xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/inet.4 (revision 46f84fcb84c4542ce038e33418f42ac52bab4b0b)
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32.\"     From: @(#)inet.4	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93
33.\"	$Id: inet.4,v 1.3 1995/03/16 18:24:19 wollman Exp $
34.\"
35.Dd February 14, 1995
36.Dt INET 4
37.Os BSD 4.2
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm inet
40.Nd Internet protocol family
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.Fd #include <sys/types.h>
43.Fd #include <netinet/in.h>
44.Sh DESCRIPTION
45The Internet protocol family is a collection of protocols
46layered atop the
47.Em Internet  Protocol
48.Pq Tn IP
49transport layer, and utilizing the Internet address format.
50The Internet family provides protocol support for the
51.Dv SOCK_STREAM , SOCK_DGRAM ,
52and
53.Dv SOCK_RAW
54socket types; the
55.Dv SOCK_RAW
56interface provides access to the
57.Tn IP
58protocol.
59.Sh ADDRESSING
60Internet addresses are four byte quantities, stored in
61network standard format (on the
62.Tn VAX
63these are word and byte
64reversed).  The include file
65.Aq Pa netinet/in.h
66defines this address
67as a discriminated union.
68.Pp
69Sockets bound to the Internet protocol family utilize
70the following addressing structure,
71.Bd -literal -offset indent
72struct sockaddr_in {
73	short	sin_family;
74	u_short	sin_port;
75	struct	in_addr sin_addr;
76	char	sin_zero[8];
77};
78.Ed
79.Pp
80Sockets may be created with the local address
81.Dv INADDR_ANY
82to effect
83.Dq wildcard
84matching on incoming messages.
85The address in a
86.Xr connect 2
87or
88.Xr sendto 2
89call may be given as
90.Dv INADDR_ANY
91to mean
92.Dq this host .
93The distinguished address
94.Dv INADDR_BROADCAST
95is allowed as a shorthand for the broadcast address on the primary
96network if the first network configured supports broadcast.
97.Sh PROTOCOLS
98The Internet protocol family is comprised of
99the
100.Tn IP
101network protocol, Internet Control
102Message Protocol
103.Pq Tn ICMP ,
104Internet Group Management Protocol
105.Pq Tn IGMP ,
106Transmission Control
107Protocol
108.Pq Tn TCP ,
109and User Datagram Protocol
110.Pq Tn UDP .
111.Tn TCP
112is used to support the
113.Dv SOCK_STREAM
114abstraction while
115.Tn UDP
116is used to support the
117.Dv SOCK_DGRAM
118abstraction.  A raw interface to
119.Tn IP
120is available
121by creating an Internet socket of type
122.Dv SOCK_RAW .
123The
124.Tn ICMP
125message protocol is accessible from a raw socket.
126.Pp
127The 32-bit Internet address contains both network and host parts.
128However, direct examination of addresses is discouraged.  For those
129programs which absolutely need to break addresses into their component
130parts, the following
131.Xr ioctl 2
132commands are provided for a datagram socket in the Internet domain;
133they have the same form as the
134.Dv SIOCIFADDR
135command (see
136.Xr intro 4 ) .
137.Pp
138.Bl -tag -width SIOCSIFNETMASK
139.It Dv SIOCSIFNETMASK
140Set interface network mask.
141The network mask defines the network part of the address;
142if it contains more of the address than the address type would indicate,
143then subnets are in use.
144.It Dv SIOCGIFNETMASK
145Get interface network mask.
146.El
147.Sh ROUTING
148The current implementation of Internet protocols includes some routing-table
149adaptations to provide enhanced caching of certain end-to-end
150information necessary for Transaction TCP and Path MTU Discovery.  The
151following changes are the most significant:
152.Bl -enum
153.It
154All IP routes, except those with the
155.Dv RTF_CLONING
156flag and those to multicast destinations, have the
157.Dv RTF_PRCLONING
158flag forcibly enabled (they are thus said to be
159.Dq "protocol cloning" ).
160.It
161When the last reference to an IP route is dropped, the route is
162examined to determine if it was created by cloning such a route.  If
163this is the case, the
164.Dv RTF_PROTO3
165flag is turned on, and the expiration timer is initialized to go off
166in net.inet.ip.rtexpire seconds.  If such a route is re-referenced,
167the flag and expiration timer are reset.
168.It
169A kernel timeout runs once every ten minutes, or sooner if there are
170soon-to-expire routes in the kernel routing table, and deletes the
171expired routes.
172.El
173.Pp
174A dynamic process is in place to modify the value of
175net.inet.ip.rtexpire if the number of cached routes grows too large.
176If after an expiration run there are still more than
177net.inet.ip.rtmaxcache unreferenced routes remaining, the rtexpire
178value is multiplied by 3/4, and any routes which have longer
179expiration times have those times adjusted.  This process is damped
180somewhat by specification of a minimum rtexpire value
181(net.inet.ip.rtminexpire), and by restricting the reduction to once in
182a ten-minute period.
183.Pp
184If some external process deletes the original route from which a
185protocol-cloned route was generated, the ``child route'' is deleted.
186(This is actually a generic mechanism in the routing code support for
187protocol-requested cloning.)
188.Pp
189No attempt is made to manage routes which were not created by protocol
190cloning; these are assumed to be static, under the management of an
191external routing process, or under the management of a link layer
192(e.g.,
193.Tn ARP
194for Ethernets).
195.Pp
196Only certain types of network activity will result in the cloning of a
197route using this mechanism.  Specifically, those protocols (such as
198.Tn TCP
199and
200.Tn UDP )
201which themselves cache a long-lasting reference to route for a destination
202will trigger the mechanism; whereas raw
203.Tn IP
204packets, whether locally-generated or forwarded, will not.
205.Sh MIB VARIABLES
206A number of variables are implemented in the net.inet branch of the
207.Xr sysctl 3
208MIB.  In addition to the variables supported by the transport
209protocols (for which see the respective manual pages), the following
210general variables are defined:
211.Bl -tag -width IPCTL_SENDREDIRECTS
212.It Dv IPCTL_FORWARDING
213.Pq ip.forwarding
214Boolean: enable/disable forwarding of IP packets (default depends on
215the
216.Dv GATEWAY
217kernel configuration option).
218.It Dv IPCTL_SENDREDIRECTS
219.Pq ip.redirect
220Boolean: enable/disable sending of ICMP redirects in response to
221unforwardable
222.Tn IP
223packets (default true).
224.It Dv IPCTL_DEFTTL
225.Pq ip.ttl
226Integer: default time-to-live
227.Pq Dq TTL
228to use for outgoing
229.Tn IP
230packets.
231.It Dv IPCTL_SOURCEROUTE
232.Pq ip.sourceroute
233Boolean: enable/disable forwarding of source-routed IP packets (default false).
234.It Dv IPCTL_RTEXPIRE
235.Pq ip.rtexpire
236Integer: lifetime in seconds of protocol-cloned
237.Tn IP
238routes after the last reference drops (default one hour).  This value
239varies dynamically as described above.
240.It Dv IPCTL_RTMINEXPIRE
241.Pq ip.rtminexpire
242Integer: minimum value of ip.rtexpire (default ten seconds).  This
243value has no effect on user modifications, but restricts the dynamic
244adaptation described above.
245.It Dv IPCTL_RTMAXCACHE
246.Pq ip.rtmaxcache
247Integer: trigger level of cached, unreferenced, protocol-cloned routes
248which initiates dynamic adaptation (default 128).
249.El
250.Sh SEE ALSO
251.Xr ioctl 2 ,
252.Xr socket 2 ,
253.Xr sysctl 3 ,
254.Xr intro 4 ,
255.Xr tcp 4 ,
256.Xr ttcp 4 ,
257.Xr udp 4 ,
258.Xr ip 4 ,
259.Xr icmp 4 ,
260.Xr igmp 4
261.Rs
262.%T "An Introductory 4.3 BSD Interprocess Communication Tutorial"
263.%B PS1
264.%N 7
265.Re
266.Rs
267.%T "An Advanced 4.3 BSD Interprocess Communication Tutorial"
268.%B PS1
269.%N 8
270.Re
271.Sh CAVEAT
272The Internet protocol support is subject to change as
273the Internet protocols develop.  Users should not depend
274on details of the current implementation, but rather
275the services exported.
276.Sh HISTORY
277The
278.Nm
279protocol interface appeared in
280.Bx 4.2 .
281The
282.Dq protocol cloning
283code appeared in
284.Fx 2.1 .
285