xref: /netbsd-src/share/man/man4/netintro.4 (revision fc0c7ca863b21c0ddb7380432136fc4b00f9eddc)
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30.\"     @(#)netintro.4	8.2 (Berkeley) 11/30/93
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32.Dd August 2, 2018
33.Dt NETINTRO 4
34.Os
35.Sh NAME
36.Nm netintro
37.Nd introduction to networking facilities
38.Sh SYNOPSIS
39.In sys/types.h
40.In sys/socket.h
41.In net/route.h
42.In net/if.h
43.Sh DESCRIPTION
44This section is a general introduction to the networking facilities
45available in the system.
46Documentation in this part of section
474 is broken up into three areas:
48.Em protocol families
49(domains),
50.Em protocols ,
51and
52.Em network interfaces .
53.Pp
54All network protocols are associated with a specific
55.Em protocol family .
56A protocol family provides basic services to the protocol implementation
57to allow it to function within a specific network environment.
58These services may include packet fragmentation and reassembly,
59routing, addressing, and basic transport.
60A protocol family may support multiple methods of addressing, though
61the current protocol implementations do not.
62A protocol family normally comprises a number of protocols, one per
63.Xr socket 2
64type.
65It is not required that a protocol family support all socket types.
66A protocol family may contain multiple protocols supporting the
67same socket abstraction.
68.Pp
69A protocol supports one of the socket abstractions detailed in
70.Xr socket 2 .
71A specific protocol may be accessed either by creating a
72socket of the appropriate type and protocol family, or
73by requesting the protocol explicitly when creating a socket.
74Protocols normally accept only one type of address format,
75usually determined by the addressing structure inherent in
76the design of the protocol family/network architecture.
77Certain semantics of the basic socket abstractions are
78protocol specific.
79All protocols are expected to support the basic model for their
80particular socket type, but may, in addition, provide non-standard
81facilities or extensions to a mechanism.
82For example, a protocol supporting the
83.Dv SOCK_STREAM
84abstraction may allow more than one byte of out-of-band
85data to be transmitted per out-of-band message.
86.Pp
87A network interface is similar to a device interface.
88Network interfaces comprise the lowest layer of the networking
89subsystem, interacting with the actual transport hardware.
90An interface may support one or more protocol families and/or address formats.
91The
92.Em SYNOPSIS
93section of each network interface entry gives a sample specification
94of the related drivers for use in providing a system description to the
95.Xr config 1
96program.
97.Pp
98The
99.Em DIAGNOSTICS
100section lists messages which may appear on the console
101and/or in the system error log,
102.Pa /var/log/messages
103(see
104.Xr syslogd 8 ) ,
105due to errors in device operation.
106.Sh PROTOCOLS
107The system currently supports the Internet protocols.
108Raw socket interfaces are provided to the
109.Tn IP
110protocol layer of the Internet.
111Consult the appropriate manual pages in this section for more
112information regarding the support for a protocol.
113.Sh ADDRESSING
114Associated with each protocol family is an address format.
115All network address adhere to a general structure, called a sockaddr,
116described below.
117However, each protocol imposes finer and more specific structure,
118generally renaming the variant, which is discussed in the protocol
119family manual page alluded to above.
120.Bd -literal -offset indent
121struct sockaddr {
122	u_char	sa_len;
123    	u_char	sa_family;
124    	char	sa_data[14];
125};
126.Ed
127.Pp
128The field
129.Ar sa_len
130contains the total length of the of the structure, which may exceed 16 bytes.
131The following address values for
132.Ar sa_family
133are known to the system
134(and additional formats are defined for possible future implementation):
135.Bd -literal
136#define    AF_LOCAL     1    /* local to host */
137#define    AF_INET      2    /* internetwork: UDP, TCP, etc. */
138#define    AF_NS        6    /* Xerox NS protocols */
139#define    AF_CCITT     10   /* CCITT protocols, X.25 etc */
140#define    AF_HYLINK    15   /* NSC Hyperchannel */
141#define    AF_INET6     24   /* internetwork, v6: UDP, TCP, etc. */
142.Ed
143.Sh ROUTING
144.Ux
145provides some packet routing facilities.
146The kernel maintains a routing information database, which
147is used in selecting the appropriate network interface when
148transmitting packets.
149.Pp
150A user process (or possibly multiple co-operating processes)
151maintains this database by sending messages over a special kind
152of socket.
153This supplants fixed size
154.Xr ioctl 2
155used in earlier releases.
156.Pp
157This facility is described in
158.Xr route 4 .
159.Sh INTERFACES
160Each network interface in a system corresponds to a
161path through which messages may be sent and received.
162A network interface usually has a hardware device associated with it,
163though certain interfaces such as the loopback interface,
164.Xr lo 4 ,
165do not.
166.Pp
167The following
168.Xr ioctl 2
169calls may be used to manipulate network interfaces.
170The
171.Xr ioctl 2
172is made on a socket (typically of type
173.Dv SOCK_DGRAM )
174in the desired domain.
175Most of the requests supported in earlier releases
176take an
177.Ar ifreq
178structure as its parameter.
179This structure has the form
180.Bd -literal
181struct	ifreq {
182#define    IFNAMSIZ    16
183    char    ifr_name[IFNAMSIZ];         /* if name, e.g. "en0" */
184    union {
185        struct    sockaddr ifru_addr;
186        struct    sockaddr ifru_dstaddr;
187        struct    sockaddr ifru_broadaddr;
188        short     ifru_flags;
189        int       ifru_metric;
190        void   *ifru_data;
191    } ifr_ifru;
192#define ifr_addr      ifr_ifru.ifru_addr    /* address */
193#define ifr_dstaddr   ifr_ifru.ifru_dstaddr /* other end of p-to-p link */
194#define ifr_broadaddr ifr_ifru.ifru_broadaddr /* broadcast address */
195#define ifr_space     ifr_ifru.ifru_space     /* sockaddr_storage */
196#define ifr_flags     ifr_ifru.ifru_flags   /* flags */
197#define ifr_metric    ifr_ifru.ifru_metric  /* metric */
198#define ifr_mtu       ifr_ifru.ifru_mtu       /* mtu */
199#define ifr_dlt       ifr_ifru.ifru_dlt       /* data link type (DLT_*) */
200#define ifr_value     ifr_ifru.ifru_value     /* generic value */
201#define ifr_media     ifr_ifru.ifru_metric    /* media options (overload) */
202#define ifr_data      ifr_ifru.ifru_data    /* for use by interface */
203#define ifr_buf       ifr_ifru.ifru_b.b_buf   /* new interface ioctls */
204#define ifr_buflen    ifr_ifru.ifru_b.b_buflen
205#define ifr_index     ifr_ifru.ifru_value     /* interface index */
206};
207.Ed
208.Pp
209Calls which are now deprecated are:
210.Bl -tag -width SIOCGIFBRDADDR
211.It Dv SIOCSIFADDR
212Set interface address for protocol family.
213Following the address assignment, the ``initialization'' routine for
214the interface is called.
215.It Dv SIOCSIFDSTADDR
216Set point to point address for protocol family and interface.
217.It Dv SIOCSIFBRDADDR
218Set broadcast address for protocol family and interface.
219.El
220.Pp
221.Xr ioctl 2
222requests to obtain addresses and requests both to set and
223retrieve other data are still fully supported
224and use the
225.Ar ifreq
226structure:
227.Bl -tag -width SIOCGIFBRDADDR
228.It Dv SIOCGIFADDR
229Get interface address for protocol family.
230.It Dv SIOCGIFDSTADDR
231Get point to point address for protocol family and interface.
232.It Dv SIOCGIFBRDADDR
233Get broadcast address for protocol family and interface.
234.It Dv SIOCSIFFLAGS
235Set interface flags field.
236If the interface is marked down, any processes currently routing
237packets through the interface are notified; some interfaces may be
238reset so that incoming packets are no longer received.
239When marked up again, the interface is reinitialized.
240.It Dv SIOCGIFFLAGS
241Get interface flags.
242.It Dv SIOCSIFMETRIC
243Set interface routing metric.
244The metric is used only by user-level routers.
245.It Dv SIOCGIFMETRIC
246Get interface metric.
247.It Dv SIOCGIFINDEX
248Get the interface index and populate ifr_index.
249.El
250.Pp
251There are two requests that make use of a new structure:
252.Bl -tag -width SIOCGIFBRDADDR
253.It Dv SIOCAIFADDR
254An interface may have more than one address associated with it
255in some protocols.
256This request provides a means to add additional addresses (or modify
257characteristics of the primary address if the default address for
258the address family is specified).
259Rather than making separate calls to set destination or broadcast
260addresses, or network masks (now an integral feature of multiple
261protocols) a separate structure,
262.Ar ifaliasreq ,
263is used to specify all three facets
264simultaneously (see below).
265One would use a slightly tailored version of this struct specific
266to each family (replacing each sockaddr by one
267of the family-specific type).
268Where the sockaddr itself is larger than the
269default size, one needs to modify the
270.Xr ioctl 2
271identifier itself to include the total size, as described in
272.Xr ioctl 2 .
273.It Dv SIOCDIFADDR
274This requests deletes the specified address from the list
275associated with an interface.
276It also uses the
277.Ar ifaliasreq
278structure to allow for the possibility of protocols allowing
279multiple masks or destination addresses, and also adopts the
280convention that specification of the default address means
281to delete the first address for the interface belonging to
282the address family in which the original socket was opened.
283.It Dv SIOCGIFALIAS
284This request provides means to get additional addresses together
285with netmask and broadcast/destination from an interface.
286It also uses the
287.Ar ifaliasreq
288structure.
289.El
290.Pp
291Request making use of the
292.Ar ifconf
293structure:
294.Bl -tag -width SIOCGIFBRDADDR
295.It Dv SIOCGIFCONF
296Get interface configuration list.
297This request takes an
298.Ar ifconf
299structure (see below) as a value-result parameter.
300The
301.Ar ifc_len
302field should be initially set to the size of the buffer
303pointed to by
304.Ar ifc_buf .
305On return it will contain the length, in bytes, of the
306configuration list.
307.El
308.Bd -literal
309/*
310* Structure used in SIOC[AD]IFADDR request.
311*/
312struct ifaliasreq {
313        char    ifra_name[IFNAMSIZ];   /* if name, e.g. "en0" */
314        struct  sockaddr        ifra_addr;
315        struct  sockaddr        ifra_dstaddr;
316#define	ifra_broadaddr  ifra_dstaddr
317        struct  sockaddr        ifra_mask;
318};
319.Ed
320.Pp
321.Bd -literal
322/*
323* Structure used in SIOCGIFCONF request.
324* Used to retrieve interface configuration
325* for machine (useful for programs which
326* must know all networks accessible).
327*/
328struct ifconf {
329    int   ifc_len;		/* size of associated buffer */
330    union {
331        void    *ifcu_buf;
332        struct     ifreq *ifcu_req;
333    } ifc_ifcu;
334#define ifc_buf ifc_ifcu.ifcu_buf /* buffer address */
335#define ifc_req ifc_ifcu.ifcu_req /* array of structures returned */
336};
337.Ed
338.Sh SEE ALSO
339.Xr config 1 ,
340.Xr ioctl 2 ,
341.Xr socket 2 ,
342.Xr intro 4 ,
343.Xr routed 8
344.Sh HISTORY
345The
346.Nm netintro
347manual appeared in
348.Bx 4.3 Tahoe .
349