysdata[MAX_EXTRADATA_ENTRY_LEN * MAX_SYSDATA_ITEMS];
    u32 sysdata_fields;
    u32 msgcounter;
  #endif;
    struct netconsole_target_stats stats;
    enum target_state       state;
    bool extended;
    bool release;
    struct netpoll          np;
    union inet_addr         local_ip, remote_ip;
    bool ipv6;
    u16 local_port, remote_port;
    u8 remote_mac[ETH_ALEN];
    char buf[MAX_PRINT_CHUNK + 1];
    struct work_struct      resume_wq;
    struct sk_buff_head     skb_pool;
    struct work_struct      refill_wq;
 };

🎀 MEMBERS 🎀

every single field, no skips, we're doing the full tour 💅

• list — links this target into the target_list. it's giving "I know my place in the group chat" 🫶
• group — links us into the configfs subsystem hierarchy. iconic configfs behavior ✨
• userdata_group — links to the userdata configfs hierarchy 🎀
• userdata — cached, formatted userdata payload. RCU protected, so be normal about it 🙈
• sysdata — cached, formatted string of append 🍓
• sysdata_fields — sysdata features enabled 🔥
• msgcounter — message sent counter. keeping count fr fr 💜
• stats — packet send stats for the target. used for debugging 👑
• state — state of the target. visible from userspace (read-write) ✨ from a userspace perspective, the target is either enabled or disabled. internally, although both STATE_DISABLED and STATE_DEACTIVATED correspond to inactive targets, the latter is due to automatic interface state changes and will try recover automatically, if the interface comes back online. also, other parameters of a target may be modified at runtime only when it is disabled (state != STATE_ENABLED). that's the whole tea ☕
• extended — denotes whether console is extended or not 🌈
• release — denotes whether kernel release version should be prepended to the message. depends on extended console ⭐
• np — the netpoll structure for this target. contains the other userspace visible parameters:
  • dev_name (read-write)
  • local_mac (read-only)

bestie, read the permissions, don't try it 😭

• local_ip — source IP address of the target (read-write) 💖
• remote_ip — destination IP address of the target (read-write) 💖
• ipv6 — whether the target addresses are IPv6 (read-write) 🦋
• local_port — source UDP port of the target (read-write) 🎀
• remote_port — destination UDP port of the target (read-write) 🎀
• remote_mac — destination ethernet address of the target (read-write) 🌸
• buf — the buffer used to send the full msg to the network stack 🔥
• resume_wq — workqueue to resume deactivated target 👑
• skb_pool — per-target fallback skb pool consulted by find_skb when its GFP_ATOMIC allocation fails. lifetime brackets a successful netpoll_setup / netpoll_cleanup pair on np. no cap, that's the exact deal 💀
• refill_wq — work item that asynchronously tops skb_pool back up to MAX_SKBS after find_skb drains an entry. the way it refills, obsessed 🧚

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

• Kernel file ./drivers/net/netconsole.c
• struct netcons_userdata(9)
• send_udp(9)
• send_ext_msg_udp(9)
• netconsole_write(9)

go read those too, iykyk 💜

and that's the page bestie 🫶 it lives under ./drivers/net, dated October 2026, and it's all about struct netconsole_target(9) — periodt 💅✨