>> >    One issue with the above proposed change to use TP_STATUS_IN_PROGRESS
>> >    is that the documentation of the tp_status field is somewhat
>> >    inconsistent.  In some places it's described as TP_STATUS_KERNEL(0)
>> >    meaning the entry is owned by the kernel and !TP_STATUS_KERNEL(0)
>> >    meaning the entry is owned by user space.  In other places ownership
>> >    by user space is defined by the TP_STATUS_USER(1) bit being set.
>>
>> But indeed this example in packet_mmap.txt is problematic
>>
>>     if (status == TP_STATUS_KERNEL)
>>         retval = poll(&pfd, 1, timeout);
>>
>> It does not really matter whether the docs are possibly inconsistent and
>> which one is authoritative. Examples like the above make it likely that
>> some user code expects such code to work.
>
> Yes, that's exactly my concern.  Yet another troubling example seems to be
> lipbcap which also is looking specifically for status to be anything other 
> than
> TP_STATUS_KERNEL(0) to indicate a frame is available in user space.

Good catch. If pcap-linux.c relies on this then the status field
cannot be changed. Other fields can be modified freely while tp_status
remains 0, perhaps that's an option.

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