Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Sample Code To Learn Netlink Infrastructure

I always wanted to write an article explaining how netlink infrastructure works in the kernel and how we can make the best use of it. I dont have the time now, so in future it will happen. As of now i wanted to share a sample code that will help users get the system ip information to the user space.

#include <errno.h>
#include <error.h>
#include <netdb.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <sys/ioctl.h>
#include <linux/if.h>
#include <linux/netlink.h>
#include <linux/rtnetlink.h>


#define NIPQUAD(addr) \
((unsigned char *)&addr)[0], \
((unsigned char *)&addr)[1], \
((unsigned char *)&addr)[2], \
((unsigned char *)&addr)[3]

#define NIPQUAD_FMT "%u.%u.%u.%u"

#define NIP6(addr) \

ntohs((addr).s6_addr16[0]), \
ntohs((addr).s6_addr16[1]), \
ntohs((addr).s6_addr16[2]), \
ntohs((addr).s6_addr16[3]), \
ntohs((addr).s6_addr16[4]), \
ntohs((addr).s6_addr16[5]), \
ntohs((addr).s6_addr16[6]), \
ntohs((addr).s6_addr16[7])

#define NIP6_FMT "%04x:%04x:%04x:%04x:%04x:%04x:%04x:%04x"

#define INFINITY_LIFE_TIME 0xFFFFFFFFU

main()

{
struct {
struct nlmsghdr n;
struct ifaddrmsg r;
// char buf[1024];
} req;

struct rtattr *rta;
struct sockaddr_in6 *sin6p;
struct sockaddr_in *sinp;
int status;
char buf[16384];
struct nlmsghdr *nlmp;
struct ifaddrmsg *rtmp;
struct rtattr *rtatp;
int rtattrlen;
struct in_addr *inp;
struct in6_addr *in6p;
struct ifa_cacheinfo *cache_info;

int fd = socket(PF_NETLINK, SOCK_DGRAM, NETLINK_ROUTE);

/* We use RTM_GETADDR to fetch the ip address from the kernel interface table *
* So what we do here is pretty simple, we populate the msg structure (req) *
* the size of the message buffer is specified to netlink message header, and *
* flags values are set as NLM_F_ROOT | NLM_F_REQUEST. The request flag must *
* be set for all messages requesting the data from kernel. The root flag is *
* used to notify the kernel to return the full tabel. Another flag (not used)*
* is NLM_F_MATCH. This is used to get only speficed entried in the table. *
* At the time of writing this program this flag is not implemented in kernel */

memset(&req, 0, sizeof(req));
req.n.nlmsg_len = NLMSG_LENGTH(sizeof(struct ifaddrmsg));
req.n.nlmsg_flags = NLM_F_REQUEST | NLM_F_ROOT;
req.n.nlmsg_type = RTM_GETADDR;


/* AF_INET6 is used to signify the kernel to fetch only ipv6 entires. *
* Replacing this with AF_INET will fetch ipv4 address table. */

req.r.ifa_family = AF_INET6;

/* Fill up all the attributes for the rtnetlink header. The code is pretty easy*
* to understand. The lenght is very important. We use 16 to signify the ipv6 *
* address. If the user chooses to use AF_INET (ipv4) the length has to be *
* RTA_LENGTH(4) */

rta = (struct rtattr *)(((char *)&req) + NLMSG_ALIGN(req.n.nlmsg_len));
rta->rta_len = RTA_LENGTH(16);

/* Time to send and recv the message from kernel */

status = send(fd, &req, req.n.nlmsg_len, 0);

if (status < 0) {
perror("send");
return 1;
}

status = recv(fd, buf, sizeof(buf), 0);

if (status < 0) {
perror("recv");
return 1;
}

if(status == 0){
printf("EOF\n");
return 1;
}

/* Typically the message is stored in buf, so we need to parse the message to *
* get the required data for our display. */

for(nlmp = (struct nlmsghdr *)buf; status > sizeof(*nlmp);){
int len = nlmp->nlmsg_len;
int req_len = len - sizeof(*nlmp);

if (req_len<0 || len>status) {
printf("error\n");
return -1;
}

if (!NLMSG_OK(nlmp, status)) {
printf("NLMSG not OK\n");
return 1;
}

rtmp = (struct ifaddrmsg *)NLMSG_DATA(nlmp);
rtatp = (struct rtattr *)IFA_RTA(rtmp);

/* Start displaying the index of the interface */

printf("Index Of Iface= %d\n",rtmp->ifa_index);

rtattrlen = IFA_PAYLOAD(nlmp);

for (; RTA_OK(rtatp, rtattrlen); rtatp = RTA_NEXT(rtatp, rtattrlen)) {

/* Here we hit the fist chunk of the message. Time to validate the *
* the type. For more info on the different types see man(7) rtnetlink*
* The table below is taken from man pages. *
* Attributes *
* rta_type value type description *
* ------------------------------------------------------------- *
* IFA_UNSPEC - unspecified. *
* IFA_ADDRESS raw protocol address interface address *
* IFA_LOCAL raw protocol address local address *
* IFA_LABEL asciiz string name of the interface *
* IFA_BROADCAST raw protocol address broadcast address. *
* IFA_ANYCAST raw protocol address anycast address *
* IFA_CACHEINFO struct ifa_cacheinfo Address information. */

if(rtatp->rta_type == IFA_CACHEINFO){
cache_info = (struct ifa_cacheinfo *)RTA_DATA(rtatp);
if (cache_info->ifa_valid == INFINITY_LIFE_TIME)
printf("valid_lft forever\n");
else
printf("valid_lft %usec\n", cache_info->ifa_valid);

if (cache_info->ifa_prefered == INFINITY_LIFE_TIME)
printf(" preferred_lft forever\n");
else
printf(" preferred_lft %usec\n",cache_info->ifa_prefered);
}

/* NOTE: All the commented code below can be used as it is for ipv4 table */

if(rtatp->rta_type == IFA_ADDRESS){
// inp = (struct in_addr *)RTA_DATA(rtatp);
in6p = (struct in6_addr *)RTA_DATA(rtatp);
printf("addr0: " NIP6_FMT "\n",NIP6(*in6p));
// printf("addr0: "NIPQUAD_FMT"\n",NIPQUAD(*inp));
}

if(rtatp->rta_type == IFA_LOCAL){
// inp = (struct in_addr *)RTA_DATA(rtatp);
in6p = (struct in6_addr *)RTA_DATA(rtatp);
printf("addr1: " NIP6_FMT "\n",NIP6(*in6p));
// printf("addr1: "NIPQUAD_FMT"\n",NIPQUAD(*inp));
}

if(rtatp->rta_type == IFA_BROADCAST){
// inp = (struct in_addr *)RTA_DATA(rtatp);
in6p = (struct in6_addr *)RTA_DATA(rtatp);
printf("bcataddr: " NIP6_FMT "\n",NIP6(*in6p));
// printf("Bcast addr: "NIPQUAD_FMT"\n",NIPQUAD(*inp));
}

if(rtatp->rta_type == IFA_ANYCAST){
//inp = (struct in_addr *)RTA_DATA(rtatp);
in6p = (struct in6_addr *)RTA_DATA(rtatp);
printf("anycastaddr: "NIP6_FMT"\n",NIP6(*in6p));
// printf("anycast addr: "NIPQUAD_FMT"\n",NIPQUAD(*inp));
}

}
status -= NLMSG_ALIGN(len);
nlmp = (struct nlmsghdr*)((char*)nlmp + NLMSG_ALIGN(len));

}

}

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I tried modifying this code to access the ARP table. All went well accept for the fact that even though I set
req.r.ndm_state = NUD_REACHABLE | NUD_DELAY
The only values returned are "stale" not reachable or delay. Is there anything else I am missing?

Full code is visible here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2867038/using-netlink-to-obtain-arp-entries-only-returns-stale-entries