Re: [PATCH] util: Require libnl for Linux

On Sat, Mar 08, 2025 at 05:02:32PM +0900, Akihiko Odaki wrote: > Builds for Linux without libnl is broken since commit > 582f0966f9b9e2148d8887d072364e2a91aed000 so make libnl mandatory for > Linux. > > Another option is to fix such builds, but it can bring more problems > than benefits. libnl is available on all supported distributions so the > only practical situation to lack libnl is that a developer does not have > a development package of libnl installed. Enabling builds in such a > situation make developers use builds divergent from CI and end-user > scenarios, which has some implications. > > Builds without libnl lack several features such as SR-IOV, > bridge/tap, switchdev, macvlan, veth, and vlan. Some part of libvirt > may expect these features are readily available on Linux, and the lack > of libnl may cause a build failure like one mentioned earlier or runtime > errors even harder to debug. Those features are only relevant if doing a daemon build for certain virt drivers. For a client only build, or certain virt drivers, it is valid to omit libnl while building on Linux, so we should not make this mandatory.