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Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 17.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 18.\" without specific prior written permission. 19.\" 20.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 21.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 22.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 23.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 24.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 25.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 26.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 27.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 28.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 29.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 30.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 31.\" 32.\" From: @(#)route.4 8.6 (Berkeley) 4/19/94 33.\" $FreeBSD$ 34.\" 35.Dd November 4, 2004 36.Dt ROUTE 4 37.Os 38.Sh NAME 39.Nm route 40.Nd kernel packet forwarding database 41.Sh SYNOPSIS 42.In sys/types.h 43.In sys/time.h 44.In sys/socket.h 45.In net/if.h 46.In net/route.h 47.Ft int 48.Fn socket PF_ROUTE SOCK_RAW "int family" 49.Sh DESCRIPTION 50.Fx 51provides some packet routing facilities. 52The kernel maintains a routing information database, which 53is used in selecting the appropriate network interface when 54transmitting packets. 55.Pp 56A user process (or possibly multiple co-operating processes) 57maintains this database by sending messages over a special kind 58of socket. 59This supplants fixed size 60.Xr ioctl 2 Ns 's 61used in earlier releases. 62Routing table changes may only be carried out by the super user. 63.Pp 64The operating system may spontaneously emit routing messages in response 65to external events, such as receipt of a re-direct, or failure to 66locate a suitable route for a request. 67The message types are described in greater detail below. 68.Pp 69Routing database entries come in two flavors: for a specific 70host, or for all hosts on a generic subnetwork (as specified 71by a bit mask and value under the mask. 72The effect of wildcard or default route may be achieved by using 73a mask of all zeros, and there may be hierarchical routes. 74.Pp 75When the system is booted and addresses are assigned 76to the network interfaces, each protocol family 77installs a routing table entry for each interface when it is ready for traffic. 78Normally the protocol specifies the route 79through each interface as a 80.Dq direct 81connection to the destination host 82or network. 83If the route is direct, the transport layer of 84a protocol family usually requests the packet be sent to the 85same host specified in the packet. 86Otherwise, the interface 87is requested to address the packet to the gateway listed in the routing entry 88(i.e., the packet is forwarded). 89.Pp 90When routing a packet, 91the kernel will attempt to find 92the most specific route matching the destination. 93(If there are two different mask and value-under-the-mask pairs 94that match, the more specific is the one with more bits in the mask. 95A route to a host is regarded as being supplied with a mask of 96as many ones as there are bits in the destination). 97If no entry is found, the destination is declared to be unreachable, 98and a routing-miss message is generated if there are any 99listeners on the routing control socket described below. 100.Pp 101A wildcard routing entry is specified with a zero 102destination address value, and a mask of all zeroes. 103Wildcard routes will be used 104when the system fails to find other routes matching the 105destination. 106The combination of wildcard 107routes and routing redirects can provide an economical 108mechanism for routing traffic. 109.Pp 110One opens the channel for passing routing control messages 111by using the socket call shown in the synopsis above: 112.Pp 113The 114.Fa family 115parameter may be 116.Dv AF_UNSPEC 117which will provide 118routing information for all address families, or can be restricted 119to a specific address family by specifying which one is desired. 120There can be more than one routing socket open per system. 121.Pp 122Messages are formed by a header followed by a small 123number of sockaddrs (now variable length particularly 124in the 125.Tn ISO 126case), interpreted by position, and delimited 127by the new length entry in the sockaddr. 128An example of a message with four addresses might be an 129.Tn ISO 130redirect: 131Destination, Netmask, Gateway, and Author of the redirect. 132The interpretation of which address are present is given by a 133bit mask within the header, and the sequence is least significant 134to most significant bit within the vector. 135.Pp 136Any messages sent to the kernel are returned, and copies are sent 137to all interested listeners. 138The kernel will provide the process 139ID for the sender, and the sender may use an additional sequence 140field to distinguish between outstanding messages. 141However, message replies may be lost when kernel buffers are exhausted. 142.Pp 143The kernel may reject certain messages, and will indicate this 144by filling in the 145.Ar rtm_errno 146field. 147The routing code returns 148.Er EEXIST 149if 150requested to duplicate an existing entry, 151.Er ESRCH 152if 153requested to delete a non-existent entry, 154or 155.Er ENOBUFS 156if insufficient resources were available 157to install a new route. 158In the current implementation, all routing processes run locally, 159and the values for 160.Ar rtm_errno 161are available through the normal 162.Em errno 163mechanism, even if the routing reply message is lost. 164.Pp 165A process may avoid the expense of reading replies to 166its own messages by issuing a 167.Xr setsockopt 2 168call indicating that the 169.Dv SO_USELOOPBACK 170option 171at the 172.Dv SOL_SOCKET 173level is to be turned off. 174A process may ignore all messages from the routing socket 175by doing a 176.Xr shutdown 2 177system call for further input. 178.Pp 179If a route is in use when it is deleted, 180the routing entry will be marked down and removed from the routing table, 181but the resources associated with it will not 182be reclaimed until all references to it are released. 183User processes can obtain information about the routing 184entry to a specific destination by using a 185.Dv RTM_GET 186message, or by calling 187.Xr sysctl 3 . 188.Pp 189Messages include: 190.Bd -literal 191#define RTM_ADD 0x1 /* Add Route */ 192#define RTM_DELETE 0x2 /* Delete Route */ 193#define RTM_CHANGE 0x3 /* Change Metrics, Flags, or Gateway */ 194#define RTM_GET 0x4 /* Report Information */ 195#define RTM_LOSING 0x5 /* Kernel Suspects Partitioning */ 196#define RTM_REDIRECT 0x6 /* Told to use different route */ 197#define RTM_MISS 0x7 /* Lookup failed on this address */ 198#define RTM_LOCK 0x8 /* fix specified metrics */ 199#define RTM_OLDADD 0x9 /* caused by SIOCADDRT */ 200#define RTM_OLDDEL 0xa /* caused by SIOCDELRT */ 201#define RTM_RESOLVE 0xb /* request to resolve dst to LL addr - unused */ 202#define RTM_NEWADDR 0xc /* address being added to iface */ 203#define RTM_DELADDR 0xd /* address being removed from iface */ 204#define RTM_IFINFO 0xe /* iface going up/down etc. */ 205#define RTM_NEWMADDR 0xf /* mcast group membership being added to if */ 206#define RTM_DELMADDR 0x10 /* mcast group membership being deleted */ 207#define RTM_IFANNOUNCE 0x11 /* iface arrival/departure */ 208#define RTM_IEEE80211 0x12 /* IEEE80211 wireless event */ 209.Ed 210.Pp 211A message header consists of one of the following: 212.Bd -literal 213struct rt_msghdr { 214 u_short rtm_msglen; /* to skip over non-understood messages */ 215 u_char rtm_version; /* future binary compatibility */ 216 u_char rtm_type; /* message type */ 217 u_short rtm_index; /* index for associated ifp */ 218 int rtm_flags; /* flags, incl. kern & message, e.g. DONE */ 219 int rtm_addrs; /* bitmask identifying sockaddrs in msg */ 220 pid_t rtm_pid; /* identify sender */ 221 int rtm_seq; /* for sender to identify action */ 222 int rtm_errno; /* why failed */ 223 int rtm_fmask; /* bitmask used in RTM_CHANGE message */ 224 u_long rtm_inits; /* which metrics we are initializing */ 225 struct rt_metrics rtm_rmx; /* metrics themselves */ 226}; 227 228struct if_msghdr { 229 u_short ifm_msglen; /* to skip over non-understood messages */ 230 u_char ifm_version; /* future binary compatibility */ 231 u_char ifm_type; /* message type */ 232 int ifm_addrs; /* like rtm_addrs */ 233 int ifm_flags; /* value of if_flags */ 234 u_short ifm_index; /* index for associated ifp */ 235 struct if_data ifm_data; /* statistics and other data about if */ 236}; 237 238struct ifa_msghdr { 239 u_short ifam_msglen; /* to skip over non-understood messages */ 240 u_char ifam_version; /* future binary compatibility */ 241 u_char ifam_type; /* message type */ 242 int ifam_addrs; /* like rtm_addrs */ 243 int ifam_flags; /* value of ifa_flags */ 244 u_short ifam_index; /* index for associated ifp */ 245 int ifam_metric; /* value of ifa_metric */ 246}; 247 248struct ifma_msghdr { 249 u_short ifmam_msglen; /* to skip over non-understood messages */ 250 u_char ifmam_version; /* future binary compatibility */ 251 u_char ifmam_type; /* message type */ 252 int ifmam_addrs; /* like rtm_addrs */ 253 int ifmam_flags; /* value of ifa_flags */ 254 u_short ifmam_index; /* index for associated ifp */ 255}; 256 257struct if_announcemsghdr { 258 u_short ifan_msglen; /* to skip over non-understood messages */ 259 u_char ifan_version; /* future binary compatibility */ 260 u_char ifan_type; /* message type */ 261 u_short ifan_index; /* index for associated ifp */ 262 char ifan_name[IFNAMSIZ]; /* if name, e.g. "en0" */ 263 u_short ifan_what; /* what type of announcement */ 264}; 265.Ed 266.Pp 267The 268.Dv RTM_IFINFO 269message uses a 270.Ar if_msghdr 271header, the 272.Dv RTM_NEWADDR 273and 274.Dv RTM_DELADDR 275messages use a 276.Ar ifa_msghdr 277header, the 278.Dv RTM_NEWMADDR 279and 280.Dv RTM_DELMADDR 281messages use a 282.Vt ifma_msghdr 283header, the 284.Dv RTM_IFANNOUNCE 285message uses a 286.Vt if_announcemsghdr 287header, 288and all other messages use the 289.Ar rt_msghdr 290header. 291.Pp 292The 293.Dq Li "struct rt_metrics" 294and the flag bits are as defined in 295.Xr rtentry 9 . 296.Pp 297Specifiers for metric values in rmx_locks and rtm_inits are: 298.Bd -literal 299#define RTV_MTU 0x1 /* init or lock _mtu */ 300#define RTV_HOPCOUNT 0x2 /* init or lock _hopcount */ 301#define RTV_EXPIRE 0x4 /* init or lock _expire */ 302#define RTV_RPIPE 0x8 /* init or lock _recvpipe */ 303#define RTV_SPIPE 0x10 /* init or lock _sendpipe */ 304#define RTV_SSTHRESH 0x20 /* init or lock _ssthresh */ 305#define RTV_RTT 0x40 /* init or lock _rtt */ 306#define RTV_RTTVAR 0x80 /* init or lock _rttvar */ 307#define RTV_WEIGHT 0x100 /* init or lock _weight */ 308.Ed 309.Pp 310Specifiers for which addresses are present in the messages are: 311.Bd -literal 312#define RTA_DST 0x1 /* destination sockaddr present */ 313#define RTA_GATEWAY 0x2 /* gateway sockaddr present */ 314#define RTA_NETMASK 0x4 /* netmask sockaddr present */ 315#define RTA_GENMASK 0x8 /* cloning mask sockaddr present - unused */ 316#define RTA_IFP 0x10 /* interface name sockaddr present */ 317#define RTA_IFA 0x20 /* interface addr sockaddr present */ 318#define RTA_AUTHOR 0x40 /* sockaddr for author of redirect */ 319#define RTA_BRD 0x80 /* for NEWADDR, broadcast or p-p dest addr */ 320.Ed 321.Sh SEE ALSO 322.Xr sysctl 3 , 323.Xr route 8 , 324.Xr rtentry 9 325.Pp 326The constants for the 327.Va rtm_flags 328field are documented in the manual page for the 329.Xr route 8 330utility. 331.Sh HISTORY 332A 333.Dv PF_ROUTE 334protocol family first appeared in 335.Bx 4.3 reno . 336