xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/route.4 (revision 6990ffd8a95caaba6858ad44ff1b3157d1efba8f)
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32.\"     From: @(#)route.4	8.6 (Berkeley) 4/19/94
33.\" $FreeBSD$
34.\"
35.Dd October 8, 1996
36.Dt ROUTE 4
37.Os
38.Sh NAME
39.Nm route
40.Nd kernel packet forwarding database
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.Fd #include <sys/types.h>
43.Fd #include <sys/time.h>
44.Fd #include <sys/socket.h>
45.Fd #include <net/if.h>
46.Fd #include <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.  If the route is direct, the transport layer of
83a protocol family usually requests the packet be sent to the
84same host specified in the packet.  Otherwise, the interface
85is requested to address the packet to the gateway listed in the routing entry
86(i.e. the packet is forwarded).
87.Pp
88When routing a packet,
89the kernel will attempt to find
90the most specific route matching the destination.
91(If there are two different mask and value-under-the-mask pairs
92that match, the more specific is the one with more bits in the mask.
93A route to a host is regarded as being supplied with a mask of
94as many ones as there are bits in the destination).
95If no entry is found, the destination is declared to be unreachable,
96and a routing\-miss message is generated if there are any
97listers on the routing control socket described below.
98.Pp
99A wildcard routing entry is specified with a zero
100destination address value, and a mask of all zeroes.
101Wildcard routes will be used
102when the system fails to find other routes matching the
103destination.  The combination of wildcard
104routes and routing redirects can provide an economical
105mechanism for routing traffic.
106.Pp
107One opens the channel for passing routing control messages
108by using the socket call shown in the synopsis above:
109.Pp
110The
111.Fa family
112parameter may be
113.Dv AF_UNSPEC
114which will provide
115routing information for all address families, or can be restricted
116to a specific address family by specifying which one is desired.
117There can be more than one routing socket open per system.
118.Pp
119Messages are formed by a header followed by a small
120number of sockaddrs (now variable length particularly
121in the
122.Tn ISO
123case), interpreted by position, and delimited
124by the new length entry in the sockaddr.
125An example of a message with four addresses might be an
126.Tn ISO
127redirect:
128Destination, Netmask, Gateway, and Author of the redirect.
129The interpretation of which address are present is given by a
130bit mask within the header, and the sequence is least significant
131to most significant bit within the vector.
132.Pp
133Any messages sent to the kernel are returned, and copies are sent
134to all interested listeners.  The kernel will provide the process
135ID for the sender, and the sender may use an additional sequence
136field to distinguish between outstanding messages.  However,
137message replies may be lost when kernel buffers are exhausted.
138.Pp
139The kernel may reject certain messages, and will indicate this
140by filling in the
141.Ar rtm_errno
142field.
143The routing code returns
144.Er EEXIST
145if
146requested to duplicate an existing entry,
147.Er ESRCH
148if
149requested to delete a non-existent entry,
150or
151.Er ENOBUFS
152if insufficient resources were available
153to install a new route.
154In the current implementation, all routing processes run locally,
155and the values for
156.Ar rtm_errno
157are available through the normal
158.Em errno
159mechanism, even if the routing reply message is lost.
160.Pp
161A process may avoid the expense of reading replies to
162its own messages by issuing a
163.Xr setsockopt 2
164call indicating that the
165.Dv SO_USELOOPBACK
166option
167at the
168.Dv SOL_SOCKET
169level is to be turned off.
170A process may ignore all messages from the routing socket
171by doing a
172.Xr shutdown 2
173system call for further input.
174.Pp
175If a route is in use when it is deleted,
176the routing entry will be marked down and removed from the routing table,
177but the resources associated with it will not
178be reclaimed until all references to it are released.
179User processes can obtain information about the routing
180entry to a specific destination by using a
181.Dv RTM_GET
182message, or by calling
183.Xr sysctl 3 .
184.Pp
185Messages include:
186.Bd -literal
187#define	RTM_ADD		0x1    /* Add Route */
188#define	RTM_DELETE	0x2    /* Delete Route */
189#define	RTM_CHANGE	0x3    /* Change Metrics, Flags, or Gateway */
190#define	RTM_GET		0x4    /* Report Information */
191#define	RTM_LOSING	0x5    /* Kernel Suspects Partitioning */
192#define	RTM_REDIRECT	0x6    /* Told to use different route */
193#define	RTM_MISS	0x7    /* Lookup failed on this address */
194#define	RTM_LOCK	0x8    /* fix specified metrics */
195#define	RTM_RESOLVE	0xb    /* request to resolve dst to LL addr */
196#define	RTM_NEWADDR	0xc    /* address being added to iface */
197#define	RTM_DELADDR	0xd    /* address being removed from iface */
198#define	RTM_IFINFO	0xe    /* iface going up/down etc. */
199#define	RTM_NEWMADDR	0xf    /* mcast group membership being added to if */
200#define	RTM_DELMADDR	0x10   /* mcast group membership being deleted */
201.Ed
202.Pp
203A message header consists of one of the following:
204.Bd -literal
205struct rt_msghdr {
206    u_short rtm_msglen;         /* to skip over non-understood messages */
207    u_char  rtm_version;        /* future binary compatibility */
208    u_char  rtm_type;           /* message type */
209    u_short rtm_index;          /* index for associated ifp */
210    int     rtm_flags;          /* flags, incl. kern & message, e.g. DONE */
211    int     rtm_addrs;          /* bitmask identifying sockaddrs in msg */
212    pid_t   rtm_pid;            /* identify sender */
213    int     rtm_seq;            /* for sender to identify action */
214    int     rtm_errno;          /* why failed */
215    int     rtm_use;            /* from rtentry */
216    u_long  rtm_inits;          /* which metrics we are initializing */
217    struct  rt_metrics rtm_rmx;	/* metrics themselves */
218};
219
220struct if_msghdr {
221    u_short ifm_msglen;         /* to skip over non-understood messages */
222    u_char  ifm_version;        /* future binary compatibility */
223    u_char  ifm_type;           /* message type */
224    int     ifm_addrs;          /* like rtm_addrs */
225    int     ifm_flags;          /* value of if_flags */
226    u_short ifm_index;          /* index for associated ifp */
227    struct  if_data ifm_data;   /* statistics and other data about if */
228};
229
230struct ifa_msghdr {
231    u_short ifam_msglen;        /* to skip over non-understood messages */
232    u_char  ifam_version;       /* future binary compatibility */
233    u_char  ifam_type;          /* message type */
234    int     ifam_addrs;         /* like rtm_addrs */
235    int     ifam_flags;         /* value of ifa_flags */
236    u_short ifam_index;         /* index for associated ifp */
237    int     ifam_metric;        /* value of ifa_metric */
238};
239
240struct ifma_msghdr {
241    u_short ifmam_msglen;       /* to skip over non-understood messages */
242    u_char  ifmam_version;      /* future binary compatibility */
243    u_char  ifmam_type;         /* message type */
244    int     ifmam_addrs;        /* like rtm_addrs */
245    int     ifmam_flags;        /* value of ifa_flags */
246    u_short ifmam_index;        /* index for associated ifp */
247};
248.Ed
249.Pp
250The
251.Dv RTM_IFINFO
252message uses a
253.Ar if_msghdr
254header, the
255.Dv RTM_NEWADDR
256and
257.Dv RTM_DELADDR
258messages use a
259.Ar ifa_msghdr
260header, the
261.Dv RTM_NEWMADDR
262and
263.Dv RTM_DELMADDR
264messages use a
265.Ar ifma_msghdr ,
266and all other messages use the
267.Ar rt_msghdr
268header.
269.Pp
270The
271.Dq Li "struct rt_metrics"
272and the flag bits are as defined in
273.Xr rtentry 9 .
274.Pp
275Specifiers for metric values in rmx_locks and rtm_inits are:
276.Bd -literal
277#define	RTV_MTU       0x1    /* init or lock _mtu */
278#define	RTV_HOPCOUNT  0x2    /* init or lock _hopcount */
279#define	RTV_EXPIRE    0x4    /* init or lock _expire */
280#define	RTV_RPIPE     0x8    /* init or lock _recvpipe */
281#define	RTV_SPIPE     0x10   /* init or lock _sendpipe */
282#define	RTV_SSTHRESH  0x20   /* init or lock _ssthresh */
283#define	RTV_RTT       0x40   /* init or lock _rtt */
284#define	RTV_RTTVAR    0x80   /* init or lock _rttvar */
285.Ed
286.Pp
287Specifiers for which addresses are present in the messages are:
288.Bd -literal
289#define RTA_DST       0x1    /* destination sockaddr present */
290#define RTA_GATEWAY   0x2    /* gateway sockaddr present */
291#define RTA_NETMASK   0x4    /* netmask sockaddr present */
292#define RTA_GENMASK   0x8    /* cloning mask sockaddr present */
293#define RTA_IFP       0x10   /* interface name sockaddr present */
294#define RTA_IFA       0x20   /* interface addr sockaddr present */
295#define RTA_AUTHOR    0x40   /* sockaddr for author of redirect */
296#define RTA_BRD       0x80   /* for NEWADDR, broadcast or p-p dest addr */
297.Ed
298.Sh SEE ALSO
299.Xr sysctl 3 ,
300.Xr route 8 ,
301.Xr rtentry 9
302.Sh HISTORY
303A
304.Dv PF_ROUTE
305protocol family first appeared in
306.Bx 4.3 reno .
307