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chain: read the hook device attributes back - #366

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MemorManeo:hook-devices
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chain: read the hook device attributes back#366
MemorManeo wants to merge 1 commit into
google:mainfrom
MemorManeo:hook-devices

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AddChain marshals NFTA_HOOK_DEV, but hookFromMsg reads only the hook number and the priority, so a chain read back from the kernel never carries the device its hook is attached to. An ingress or egress chain is then indistinguishable from one attached to every device.

This reads NFTA_HOOK_DEV and the NFTA_HOOK_DEVS list, and adds Chain.Devices for the multi-device case a single string cannot represent (devices = { eth0, eth1 }). AddChain marshals the list when one is set, so such a chain now round-trips. Setting Device alone behaves exactly as before, so this is additive for existing callers.

NFTA_HOOK_DEVS and NFTA_DEVICE_NAME are not exported by golang.org/x/sys/unix, so their values are declared locally with the kernel enum they come from named alongside.

Testing

Three tests cover the single-device attribute, the nested list, and a chain with no device at all. The existing suite passes unchanged.

Why

Found while writing a tool that audits which ports a host exposes by reading its ruleset over netlink. Without the device, an ingress chain has to be treated as seeing every packet, which makes every verdict about such a host unusable. The workaround was a second NFT_MSG_GETCHAIN dump alongside this library's own, purely to recover an attribute the library had already read and discarded, which is the kind of thing that belongs upstream instead.

AddChain marshals NFTA_HOOK_DEV, but hookFromMsg reads only the hook
number and the priority, so a chain read back from the kernel never
carries the device its hook is attached to. That makes an ingress or
egress chain indistinguishable from one attached to every device.

Read NFTA_HOOK_DEV and the NFTA_HOOK_DEVS list, and add Chain.Devices for
the multi-device case that a single string cannot represent
("devices = { eth0, eth1 }"). AddChain marshals the list when one is set,
so such a chain now round-trips. Setting Device alone is unchanged.

Found while writing a tool that reads rulesets over netlink: without the
device, an ingress chain has to be treated as seeing every packet, which
makes every verdict about such a host unusable.
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google-cla Bot commented Aug 30, 2026

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