netlink: make nlmsg_end() and genlmsg_end() void

Contrary to common expectations for an "int" return, these functions
return only a positive value -- if used correctly they cannot even
return 0 because the message header will necessarily be in the skb.

This makes the very common pattern of

  if (genlmsg_end(...) < 0) { ... }

be a whole bunch of dead code. Many places also simply do

  return nlmsg_end(...);

and the caller is expected to deal with it.

This also commonly (at least for me) causes errors, because it is very
common to write

  if (my_function(...))
    /* error condition */

and if my_function() does "return nlmsg_end()" this is of course wrong.

Additionally, there's not a single place in the kernel that actually
needs the message length returned, and if anyone needs it later then
it'll be very easy to just use skb->len there.

Remove this, and make the functions void. This removes a bunch of dead
code as described above. The patch adds lines because I did

-	return nlmsg_end(...);
+	nlmsg_end(...);
+	return 0;

I could have preserved all the function's return values by returning
skb->len, but instead I've audited all the places calling the affected
functions and found that none cared. A few places actually compared
the return value with <= 0 in dump functionality, but that could just
be changed to < 0 with no change in behaviour, so I opted for the more
efficient version.

One instance of the error I've made numerous times now is also present
in net/phonet/pn_netlink.c in the route_dumpit() function - it didn't
check for <0 or <=0 and thus broke out of the loop every single time.
I've preserved this since it will (I think) have caused the messages to
userspace to be formatted differently with just a single message for
every SKB returned to userspace. It's possible that this isn't needed
for the tools that actually use this, but I don't even know what they
are so couldn't test that changing this behaviour would be acceptable.

Signed-off-by: Johannes Berg <johannes.berg@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>

2 files changed, 18 insertions, 9 deletions

diff --git a/net/netfilter/ipvs/ip_vs_ctl.c b/net/netfilter/ipvs/ip_vs_ctl.c
index b8295a430a5..e5575905636 100644
--- a/net/netfilter/ipvs/ip_vs_ctl.c
+++ b/net/netfilter/ipvs/ip_vs_ctl.c
@@ -2887,7 +2887,8 @@ static int ip_vs_genl_dump_service(struct sk_buff *skb,
 	if (ip_vs_genl_fill_service(skb, svc) < 0)
 		goto nla_put_failure;
 
-	return genlmsg_end(skb, hdr);
+	genlmsg_end(skb, hdr);
+	return 0;
 
 nla_put_failure:
 	genlmsg_cancel(skb, hdr);
@@ -3079,7 +3080,8 @@ static int ip_vs_genl_dump_dest(struct sk_buff *skb, struct ip_vs_dest *dest,
 	if (ip_vs_genl_fill_dest(skb, dest) < 0)
 		goto nla_put_failure;
 
-	return genlmsg_end(skb, hdr);
+	genlmsg_end(skb, hdr);
+	return 0;
 
 nla_put_failure:
 	genlmsg_cancel(skb, hdr);
@@ -3215,7 +3217,8 @@ static int ip_vs_genl_dump_daemon(struct sk_buff *skb, __u32 state,
 	if (ip_vs_genl_fill_daemon(skb, state, mcast_ifn, syncid))
 		goto nla_put_failure;
 
-	return genlmsg_end(skb, hdr);
+	genlmsg_end(skb, hdr);
+	return 0;
 
 nla_put_failure:
 	genlmsg_cancel(skb, hdr);
diff --git a/net/netfilter/nf_tables_api.c b/net/netfilter/nf_tables_api.c
index 3b3ddb4fb9e..70f697827b9 100644
--- a/net/netfilter/nf_tables_api.c
+++ b/net/netfilter/nf_tables_api.c
@@ -427,7 +427,8 @@ static int nf_tables_fill_table_info(struct sk_buff *skb, struct net *net,
 	    nla_put_be32(skb, NFTA_TABLE_USE, htonl(table->use)))
 		goto nla_put_failure;
 
-	return nlmsg_end(skb, nlh);
+	nlmsg_end(skb, nlh);
+	return 0;
 
 nla_put_failure:
 	nlmsg_trim(skb, nlh);
@@ -971,7 +972,8 @@ static int nf_tables_fill_chain_info(struct sk_buff *skb, struct net *net,
 	if (nla_put_be32(skb, NFTA_CHAIN_USE, htonl(chain->use)))
 		goto nla_put_failure;
 
-	return nlmsg_end(skb, nlh);
+	nlmsg_end(skb, nlh);
+	return 0;
 
 nla_put_failure:
 	nlmsg_trim(skb, nlh);
@@ -1707,7 +1709,8 @@ static int nf_tables_fill_rule_info(struct sk_buff *skb, struct net *net,
 	    nla_put(skb, NFTA_RULE_USERDATA, rule->ulen, nft_userdata(rule)))
 		goto nla_put_failure;
 
-	return nlmsg_end(skb, nlh);
+	nlmsg_end(skb, nlh);
+	return 0;
 
 nla_put_failure:
 	nlmsg_trim(skb, nlh);
@@ -2361,7 +2364,8 @@ static int nf_tables_fill_set(struct sk_buff *skb, const struct nft_ctx *ctx,
 		goto nla_put_failure;
 	nla_nest_end(skb, desc);
 
-	return nlmsg_end(skb, nlh);
+	nlmsg_end(skb, nlh);
+	return 0;
 
 nla_put_failure:
 	nlmsg_trim(skb, nlh);
@@ -3035,7 +3039,8 @@ static int nf_tables_fill_setelem_info(struct sk_buff *skb,
 
 	nla_nest_end(skb, nest);
 
-	return nlmsg_end(skb, nlh);
+	nlmsg_end(skb, nlh);
+	return 0;
 
 nla_put_failure:
 	nlmsg_trim(skb, nlh);
@@ -3324,7 +3329,8 @@ static int nf_tables_fill_gen_info(struct sk_buff *skb, struct net *net,
 	if (nla_put_be32(skb, NFTA_GEN_ID, htonl(net->nft.base_seq)))
 		goto nla_put_failure;
 
-	return nlmsg_end(skb, nlh);
+	nlmsg_end(skb, nlh);
+	return 0;
 
 nla_put_failure:
 	nlmsg_trim(skb, nlh);