Re: [PATCH 00/10 net-next] Convert CONFIG_IPV6 to built-in and remove stubs

[David Woodhouse]

On Mon, 2026-03-09 at 11:22 +0100, Krzysztof Kozlowski wrote:
> On 09/03/2026 03:19, Fernando Fernandez Mancera wrote:
> > Historically, the Linux kernel has supported compiling the IPv6 stack as
> > a loadable module. While this made sense in the early days of IPv6
> > adoption, modern deployments and distributions overwhelmingly either
> > build IPv6 directly into the kernel (CONFIG_IPV6=y) or disable it
> > entirely (CONFIG_IPV6=n). The modular IPv6 use-case provides little to
> > no practical benefit today.
> 
> It does. We all use generic kernels, thus it is one configuration for
> all boards and some setups have IPv6 and some not. The ones without IPv6
> just don't use that module.
> 
> Also, with these generic kernels (so again all machines are using same
> ones, e.g. distro) users can easily blacklist the module.

Perhaps it's time for CONFIG_LEGACY_IP to be buildable as a module
instead, in preparation for its deprecation?

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