ROUTE(4) | Device Drivers Manual | ROUTE(4)

# NAME

`route` — kernel packet forwarding database

# SYNOPSIS

`#include <sys/socket.h>`
`#include <net/if.h>`
`#include <net/route.h>`

int
`socket`(PF_ROUTE, SOCK_RAW, int family);

# DESCRIPTION

UNIX provides some packet routing facilities. The kernel maintains a routing information database, which is used in selecting the appropriate network interface when transmitting packets.

A user process (or possibly multiple co-operating processes) maintains this database by sending messages over a special kind of socket. This supplants fixed size ioctl(2)'s used in earlier releases. Routing table changes may only be carried out by the super user.

The operating system may spontaneously emit routing messages in response to external events, such as receipt of a redirect, or failure to locate a suitable route for a request. The message types are described in greater detail below.

Routing database entries come in two flavors: for a specific host, or for all hosts on a generic subnetwork (as specified by a bit mask and value under the mask. The effect of wildcard or default route may be achieved by using a mask of all zeros, and there may be hierarchical routes.

When the system is booted and addresses are assigned to the network interfaces, each protocol family installs a routing table entry for each interface when it is ready for traffic. Normally the protocol specifies the route through each interface as a “direct” connection to the destination host or network. If the route is direct, the transport layer of a protocol family usually requests the packet be sent to the same host specified in the packet. Otherwise, the interface is requested to address the packet to the gateway listed in the routing entry (i.e. the packet is forwarded).

When routing a packet, the kernel will attempt to find the most specific route matching the destination. (If there are two different mask and value-under-the-mask pairs that match, the more specific is the one with more bits in the mask. A route to a host is regarded as being supplied with a mask of as many ones as there are bits in the destination). If no entry is found, the destination is declared to be unreachable, and a routing-miss message is generated if there are any listeners on the routing control socket described below.

A wildcard routing entry is specified with a zero destination address value, and a mask of all zeroes. Wildcard routes will be used when the system fails to find other routes matching the destination. The combination of wildcard routes and routing redirects can provide an economical mechanism for routing traffic.

One opens the channel for passing routing control messages by using the socket call shown in the synopsis above:

The family parameter may be `AF_UNSPEC` which will provide routing information for all address families, or can be restricted to a specific address family by specifying which one is desired. There can be more than one routing socket open per system.

Messages are formed by a header followed by a small number of sockaddrs (now variable length particularly in the ISO case), interpreted by position, and delimited by the new length entry in the sockaddr. An example of a message with four addresses might be an ISO redirect: Destination, Netmask, Gateway, and Author of the redirect. The interpretation of which address are present is given by a bit mask within the header, and the sequence is least significant to most significant bit within the vector.

Any messages sent to the kernel are returned, and copies are sent to all interested listeners. The exception to this is a new address marked as tentative, where copies will be sent once Duplicate Address Detection has completed and the tentative flag cleared or the duplicated flag set. Also, new address messages will also be emitted when other flags on the address change such as deprecated and detached. The kernel will provide the process ID for the sender, and the sender may use an additional sequence field to distinguish between outstanding messages. However, message replies may be lost when kernel buffers are exhausted.

The kernel may reject certain messages, and will indicate this by filling in the rtm_errno field. The routing code returns `EEXIST` if requested to duplicate an existing entry, `ESRCH` if requested to delete a non-existent entry, or `ENOBUFS` if insufficient resources were available to install a new route. In the current implementation, all routing processes run locally, and the values for rtm_errno are available through the normal errno mechanism, even if the routing reply message is lost.

A process may avoid the expense of reading replies to its own messages by issuing a setsockopt(2) call indicating that the `SO_USELOOPBACK` option at the `SOL_SOCKET` level is to be turned off. A process may ignore all messages from the routing socket by doing a shutdown(2) system call for further input.

A process can specify which route message types it's interested in by passing an array of route message types to the setsockopt(2) call with the `RO_MSGFILTER` option at the `PF_ROUTE` level. For example, to only get specific messages:

    unsigned char rtfilter[] = { RTM_IFINFO, RTM_IFANNOUNCE };

    if (setsockopt(routefd, PF_ROUTE, RO_MSGFILTER,
        &rtfilter, (socklen_t)sizeof(rtfilter)) == -1)
    	err(1, "setsockopt(RO_MSGFILTER)");

A process can specify which RTM_MISS destination addresses it's interested in by passing an array of struct sockaddr to the setsockopt(2) call with the `RO_MISSFILTER` option at the `PF_ROUTE` level. For example, to only get RTM_MISS messages for specific destinations:

    char buf[1024] = { '\0' }, *cp = buf;
    struct sockaddr_in sin = {
    	.sin_family = AF_INET,
    	.sin_len = sizeof(sin),
    };

    inet_aton("192.168.0.1", &sin.sin_addr);
    memcpy(cp, &sin, sin.sin_len);
    cp += RT_ROUNDUP(sin.sin_len);

    inet_aton("192.168.0.2", &sin.sin_addr);
    memcpy(cp, &sin, sin.sin_len);
    cp += RT_ROUNDUP(sin.sin_len);

    if (setsockopt(routefd, PF_ROUTE, RO_MISSFILTER,
        &sin, (socklen_t)(cp - buf)) == -1)
    	err(1, "setsockopt(RO_MISSFILTER)");

If a route is in use when it is deleted, the routing entry will be marked down and removed from the routing table, but the resources associated with it will not be reclaimed until all references to it are released. User processes can obtain information about the routing entry to a specific destination by using a `RTM_GET` message, or by reading the /dev/kmem device, or by calling sysctl(3).

The messages are:

    #define	RTM_ADD		0x1    /* Add Route */
    #define	RTM_DELETE	0x2    /* Delete Route */
    #define	RTM_CHANGE	0x3    /* Change Metrics, Flags, or Gateway */
    #define	RTM_GET		0x4    /* Report Information */
    #define	RTM_LOSING	0x5    /* Kernel Suspects Partitioning */
    #define	RTM_REDIRECT	0x6    /* Told to use different route */
    #define	RTM_MISS	0x7    /* Lookup failed on this address */
    #define RTM_LOCK	0x8	/* fix specified metrics */
    #define RTM_OLDADD	0x9	/* caused by SIOCADDRT */
    #define RTM_OLDDEL	0xa	/* caused by SIOCDELRT */
    #define	RTM_ONEWADDR	0xc    /* Old (pre-8.0) RTM_NEWADDR message */
    // #define RTM_RESOLVE	0xb	/* req to resolve dst to LL addr */
    #define	RTM_ODELADDR	0xd    /* Old (pre-8.0) RTM_DELADDR message */
    #define	RTM_OOIFINFO	0xe    /* Old (pre-1.5) RTM_IFINFO message */
    #define	RTM_OIFINFO	0xf    /* Old (pre-6.0) RTM_IFINFO message */
    #define	RTM_IFANNOUNCE	0x10   /* iface arrival/departure */
    #define	RTM_IEEE80211	0x11	/* IEEE80211 wireless event */
    #define	RTM_SETGATE	0x12	/* set prototype gateway for clones
    				 * (see example in arp_rtrequest).
    				 */
    #define	RTM_LLINFO_UPD	0x13	/* indication to ARP/NDP/etc. that link-layer
    				 * address has changed
    				 */
    #define	RTM_IFINFO	0x14   /* iface/link going up/down etc. */
    #define	RTM_OCHGADDR	0x15   /* Old (pre-8.0) RTM_CHGADDR message */
    #define	RTM_NEWADDR	0x16   /* address being added to iface */
    #define	RTM_DELADDR	0x17   /* address being removed from iface */
    #define	RTM_CHGADDR	0x18   /* address properties changed */

A message header consists of one of the following:

    struct rt_msghdr {
        u_short rtm_msglen;        /* to skip over non-understood messages */
        u_char  rtm_version;       /* future binary compatibility */
        u_char  rtm_type;          /* message type */
        u_short rtm_index;         /* index for associated ifp */
        int     rtm_flags;         /* flags, incl kern & message, e.g. DONE */
        int     rtm_addrs;         /* bitmask identifying sockaddrs in msg */
        pid_t   rtm_pid;           /* identify sender */
        int     rtm_seq;           /* for sender to identify action */
        int     rtm_errno;         /* why failed */
        int     rtm_use;           /* from rtentry */
        u_long  rtm_inits;         /* which metrics we are initializing */
        struct  rt_metrics rtm_rmx;	/* metrics themselves */
    };

    struct if_msghdr {
        u_short ifm_msglen;        /* to skip over non-understood messages */
        u_char  ifm_version;       /* future binary compatibility */
        u_char  ifm_type;          /* message type */
        int     ifm_addrs;         /* like rtm_addrs */
        int     ifm_flags;         /* value of if_flags */
        u_short ifm_index;         /* index for associated ifp */
        struct  if_data ifm_data;  /* statistics and other data about if */
    };

    struct ifa_msghdr {
        u_short ifam_msglen;       /* to skip over non-understood messages */
        u_char  ifam_version;      /* future binary compatibility */
        u_char  ifam_type;         /* message type */
        u_short ifam_index;        /* index for associated ifp */
        int     ifam_flags;        /* value of ifa_flags */
        int     ifam_addrs;        /* like rtm_addrs */
        pid_t   ifam_pid;          /* identify sender */
        int     ifam_addrflags;    /* family specific address flags */
        int     ifam_metric;       /* value of ifa_metric */
    };

    struct if_announcemsghdr {
        u_short ifan_msglen;       /* to skip over non-understood messages */
        u_char  ifan_version;      /* future binary compatibility */
        u_char  ifan_type;         /* message type */
        u_short ifan_index;        /* index for associated ifp */
        char    ifan_name[IFNAMSIZ]; /* if name, e.g. "en0" */
        u_short ifan_what;         /* what type of announcement */
    };

The `RTM_IFINFO` message uses a if_msghdr header, the `RTM_NEWADDR`, `RTM_CHGADDR`, and `RTM_DELADDR` messages use a ifa_msghdr header, the `RTM_IFANNOUNCE` message uses a if_announcemsghdr header, and all other messages use the rt_msghdr header.

The metrics structure is:

    struct rt_metrics {
        u_long rmx_locks;          /* Kernel must leave these values alone */
        u_long rmx_mtu;            /* MTU for this path */
        u_long rmx_hopcount;       /* max hops expected */
        u_long rmx_expire;         /* lifetime for route, e.g. redirect */
        u_long rmx_recvpipe;       /* inbound delay-bandwidth product */
        u_long rmx_sendpipe;       /* outbound delay-bandwidth product */
        u_long rmx_ssthresh;       /* outbound gateway buffer limit */
        u_long rmx_rtt;            /* estimated round trip time */
        u_long rmx_rttvar;         /* estimated rtt variance */
        u_long rmx_pksent;         /* packets sent using this route */
    };

Flags include the values:

    #define	RTF_UP        0x1       /* route usable */
    #define	RTF_GATEWAY   0x2       /* destination is a gateway */
    #define	RTF_HOST      0x4       /* host entry (net otherwise) */
    #define	RTF_REJECT    0x8       /* host or net unreachable */
    #define	RTF_DYNAMIC   0x10      /* created dynamically (by redirect) */
    #define	RTF_MODIFIED  0x20      /* modified dynamically (by redirect) */
    #define	RTF_DONE      0x40      /* message confirmed */
    #define	RTF_MASK      0x80      /* subnet mask present */
    #define RTF_CONNECTED 0x100     /* hosts on this route are neighbours */
    #define RTF_LLDATA    0x400     /* used by apps to add/del L2 entries */
    #define	RTF_STATIC    0x800     /* manually added */
    #define	RTF_BLACKHOLE 0x1000    /* just discard pkts (during updates) */
    #define	RTF_PROTO2    0x4000    /* protocol specific routing flag */
    #define	RTF_PROTO1    0x8000    /* protocol specific routing flag */
    #define	RTF_SRC       0x10000   /* route has fixed source address */
    #define	RTF_ANNOUNCE  0x20000   /* announce new ARP or NDP entry */
    #define	RTF_LOCAL     0x40000   /* route represents a local address */
    #define	RTF_BROADCAST 0x80000   /* route represents a bcast address */

Specifiers for metric values in rmx_locks and rtm_inits are:

    #define	RTV_MTU       0x1    /* init or lock _mtu */
    #define	RTV_HOPCOUNT  0x2    /* init or lock _hopcount */
    #define	RTV_EXPIRE    0x4    /* init or lock _expire */
    #define	RTV_RPIPE     0x8    /* init or lock _recvpipe */
    #define	RTV_SPIPE     0x10   /* init or lock _sendpipe */
    #define	RTV_SSTHRESH  0x20   /* init or lock _ssthresh */
    #define	RTV_RTT       0x40   /* init or lock _rtt */
    #define	RTV_RTTVAR    0x80   /* init or lock _rttvar */

Specifiers for which addresses are present in the messages are:

    #define RTA_DST       0x1    /* destination sockaddr present */
    #define RTA_GATEWAY   0x2    /* gateway sockaddr present */
    #define RTA_NETMASK   0x4    /* netmask sockaddr present */
    #define RTA_GENMASK   0x8    /* cloning mask sockaddr present */
    #define RTA_IFP       0x10   /* interface name sockaddr present */
    #define RTA_IFA       0x20   /* interface addr sockaddr present */
    #define RTA_AUTHOR    0x40   /* sockaddr for author of redirect */
    #define RTA_BRD       0x80   /* for NEWADDR, broadcast or p-p dest addr */
    #define RTA_TAG       0x100  /* route tag */

Flags for IPv6 addresses:

    #define IN6_IFF_ANYCAST		0x01	/* anycast address */
    #define IN6_IFF_TENTATIVE	0x02	/* tentative address */
    #define IN6_IFF_DUPLICATED	0x04	/* DAD detected duplicate */
    #define IN6_IFF_DETACHED	0x08	/* may be detached from the link */
    #define IN6_IFF_DEPRECATED	0x10	/* deprecated address */
    #define IN6_IFF_NODAD		0x20	/* don't perform DAD on this address
    					 * (used only at first SIOC* call)
    					 */
    #define IN6_IFF_AUTOCONF	0x40	/* autoconfigurable address. */
    #define IN6_IFF_TEMPORARY	0x80	/* temporary (anonymous) address. */

# SEE ALSO

socket(2), sysctl(3)

# HISTORY

Since NetBSD 8.0, `RTF_CLONED`, `RTF_CLONING`, `RTF_LLINFO`, `RTF_XRESOLVE` and `RTM_RESOLVE` were obsolete. `RTF_CONNECTED` and `RTF_LLDATA` appeared in NetBSD 8.0.

ifa_msghdr gained the fields ifam_pid and ifam_addrflags in NetBSD 8.0.

February 4, 2020 | NetBSD 11.0