Communicating between the kernel and user‐space in Linux using Netlink sockets

When developing Linux kernel features, it is a good practice to expose the necessary details to user‐space to enable extensibility. This allows the development of new features and sophisticated configurations from user‐space. Generally, software developers have to face the task of looking for a good way to communicate between the kernel and user‐space in Linux. This tutorial introduces you to Netlink sockets, a flexible and extensible messaging system that provides communication between kernel and user‐space. We provide the fundamental guidelines for practitioners who wish to develop Netlink‐based interfaces.