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NETLINK(7)                          Linux Programmer's Manual                          NETLINK(7)



NAME
       netlink - communication between kernel and user space (AF_NETLINK)

SYNOPSIS
       #include <asm/types.h>
       #include <sys/socket.h>
       #include <linux/netlink.h>

       netlink_socket = socket(AF_NETLINK, socket_type, netlink_family);

DESCRIPTION
       Netlink  is used to transfer information between kernel and user-space processes.  It con‐
       sists of a standard sockets-based interface for user space processes and an internal  ker‐
       nel  API for kernel modules.  The internal kernel interface is not documented in this man‐
       ual page.  There is also an obsolete netlink interface via netlink character devices; this
       interface is not documented here and is provided only for backward compatibility.

       Netlink is a datagram-oriented service.  Both SOCK_RAW and SOCK_DGRAM are valid values for
       socket_type.  However, the netlink protocol does not distinguish between datagram and  raw
       sockets.

       netlink_family  selects  the kernel module or netlink group to communicate with.  The cur‐
       rently assigned netlink families are:

       NETLINK_ROUTE
              Receives routing and link updates and may be used  to  modify  the  routing  tables
              (both IPv4 and IPv6), IP addresses, link parameters, neighbor setups, queueing dis‐
              ciplines, traffic classes and packet classifiers (see rtnetlink(7)).

       NETLINK_W1
              Messages from 1-wire subsystem.

       NETLINK_USERSOCK
              Reserved for user-mode socket protocols.

       NETLINK_FIREWALL
              Transport IPv4 packets from netfilter to user space.  Used by ip_queue kernel  mod‐
              ule.

       NETLINK_INET_DIAG
              INET socket monitoring.

       NETLINK_NFLOG
              Netfilter/iptables ULOG.

       NETLINK_XFRM
              IPsec.

       NETLINK_SELINUX
              SELinux event notifications.

       NETLINK_ISCSI
              Open-iSCSI.

       NETLINK_AUDIT
              Auditing.

       NETLINK_FIB_LOOKUP
              Access to FIB lookup from user space.

       NETLINK_CONNECTOR
              Kernel  connector.   See  Documentation/connector/* in the Linux kernel source tree
              for further information.

       NETLINK_NETFILTER
              Netfilter subsystem.

       NETLINK_IP6_FW
              Transport IPv6 packets from netfilter to user space.  Used by ip6_queue kernel mod‐
              ule.

       NETLINK_DNRTMSG
              DECnet routing messages.

       NETLINK_KOBJECT_UEVENT
              Kernel messages to user space.

       NETLINK_GENERIC
              Generic netlink family for simplified netlink usage.

       Netlink  messages consist of a byte stream with one or multiple nlmsghdr headers and asso‐
       ciated payload.  The byte stream should be accessed only with the standard NLMSG_* macros.
       See netlink(3) for further information.

       In  multipart  messages  (multiple  nlmsghdr  headers  with associated payload in one byte
       stream) the first and all following headers have the NLM_F_MULTI flag set, except for  the
       last header which has the type NLMSG_DONE.

       After each nlmsghdr the payload follows.

           struct nlmsghdr {
               __u32 nlmsg_len;    /* Length of message including header. */
               __u16 nlmsg_type;   /* Type of message content. */
               __u16 nlmsg_flags;  /* Additional flags. */
               __u32 nlmsg_seq;    /* Sequence number. */
               __u32 nlmsg_pid;    /* Sender port ID. */
           };

       nlmsg_type  can be one of the standard message types: NLMSG_NOOP message is to be ignored,
       NLMSG_ERROR message signals an error and  the  payload  contains  an  nlmsgerr  structure,
       NLMSG_DONE message terminates a multipart message.

           struct nlmsgerr {
               int error;        /* Negative errno or 0 for acknowledgements */
               struct nlmsghdr msg;  /* Message header that caused the error */
           };

       A  netlink  family  usually specifies more message types, see the appropriate manual pages
       for that, for example, rtnetlink(7) for NETLINK_ROUTE.

       Standard flag bits in nlmsg_flags
       ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
       NLM_F_REQUEST   Must be set on all request messages.
       NLM_F_MULTI     The message is part of a  multipart  mes‐
                       sage terminated by NLMSG_DONE.
       NLM_F_ACK       Request for an acknowledgment on success.
       NLM_F_ECHO      Echo this request.


       Additional flag bits for GET requests
       ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
       NLM_F_ROOT     Return the complete table instead of a single entry.
       NLM_F_MATCH    Return  all entries matching criteria passed in mes‐
                      sage content.  Not implemented yet.
       NLM_F_ATOMIC   Return an atomic snapshot of the table.
       NLM_F_DUMP     Convenience macro; equivalent to
                      (NLM_F_ROOT|NLM_F_MATCH).

       Note that NLM_F_ATOMIC requires the CAP_NET_ADMIN capability or an effective UID of 0.

       Additional flag bits for NEW requests
       ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
       NLM_F_REPLACE   Replace existing matching object.
       NLM_F_EXCL      Don't replace if the object already exists.
       NLM_F_CREATE    Create object if it doesn't already exist.
       NLM_F_APPEND    Add to the end of the object list.

       nlmsg_seq and nlmsg_pid are used to track messages.  nlmsg_pid shows  the  origin  of  the
       message.   Note  that  there isn't a 1:1 relationship between nlmsg_pid and the PID of the
       process if the message originated from a netlink socket.  See the ADDRESS FORMATS  section
       for further information.

       Both nlmsg_seq and nlmsg_pid are opaque to netlink core.

       Netlink  is not a reliable protocol.  It tries its best to deliver a message to its desti‐
       nation(s), but may drop messages when an out-of-memory condition or  other  error  occurs.
       For  reliable transfer the sender can request an acknowledgement from the receiver by set‐
       ting the NLM_F_ACK flag.  An acknowledgment is an NLMSG_ERROR packet with the error  field
       set  to  0.   The application must generate acknowledgements for received messages itself.
       The kernel tries to send an NLMSG_ERROR message for every failed packet.  A  user  process
       should follow this convention too.

       However,  reliable transmissions from kernel to user are impossible in any case.  The ker‐
       nel can't send a netlink message if the socket buffer is full: the message will be dropped
       and  the  kernel  and  the  user-space process will no longer have the same view of kernel
       state.  It is up to the application to detect when this happens  (via  the  ENOBUFS  error
       returned by recvmsg(2)) and resynchronize.

   Address formats
       The  sockaddr_nl  structure  describes a netlink client in user space or in the kernel.  A
       sockaddr_nl can be either unicast (only sent to one peer) or  sent  to  netlink  multicast
       groups (nl_groups not equal 0).

           struct sockaddr_nl {
               sa_family_t     nl_family;  /* AF_NETLINK */
               unsigned short  nl_pad;     /* Zero. */
               pid_t           nl_pid;     /* Port ID. */
               __u32           nl_groups;  /* Multicast groups mask. */
           };

       nl_pid  is  the unicast address of netlink socket.  It's always 0 if the destination is in
       the kernel.  For a user-space process, nl_pid is usually the PID of the process owning the
       destination  socket.   However,  nl_pid  identifies a netlink socket, not a process.  If a
       process owns several netlink sockets, then nl_pid can be equal to the process ID only  for
       at  most  one  socket.   There  are two ways to assign nl_pid to a netlink socket.  If the
       application sets nl_pid before calling bind(2), then it is up to the application  to  make
       sure  that  nl_pid  is  unique.  If the application sets it to 0, the kernel takes care of
       assigning it.  The kernel assigns the process ID to the first netlink socket  the  process
       opens  and  assigns  a unique nl_pid to every netlink socket that the process subsequently
       creates.

       nl_groups is a bit mask with every bit representing a netlink group number.  Each  netlink
       family  has  a  set  of  32  multicast  groups.  When bind(2) is called on the socket, the
       nl_groups field in the sockaddr_nl should be set to a bit mask  of  the  groups  which  it
       wishes  to listen to.  The default value for this field is zero which means that no multi‐
       casts will be received.  A socket may multicast messages to any of the multicast groups by
       setting  nl_groups  to  a  bit  mask  of  the  groups  it  wishes to send to when it calls
       sendmsg(2) or does a connect(2).  Only processes  with  an  effective  UID  of  0  or  the
       CAP_NET_ADMIN  capability  may  send  or listen to a netlink multicast group.  Since Linux
       2.6.13, messages can't be broadcast to multiple groups.  Any replies to a message received
       for  a  multicast  group  should  be sent back to the sending PID and the multicast group.
       Some Linux kernel subsystems may additionally allow other users  to  send  and/or  receive
       messages.   As  at  Linux 3.0, the NETLINK_KOBJECT_UEVENT, NETLINK_GENERIC, NETLINK_ROUTE,
       and NETLINK_SELINUX groups allow other users to receive messages.  No groups  allow  other
       users to send messages.

VERSIONS
       The socket interface to netlink is a new feature of Linux 2.2.

       Linux 2.0 supported a more primitive device-based netlink interface (which is still avail‐
       able as a compatibility option).  This obsolete interface is not described here.

       NETLINK_SELINUX appeared in Linux 2.6.4.

       NETLINK_AUDIT appeared in Linux 2.6.6.

       NETLINK_KOBJECT_UEVENT appeared in Linux 2.6.10.

       NETLINK_W1 and NETLINK_FIB_LOOKUP appeared in Linux 2.6.13.

       NETLINK_INET_DIAG, NETLINK_CONNECTOR and NETLINK_NETFILTER appeared in Linux 2.6.14.

       NETLINK_GENERIC and NETLINK_ISCSI appeared in Linux 2.6.15.

NOTES
       It is often better to use netlink via libnetlink or libnl than via  the  low-level  kernel
       interface.

BUGS
       This manual page is not complete.

EXAMPLE
       The following example creates a NETLINK_ROUTE netlink socket which will listen to the RTM‐
       GRP_LINK (network interface create/delete/up/down  events)  and  RTMGRP_IPV4_IFADDR  (IPv4
       addresses add/delete events) multicast groups.

           struct sockaddr_nl sa;

           memset(&sa, 0, sizeof(sa));
           sa.nl_family = AF_NETLINK;
           sa.nl_groups = RTMGRP_LINK | RTMGRP_IPV4_IFADDR;

           fd = socket(AF_NETLINK, SOCK_RAW, NETLINK_ROUTE);
           bind(fd, (struct sockaddr *) &sa, sizeof(sa));

       The  next  example demonstrates how to send a netlink message to the kernel (pid 0).  Note
       that the application must take care of message sequence numbers in order to reliably track
       acknowledgements.

           struct nlmsghdr *nh;    /* The nlmsghdr with payload to send. */
           struct sockaddr_nl sa;
           struct iovec iov = { nh, nh->nlmsg_len };
           struct msghdr msg;

           msg = { &sa, sizeof(sa), &iov, 1, NULL, 0, 0 };
           memset(&sa, 0, sizeof(sa));
           sa.nl_family = AF_NETLINK;
           nh->nlmsg_pid = 0;
           nh->nlmsg_seq = ++sequence_number;
           /* Request an ack from kernel by setting NLM_F_ACK. */
           nh->nlmsg_flags |= NLM_F_ACK;

           sendmsg(fd, &msg, 0);

       And the last example is about reading netlink message.

           int len;
           char buf[4096];
           struct iovec iov = { buf, sizeof(buf) };
           struct sockaddr_nl sa;
           struct msghdr msg;
           struct nlmsghdr *nh;

           msg = { &sa, sizeof(sa), &iov, 1, NULL, 0, 0 };
           len = recvmsg(fd, &msg, 0);

           for (nh = (struct nlmsghdr *) buf; NLMSG_OK (nh, len);
                nh = NLMSG_NEXT (nh, len)) {
               /* The end of multipart message. */
               if (nh->nlmsg_type == NLMSG_DONE)
                   return;

               if (nh->nlmsg_type == NLMSG_ERROR)
                   /* Do some error handling. */
               ...

               /* Continue with parsing payload. */
               ...
           }

SEE ALSO
       cmsg(3), netlink(3), capabilities(7), rtnetlink(7)

       information about libnetlink ⟨ftp://ftp.inr.ac.ru/ip-routing/iproute2*⟩

       information about libnl ⟨http://people.suug.ch/~tgr/libnl/⟩

       RFC 3549 "Linux Netlink as an IP Services Protocol"

COLOPHON
       This  page  is  part of release 3.74 of the Linux man-pages project.  A description of the
       project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of  this  page,  can  be
       found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



Linux                                       2013-03-15                                 NETLINK(7)


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