xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/inet.4 (revision b197d4b893974c9eb4d7b38704c6d5c486235d6f)
1.\" Copyright (c) 1983, 1991, 1993
2.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
3.\"
4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
6.\" are met:
7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
8.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
10.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
11.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
12.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
13.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
14.\"    without specific prior written permission.
15.\"
16.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
17.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
18.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
19.\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
20.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
21.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
22.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
23.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
24.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
25.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
26.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
27.\"
28.\"     From: @(#)inet.4	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93
29.\" $FreeBSD$
30.\"
31.Dd August 1, 2022
32.Dt INET 4
33.Os
34.Sh NAME
35.Nm inet
36.Nd Internet protocol family
37.Sh SYNOPSIS
38.In sys/types.h
39.In netinet/in.h
40.Sh DESCRIPTION
41The Internet protocol family is a collection of protocols
42layered atop the
43.Em Internet Protocol
44.Pq Tn IP
45transport layer, and utilizing the Internet address format.
46The Internet family provides protocol support for the
47.Dv SOCK_STREAM , SOCK_DGRAM ,
48and
49.Dv SOCK_RAW
50socket types; the
51.Dv SOCK_RAW
52interface provides access to the
53.Tn IP
54protocol.
55.Sh ADDRESSING
56Internet addresses are four byte quantities, stored in
57network standard format (on little endian machines, such as the
58.Tn alpha ,
59.Tn amd64
60and
61.Tn i386
62these are word and byte reversed).
63The include file
64.In netinet/in.h
65defines this address
66as a discriminated union.
67.Pp
68Sockets bound to the Internet protocol family utilize
69the following addressing structure,
70.Bd -literal -offset indent
71struct sockaddr_in {
72	uint8_t		sin_len;
73	sa_family_t	sin_family;
74	in_port_t	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 affect
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.
119A 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
129.Nm
130address on an interface consist of the address itself, the
131netmask, either broadcast address in case of a broadcast
132interface or peers address in case of point-to-point interface.
133The following
134.Xr ioctl 2
135commands are provided for a datagram socket in the Internet domain:
136.Pp
137.Bl -tag -width ".Dv SIOCGIFBRDADDR" -offset indent -compact
138.It Dv SIOCAIFADDR
139Add address to an interface.
140The command requires
141.Ft struct in_aliasreq
142as argument.
143.It Dv SIOCDIFADDR
144Delete address from an interface.
145The command requires
146.Ft struct ifreq
147as argument.
148.It Dv SIOCGIFADDR
149.It Dv SIOCGIFBRDADDR
150.It Dv SIOCGIFDSTADDR
151.It Dv SIOCGIFNETMASK
152Return address information from interface.
153The returned value is in
154.Ft struct ifreq .
155This way of address information retrieval is obsoleted, a
156preferred way is to use
157.Xr getifaddrs 3
158API.
159.El
160.Ss MIB (sysctl) Variables
161In addition to the variables supported by the transport protocols in
162.Va net.inet
163(for which the respective manual pages may be consulted),
164there are a number of general variables implemented in the
165.Va net.inet.ip
166branch of the
167.Xr sysctl 3
168MIB, which can be also read or modified with
169.Xr sysctl 8 .
170The following general variables are defined:
171.Bl -tag -width ".Va accept_sourceroute"
172.It Va accept_sourceroute
173Boolean: enable/disable accepting of source-routed IP packets (default false).
174.It Va allow_net0
175Boolean: allow experimental use of addresses in 0.0.0.0/8 as endpoints,
176and allow forwarding of packets with these addresses.
177.It Va allow_net240
178Boolean: allow experimental use of addresses in 240.0.0.0/4 as endpoints,
179and allow forwarding of packets with these addresses.
180.It Va curfrags
181Integer: Current number of IPv4 fragments across all reassembly queues
182in all VNETs (read-only).
183.It Va forwarding
184Boolean: enable/disable forwarding of IP packets.
185Defaults to off.
186.It Va fragpackets
187Integer: Current number of IPv4 fragment reassembly queue entries
188for the VNET (read-only).
189.It Va loopback_prefixlen
190Integer: prefix length of the address space reserved for loopback purposes.
191The default is 8, meaning that 127.0.0.0/8 is reserved for loopback,
192and cannot be sent, received, or forwarded on a non-loopback interface.
193Use of other values is experimental.
194.It Va maxfragbucketsize
195Integer: maximum number of reassembly queues per bucket.
196Fragmented packets are hashed to buckets.
197Each bucket has a list of reassembly queues.
198The system must compare the incoming packets to the existing reassembly queues
199in the bucket to find a matching reassembly queue.
200To preserve system resources, the system limits the number of reassembly
201queues allowed in each bucket.
202This limit is recalculated when the number of mbuf clusters is changed or
203when the value of
204.Va maxfragpackets
205changes.
206This is a per-VNET limit.
207.It Va maxfragpackets
208Integer: maximum number of fragmented packets the host will accept and
209simultaneously hold in the reassembly queue for a particular VNET.
2100 means that the host will not accept any fragmented packets for that VNET.
211\-1 means that the host will not apply this limit for that VNET.
212This limit is recalculated when the number of mbuf clusters is changed.
213This is a per-VNET limit.
214.It Va maxfrags
215Integer: maximum number of fragments the host will accept and simultaneously
216hold across all reassembly queues in all VNETs.
217If set to 0, reassembly is disabled.
218If set to -1, this limit is not applied.
219This limit is recalculated when the number of mbuf clusters is changed.
220This is a global limit.
221.It Va maxfragsperpacket
222Integer: maximum number of fragments the host will accept and hold
223in the reassembly queue for a packet.
2240 means that the host will not accept any fragmented packets for the VNET.
225This is a per-VNET limit.
226.It Va mcast
227Variables under the
228.Va net.inet.ip.mcast
229node are documented in
230.Xr ip 4 .
231.It Va no_same_prefix
232Boolean: Refuse to create same prefixes on different interfaces.
233This is a per-VNET value.
234.It Va portrange
235Variables under the
236.Va net.inet.ip.portrange
237node control port ranges used by transport protocols; see
238.Xr ip 4
239for details.
240.It Va process_options
241Integer: control IP options processing.
242By setting this variable to 0, all IP options in the incoming packets
243will be ignored, and the packets will be passed unmodified.
244By setting to 1, IP options in the incoming packets will be processed
245accordingly.
246By setting to 2, an
247.Tn ICMP
248.Dq "prohibited by filter"
249message will be sent back in response to incoming packets with IP options.
250Default is 1.
251This
252.Xr sysctl 8
253variable affects packets destined for a local host as well as packets
254forwarded to some other host.
255.It Va random_id
256Boolean: control IP IDs generation behavior.
257Setting this
258.Xr sysctl 8
259to 1 causes the ID field in
260.Em non-atomic
261IP datagrams (or all IP datagrams, if
262.Va rfc6864
263is disabled) to be randomized instead of incremented by 1 with each packet
264generated.
265This closes a minor information leak which allows remote observers to
266determine the rate of packet generation on the machine by watching the
267counter.
268At the same time, on high-speed links, it can decrease the ID reuse
269cycle greatly.
270Default is 0 (sequential IP IDs).
271IPv6 flow IDs and fragment IDs are always random.
272.It Va random_id_collisions
273Integer: count of IP ID collisions (read-only, per-VNET).
274.It Va random_id_period
275Integer: size of the IP ID array, which is the number of previous packets
276for which the IDs are recorded.
277The number must be between 512 and 32768 inclusive.
278This is a per-VNET value.
279.It Va random_id_total
280Integer: count of IP IDs created (read-only, per-VNET).
281.It Va redirect
282Boolean: enable/disable sending of ICMP redirects in response to
283.Tn IP
284packets for which a better, and for the sender directly reachable, route
285and next hop is known.
286Defaults to on.
287.It Va rfc1122_strong_es
288Boolean: in non-forwarding mode
289.Pq forwarding is disabled
290partially implement the Strong End System model per RFC1122.
291If a packet with destination address that is local arrives on a different
292interface than the interface the address belongs to, the packet would be
293silently dropped.
294Enabling this option may break certain setups, e.g. having an alias address(es)
295on loopback that are expected to be reachable by outside traffic.
296Enabling some other network features, e.g.
297.Xr carp 4
298or destination address rewriting
299.Xr pfil 4
300filters may override and bypass this check.
301Disabled by default.
302.It Va rfc6864
303Boolean: control IP IDs generation behaviour.
304True value enables RFC6864 support, which specifies that IP ID field of
305.Em atomic
306datagrams can be set to any value.
307The
308.Fx implementation sets it to zero.
309Enabled by default.
310.It Va source_address_validation
311Boolean: perform source address validation for packets destined for the local
312host.
313Consider this as following Section 3.2 of RFC3704/BCP84, where we treat local
314host as our own infrastructure.
315Forwarded packets are unaffected by this
316and it should not be considered an anti-spoof feature for a router.
317Enabled by default.
318.It Va sourceroute
319Boolean: enable/disable forwarding of source-routed IP packets (default false).
320.It Va ttl
321Integer: default time-to-live
322.Pq Dq TTL
323to use for outgoing
324.Tn IP
325packets.
326.El
327.Sh SEE ALSO
328.Xr ioctl 2 ,
329.Xr socket 2 ,
330.Xr getifaddrs 3 ,
331.Xr sysctl 3 ,
332.Xr icmp 4 ,
333.Xr intro 4 ,
334.Xr ip 4 ,
335.Xr ipfirewall 4 ,
336.Xr route 4 ,
337.Xr tcp 4 ,
338.Xr udp 4 ,
339.Xr sysctl 8 ,
340.Xr pfil 9
341.Rs
342.%T "An Introductory 4.3 BSD Interprocess Communication Tutorial"
343.%B PS1
344.%N 7
345.Re
346.Rs
347.%T "An Advanced 4.3 BSD Interprocess Communication Tutorial"
348.%B PS1
349.%N 8
350.Re
351.Sh HISTORY
352The
353.Nm
354protocol interface appeared in
355.Bx 4.2 .
356The
357.Dq protocol cloning
358code appeared in
359.Fx 2.1 .
360.Sh CAVEATS
361The Internet protocol support is subject to change as
362the Internet protocols develop.
363Users should not depend
364on details of the current implementation, but rather
365the services exported.
366