xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/inet.4 (revision 4a0f765fbf09711e612e86fce8bb09ec43f482d9)
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32.\"     From: @(#)inet.4	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93
33.\"	$FreeBSD$
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	u_char	sin_len;
74	u_char	sin_family;
75	u_short	sin_port;
76	struct	in_addr sin_addr;
77	char	sin_zero[8];
78};
79.Ed
80.Pp
81Sockets may be created with the local address
82.Dv INADDR_ANY
83to effect
84.Dq wildcard
85matching on incoming messages.
86The address in a
87.Xr connect 2
88or
89.Xr sendto 2
90call may be given as
91.Dv INADDR_ANY
92to mean
93.Dq this host .
94The distinguished address
95.Dv INADDR_BROADCAST
96is allowed as a shorthand for the broadcast address on the primary
97network if the first network configured supports broadcast.
98.Sh PROTOCOLS
99The Internet protocol family is comprised of
100the
101.Tn IP
102network protocol, Internet Control
103Message Protocol
104.Pq Tn ICMP ,
105Internet Group Management Protocol
106.Pq Tn IGMP ,
107Transmission Control
108Protocol
109.Pq Tn TCP ,
110and User Datagram Protocol
111.Pq Tn UDP .
112.Tn TCP
113is used to support the
114.Dv SOCK_STREAM
115abstraction while
116.Tn UDP
117is used to support the
118.Dv SOCK_DGRAM
119abstraction.  A raw interface to
120.Tn IP
121is available
122by creating an Internet socket of type
123.Dv SOCK_RAW .
124The
125.Tn ICMP
126message protocol is accessible from a raw socket.
127.Pp
128The 32-bit Internet address contains both network and host parts.
129However, direct examination of addresses is discouraged.  For those
130programs which absolutely need to break addresses into their component
131parts, the following
132.Xr ioctl 2
133commands are provided for a datagram socket in the Internet domain;
134they have the same form as the
135.Dv SIOCIFADDR
136command (see
137.Xr intro 4 ) .
138.Pp
139.Bl -tag -width SIOCSIFNETMASK
140.It Dv SIOCSIFNETMASK
141Set interface network mask.
142The network mask defines the network part of the address;
143if it contains more of the address than the address type would indicate,
144then subnets are in use.
145.It Dv SIOCGIFNETMASK
146Get interface network mask.
147.El
148.Sh ROUTING
149The current implementation of Internet protocols includes some routing-table
150adaptations to provide enhanced caching of certain end-to-end
151information necessary for Transaction TCP and Path MTU Discovery.  The
152following changes are the most significant:
153.Bl -enum
154.It
155All IP routes, except those with the
156.Dv RTF_CLONING
157flag and those to multicast destinations, have the
158.Dv RTF_PRCLONING
159flag forcibly enabled (they are thus said to be
160.Dq "protocol cloning" ).
161.It
162When the last reference to an IP route is dropped, the route is
163examined to determine if it was created by cloning such a route.  If
164this is the case, the
165.Dv RTF_PROTO3
166flag is turned on, and the expiration timer is initialized to go off
167in net.inet.ip.rtexpire seconds.  If such a route is re-referenced,
168the flag and expiration timer are reset.
169.It
170A kernel timeout runs once every ten minutes, or sooner if there are
171soon-to-expire routes in the kernel routing table, and deletes the
172expired routes.
173.El
174.Pp
175A dynamic process is in place to modify the value of
176net.inet.ip.rtexpire if the number of cached routes grows too large.
177If after an expiration run there are still more than
178net.inet.ip.rtmaxcache unreferenced routes remaining, the rtexpire
179value is multiplied by 3/4, and any routes which have longer
180expiration times have those times adjusted.  This process is damped
181somewhat by specification of a minimum rtexpire value
182(net.inet.ip.rtminexpire), and by restricting the reduction to once in
183a ten-minute period.
184.Pp
185If some external process deletes the original route from which a
186protocol-cloned route was generated, the ``child route'' is deleted.
187(This is actually a generic mechanism in the routing code support for
188protocol-requested cloning.)
189.Pp
190No attempt is made to manage routes which were not created by protocol
191cloning; these are assumed to be static, under the management of an
192external routing process, or under the management of a link layer
193(e.g.,
194.Tn ARP
195for Ethernets).
196.Pp
197Only certain types of network activity will result in the cloning of a
198route using this mechanism.  Specifically, those protocols (such as
199.Tn TCP
200and
201.Tn UDP )
202which themselves cache a long-lasting reference to route for a destination
203will trigger the mechanism; whereas raw
204.Tn IP
205packets, whether locally-generated or forwarded, will not.
206.Sh MIB VARIABLES
207A number of variables are implemented in the net.inet branch of the
208.Xr sysctl 3
209MIB.  In addition to the variables supported by the transport
210protocols (for which see the respective manual pages), the following
211general variables are defined:
212.Bl -tag -width IPCTL_SENDREDIRECTS
213.It Dv IPCTL_FORWARDING
214.Pq ip.forwarding
215Boolean: enable/disable forwarding of IP packets (default depends on
216the
217.Dv GATEWAY
218kernel configuration option).
219.It Dv IPCTL_SENDREDIRECTS
220.Pq ip.redirect
221Boolean: enable/disable sending of ICMP redirects in response to
222unforwardable
223.Tn IP
224packets (default true).
225.It Dv IPCTL_DEFTTL
226.Pq ip.ttl
227Integer: default time-to-live
228.Pq Dq TTL
229to use for outgoing
230.Tn IP
231packets.
232.It Dv IPCTL_SOURCEROUTE
233.Pq ip.sourceroute
234Boolean: enable/disable forwarding of source-routed IP packets (default false).
235.It Dv IPCTL_RTEXPIRE
236.Pq ip.rtexpire
237Integer: lifetime in seconds of protocol-cloned
238.Tn IP
239routes after the last reference drops (default one hour).  This value
240varies dynamically as described above.
241.It Dv IPCTL_RTMINEXPIRE
242.Pq ip.rtminexpire
243Integer: minimum value of ip.rtexpire (default ten seconds).  This
244value has no effect on user modifications, but restricts the dynamic
245adaptation described above.
246.It Dv IPCTL_RTMAXCACHE
247.Pq ip.rtmaxcache
248Integer: trigger level of cached, unreferenced, protocol-cloned routes
249which initiates dynamic adaptation (default 128).
250.El
251.Sh SEE ALSO
252.Xr ioctl 2 ,
253.Xr socket 2 ,
254.Xr sysctl 3 ,
255.Xr icmp 4 ,
256.Xr igmp 4 ,
257.Xr intro 4 ,
258.Xr ip 4 ,
259.Xr tcp 4 ,
260.Xr ttcp 4 ,
261.Xr udp 4
262.Rs
263.%T "An Introductory 4.3 BSD Interprocess Communication Tutorial"
264.%B PS1
265.%N 7
266.Re
267.Rs
268.%T "An Advanced 4.3 BSD Interprocess Communication Tutorial"
269.%B PS1
270.%N 8
271.Re
272.Sh CAVEAT
273The Internet protocol support is subject to change as
274the Internet protocols develop.  Users should not depend
275on details of the current implementation, but rather
276the services exported.
277.Sh HISTORY
278The
279.Nm
280protocol interface appeared in
281.Bx 4.2 .
282The
283.Dq protocol cloning
284code appeared in
285.Fx 2.1 .
286