xref: /dragonfly/share/man/man4/inet.4 (revision d4ef6694)
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28.\"     From: @(#)inet.4	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93
29.\" $FreeBSD: src/share/man/man4/inet.4,v 1.11.2.6 2001/12/17 11:30:12 ru Exp $
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32.Dd February 14, 1995
33.Dt INET 4
34.Os
35.Sh NAME
36.Nm inet
37.Nd Internet protocol family
38.Sh SYNOPSIS
39.In sys/types.h
40.In netinet/in.h
41.Sh DESCRIPTION
42The Internet protocol family is a collection of protocols
43layered atop the
44.Em Internet  Protocol
45.Pq Tn IP
46transport layer, and utilizing the Internet address format.
47The Internet family provides protocol support for the
48.Dv SOCK_STREAM , SOCK_DGRAM ,
49and
50.Dv SOCK_RAW
51socket types; the
52.Dv SOCK_RAW
53interface provides access to the
54.Tn IP
55protocol.
56.Sh ADDRESSING
57Internet addresses are four byte quantities, stored in
58network standard format (on the
59.Tn VAX
60these are word and byte
61reversed).  The include file
62.In netinet/in.h
63defines this address
64as a discriminated union.
65.Pp
66Sockets bound to the Internet protocol family utilize
67the following addressing structure,
68.Bd -literal -offset indent
69struct sockaddr_in {
70	u_char	sin_len;
71	u_char	sin_family;
72	u_short	sin_port;
73	struct	in_addr sin_addr;
74	char	sin_zero[8];
75};
76.Ed
77.Pp
78Sockets may be created with the local address
79.Dv INADDR_ANY
80to affect
81.Dq wildcard
82matching on incoming messages.
83The address in a
84.Xr connect 2
85or
86.Xr sendto 2
87call may be given as
88.Dv INADDR_ANY
89to mean
90.Dq this host .
91The distinguished address
92.Dv INADDR_BROADCAST
93is allowed as a shorthand for the broadcast address on the primary
94network if the first network configured supports broadcast.
95.Sh PROTOCOLS
96The Internet protocol family is comprised of
97the
98.Tn IP
99network protocol, Internet Control
100Message Protocol
101.Pq Tn ICMP ,
102Internet Group Management Protocol
103.Pq Tn IGMP ,
104Transmission Control
105Protocol
106.Pq Tn TCP ,
107and User Datagram Protocol
108.Pq Tn UDP .
109.Tn TCP
110is used to support the
111.Dv SOCK_STREAM
112abstraction while
113.Tn UDP
114is used to support the
115.Dv SOCK_DGRAM
116abstraction.  A raw interface to
117.Tn IP
118is available
119by creating an Internet socket of type
120.Dv SOCK_RAW .
121The
122.Tn ICMP
123message protocol is accessible from a raw socket.
124.Pp
125The 32-bit Internet address contains both network and host parts.
126However, direct examination of addresses is discouraged.  For those
127programs which absolutely need to break addresses into their component
128parts, the following
129.Xr ioctl 2
130commands are provided for a datagram socket in the Internet domain;
131they have the same form as the
132.Dv SIOCSIFADDR
133and
134.Dv SIOCGIFADDR
135commands (see
136.Xr intro 4 ) .
137.Bl -tag -width ".Dv SIOCSIFNETMASK"
138.It Dv SIOCSIFNETMASK
139Set interface network mask.
140The network mask defines the network part of the address;
141if it contains more of the address than the address type would indicate,
142then subnets are in use.
143.It Dv SIOCGIFNETMASK
144Get interface network mask.
145.El
146.Sh ROUTING
147The current implementation of Internet protocols includes some routing-table
148adaptations to provide enhanced caching of certain end-to-end
149information necessary for Transaction TCP and Path MTU Discovery.  The
150following changes are the most significant:
151.Bl -enum
152.It
153All IP routes, except those with the
154.Dv RTF_CLONING
155flag and those to multicast destinations, have the
156.Dv RTF_PRCLONING
157flag forcibly enabled (they are thus said to be
158.Dq "protocol cloning" ) .
159.It
160When the last reference to an IP route is dropped, the route is
161examined to determine if it was created by cloning such a route.  If
162this is the case, the
163.Dv RTF_PROTO3
164flag is turned on, and the expiration timer is initialized to go off in
165.Va net.inet.ip.rtexpire
166seconds.
167If such a route is re-referenced, the flag and expiration timer are reset.
168.It
169A kernel timeout runs once every ten minutes, or sooner if there are
170soon-to-expire routes in the kernel routing table, and deletes the
171expired routes.
172.El
173.Pp
174A dynamic process is in place to modify the value of
175.Va net.inet.ip.rtexpire
176if the number of cached routes grows too large.
177If after an expiration run there are still more than
178.Va net.inet.ip.rtmaxcache
179unreferenced routes remaining, the rtexpire
180value is multiplied by \(34, and any routes which have longer
181expiration times have those times adjusted.  This process is damped
182somewhat by specification of a minimum rtexpire value
183.Va ( net.inet.ip.rtminexpire ) ,
184and by restricting the reduction to once in a ten-minute period.
185.Pp
186If some external process deletes the original route from which a
187protocol-cloned route was generated, the ``child route'' is deleted.
188(This is actually a generic mechanism in the routing code support for
189protocol-requested cloning.)
190.Pp
191No attempt is made to manage routes which were not created by protocol
192cloning; these are assumed to be static, under the management of an
193external routing process, or under the management of a link layer
194(e.g.,
195.Tn ARP
196for Ethernets).
197.Pp
198Only certain types of network activity will result in the cloning of a
199route using this mechanism.  Specifically, those protocols (such as
200.Tn TCP
201and
202.Tn UDP )
203which themselves cache a long-lasting reference to route for a destination
204will trigger the mechanism; whereas raw
205.Tn IP
206packets, whether locally-generated or forwarded, will not.
207.Ss MIB Variables
208A number of variables are implemented in the net.inet branch of the
209.Xr sysctl 3
210MIB.
211In addition to the variables supported by the transport protocols
212(for which the respective manual pages may be consulted),
213the following general variables are defined:
214.Bl -tag -width IPCTL_FASTFORWARDING
215.It Dv IPCTL_FORWARDING
216.Pq ip.forwarding
217Boolean: enable/disable forwarding of IP packets.
218Defaults to off.
219.It Dv IPCTL_FASTFORWARDING
220.Pq ip.fastforwarding
221Boolean: enable/disable the use of fast IP forwarding code.
222Defaults to off.
223When fast forwarding is enabled, IP packets are forwarded directly to
224the appropriate network interface with a minimal validity checking, which
225greatly improves the throughput.  On the other hand, they bypass the
226standard procedures, such as IP option processing and
227.Xr ipfirewall 4
228checking.
229It is not guaranteed that every packet will be fast-forwarded.
230.It Dv IPCTL_SENDREDIRECTS
231.Pq ip.redirect
232Boolean: enable/disable sending of ICMP redirects in response to
233unforwardable
234.Tn IP
235packets.
236Defaults to on.
237.It Dv IPCTL_DEFTTL
238.Pq ip.ttl
239Integer: default time-to-live
240.Pq Dq TTL
241to use for outgoing
242.Tn IP
243packets.
244.It Dv IPCTL_SOURCEROUTE
245.Pq ip.sourceroute
246Boolean: enable/disable forwarding of source-routed IP packets (default false).
247.It Dv IPCTL_RTEXPIRE
248.Pq ip.rtexpire
249Integer: lifetime in seconds of protocol-cloned
250.Tn IP
251routes after the last reference drops (default one hour).  This value
252varies dynamically as described above.
253.It Dv IPCTL_RTMINEXPIRE
254.Pq ip.rtminexpire
255Integer: minimum value of ip.rtexpire (default ten seconds).  This
256value has no effect on user modifications, but restricts the dynamic
257adaptation described above.
258.It Dv IPCTL_RTMAXCACHE
259.Pq ip.rtmaxcache
260Integer: trigger level of cached, unreferenced, protocol-cloned routes
261which initiates dynamic adaptation (default 128).
262.El
263.Sh SEE ALSO
264.Xr ioctl 2 ,
265.Xr socket 2 ,
266.Xr sysctl 3 ,
267.Xr icmp 4 ,
268.Xr intro 4 ,
269.Xr ip 4 ,
270.Xr ipfirewall 4 ,
271.Xr tcp 4 ,
272.Xr udp 4
273.Rs
274.%T "An Introductory 4.3 BSD Interprocess Communication Tutorial"
275.%B PS1
276.%N 7
277.Re
278.Rs
279.%T "An Advanced 4.3 BSD Interprocess Communication Tutorial"
280.%B PS1
281.%N 8
282.Re
283.Sh CAVEAT
284The Internet protocol support is subject to change as
285the Internet protocols develop.  Users should not depend
286on details of the current implementation, but rather
287the services exported.
288.Sh HISTORY
289The
290.Nm
291protocol interface appeared in
292.Bx 4.2 .
293The
294.Dq protocol cloning
295code appeared in
296.Fx 2.1 .
297