Hacktoberfest 2026: the issues maintainers tagged for October, open and beginner-friendly. Browse Hacktoberfest issues

Set with key type nftables.TypeIFName not working

Open
  • Is something wrong?
#177 5 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Assessment

Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Newbie friendliness
48/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
go, linux
Domain
networking, operating-systems

Research direction

Start with the Go entry points AddSet, GetSetByName, SetAddElements, and Flush, using the provided TypeIFName examples as a reproduction. Compare the package-created set and manually created set after adding "wg0" or "wg1"; done means interface-name elements are stored and added without the invalid-argument error.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

bug

Creating a set with Type: nftables.TypeIFName seems to work, but the set acts strangely.

Sample code for set:

        conn.AddSet(&nftables.Set{
                Table:   table,
                Name:    "test_set",
                KeyType: nftables.TypeIFName,
        }, nil)

I also created a set called "manual_set" manually, and they both list:

nftables pkg set and nft cli set

% nft 'add set test_table manual_set { type ifname; }'
% nft list table test_table
table ip test_table {
        set test_set {
                type ifname
        }

        set manual_set {
                type ifname
        }
}

I then added an element into each set using nft cli and they both seem to succeed, however the set created by this package shows empty elements.

Added Elements

% nft 'add element test_table test_set { "wg0" }'
% nft 'add element test_table manual_set { "wg0" }'
% nft list table test_table                                                                      ☸ kubernetes-admin@50w_k8s:argocd 
table ip test_table {
        set test_set {
                type ifname
                elements = { "" }
        }

        set manual_set {
                type ifname
                elements = { "wg0" }
        }
}

Additionally, trying to add an element through this package fails for either table, though I do wonder if I've missed something in my code:

Attempt to add set element to both tables

        // github.com/google/nftables set and manual set
        testSet, _ := c.GetSetByName(table, "test_set")
        manualSet, _ := c.GetSetByName(table, "manual_set")

        // Second Element
        elements := []nftables.SetElement{{Key: []byte("wg1")}}

        c.SetAddElements(manualSet, elements)
        c.SetAddElements(testSet, elements)

        if err := c.Flush(); err != nil {
                log.Panicf("Error: %s", err)
        }

Running returns error: "conn.Receive: netlink receive: invalid argument"

I've tried a few different key types and have only had success with TypeFamilyIPv4.

Dominant language
Go
Stars
1.4k
Forks
187
No merged PRs in 30d

Getting set up

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

More from google/nftables

All issues in google/nftables

Similar issues

More Go issues

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.