Re: [PATCH RFC net-next v2] pppoe: remove kernel-mode relay support

On Fri, Feb 13, 2026 at 05:16:04PM +0800, Qingfang Deng wrote:
> The kernel-mode PPPoE relay feature and its two associated ioctls
> (PPPOEIOCSFWD and PPPOEIOCDFWD) are not used by any existing userspace
> PPPoE implementations. The most commonly-used package, RP-PPPoE [1],
> handles the relaying entirely in userspace.
> 
> This legacy code has remained in the driver since its introduction in
> kernel 2.3.99-pre7 for over two decades, but has served no practical
> purpose.

Also, this code was broken since its inception up to 2016, as it did
leak a socket reference in the normal data path (see commit 29e73269aa4d
("pppoe: fix reference counting in PPPoE proxy")). The bug was caught
by code inspection, which strongly suggests that nobody tried to use it
before that.

> Remove the unused relay code.

Reviewed-by: Guillaume Nault <[email protected]>