int (*get_next_hop)(const struct in_addr *host, struct in_addr *next_hop,
char **netdev_name);
+ /* Retrieves the status of the device.
+ *
+ * Populates 'sh' with key-value pairs representing the status of the
+ * device. A device's status is a set of key-value string pairs
+ * representing netdev type specific information. For more information see
+ * ovs-vswitchd.conf.db(5).
+ *
+ * The data of 'sh' are heap allocated strings which the caller is
+ * responsible for deallocating.
+ *
+ * This function may be set to null if it would always return EOPNOTSUPP
+ * anyhow. */
+ int (*get_status)(const struct netdev *netdev, struct shash *sh);
+
/* Looks up the ARP table entry for 'ip' on 'netdev' and stores the
* corresponding MAC address in 'mac'. A return value of ENXIO, in
* particular, indicates that there is no ARP table entry for 'ip' on