NDP(4P) Protocols NDP(4P)

NAME


ndp, NDP - Neighbor Discovery Protocol

SYNOPSIS


#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <sys/sockio.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <net/if.h>

s = socket(PF_INET6, SOCK_DGRAM, 0);

struct lifreq lifr;
ioctl(s, SIOCLIFGETND, &lifr);
ioctl(s, SIOCLIFSETND, &lifr);
ioctl(s, SIOCLIFDELND, &lifr);

DESCRIPTION


The Neighbor Discovery Protocol (NDP) is a protocol used to distribute and
request information about neighboring IPv6 systems on the local network,
much like ARP(4P) for IPv4. NDP is also responsible for spreading
information about the network gateway and how hosts should configure
themselves (see in.ndpd(8) for more on how this happens).

APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACE


The operating system provides several ioctls to help manipulate the
mappings obtained through NDP. They are SIOCLIFGETND, SIOCLIFSETND, and
SIOCLIFDELND, for getting, setting, and deleting respectively. Each of
these ioctls takes a struct lifreq (see if(4P) for details), where the
lifr_lifru field is of type struct lif_nd_req:

typedef struct lif_nd_req {
struct sockaddr_storage lnr_addr;
uint8_t lnr_state_create;
uint8_t lnr_state_same_lla;
uint8_t lnr_state_diff_lla;
int lnr_hdw_len;
int lnr_flags;
int lnr_pad0;
char lnr_hdw_addr[ND_MAX_HDW_LEN];
} lif_nd_req_t;

The lnr_addr field should be filled in with an IPv6 address (see
sockaddr_in6(3SOCKET)), and the lnr_hdw_addr is the link-layer address of
length lnr_hdw_len.

State flags for lnr_state_create, lnr_state_same_lla, and
lnr_state_diff_lla can be set to one of the following values:

ND_UNCHANGED For ioctls that don't modify state

ND_INCOMPLETE Address resolution is currently in progress

ND_REACHABLE The link-layer address has recently been reachable

ND_STALE The link-layer address may be unreachable, and the
system shouldn't do anything

ND_DELAY This entry hasn't yet started sending Neighbor
Solicitations

ND_PROBE The operating system is currently sending out
Neighbor Solicitations for the address

ND_UNREACHABLE The link-layer address is unreachable, and this
entry is going to be deleted.

When creating a new entry, the only valid values for lnr_state_create are
ND_REACHABLE and ND_STALE. Any other value will return EINVAL. The
lnr_state_same_lla and lnr_state_diff_lla fields are reserved for future
use and can be safely set to ND_UNCHANGED and ND_STALE respectively.

Flags that can be placed in lnr_flags are:

NDF_ISROUTER_ON Mark this entry as being a router. This will cause
Neighbor Advertisements for this address to be sent
with the R-bit (Router).

NDF_ISROUTER_OFF If this entry was flagged as being a router, remove
the flag.

NDF_ANYCAST_ON Mark this entry as being for an anycast address.
This prevents sending Neighbor Advertisements with
the O-bit (Override).

NDF_ANYCAST_OFF If this entry was flagged as an anycast address,
remove the flag.

NDF_STATIC Prevent this entry from being deleted by the
system.

When using SIOCLIFGETND, these flags represent the current state of the
corresponding Neighbor Cache Entry. When using SIOCLIFSETND, these flags
represent what changes should be applied to the underlying entry.

The only fields that need to be set for the SIOCLIFGETND or SIOCLIFDELND
ioctls are lifr_name and lnr_addr. All other fields should be zeroed out.
After successfully getting an entry, the other fields will be filled in.
When using SIOCLIFSETND, all fields should be set to an appropriate value,
as described above, with the exception of lnr_pad0, which is unused and
only exists for padding purposes.

After performing the ioctl, the following errors may be returned through
the global errno variable:

EAFNOSUPPORT A non-IPv6 socket was used to perform the ioctl.

EINVAL The request contents were bad. This could be
because conflicting flags were used, the specified
interface wasn't logical unit zero, or another
reason.

ENOMEM The system ran out of memory for internal data
structures.

ENXIO The specified interface does not exist.

EPERM The caller does not have permission to modify the
Neighbor Cache Entries associated with this
interface. They may be lacking the
PRIV_SYS_NET_CONFIG privilege (see privileges(7)),
or the interface is managed by IPMP (IP Network
Multipathing).

ESRCH There is no entry matching the specified address.

EXAMPLES


The following examples demonstrate how to get and set NDP mappings using
the provided ioctls. They can be compiled by using a C compiler and
linking against the sockets library.

Example 1: Getting a mapping
$ gcc -Wall -lsocket -o get get.c
$ cat get.c
/*
* Example of getting a mapping for a node name.
*/
#include <strings.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <sys/sockio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <netdb.h>
#include <net/if.h>

int get(char *host) {
struct lifreq lifr;
struct addrinfo hints, *serverinfo, *p;
int err, s;

bzero(&hints, sizeof (struct addrinfo));
hints.ai_family = PF_INET6;
hints.ai_protocol = IPPROTO_IPV6;

if ((err = getaddrinfo(host, NULL, &hints, &serverinfo)) != 0) {
(void) fprintf(stderr, "Unable to lookup %s: %s\n", host,
gai_strerror(err));
return (1);
}

s = socket(AF_INET6, SOCK_DGRAM, 0);
if (s < 0) {
perror("Failed to open IPv6 socket");
return (1);
}

for (p = serverinfo; p != NULL; p = p->ai_next) {
/* Zero out structure */
bzero(&lifr, sizeof (struct lifreq));
(void) strlcpy(lifr.lifr_name, "net0",
sizeof (lifr.lifr_name));
(void) memcpy(&lifr.lifr_nd.lnr_addr, p->ai_addr,
sizeof (struct sockaddr_storage));

/* Get mapping */
if (ioctl(s, SIOCLIFGETND, &lifr) < 0) {
perror("Unable to get NDP mapping");
continue;
}

/*
* lifr.lifr_nd.lnr_hdw_addr now contains the MAC address,
* and can be used as desired.
*/
}

/*
* Clean up linked list.
*/
freeaddrinfo(serverinfo);
return (0);
}

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
if (argc < 2)
exit(1);
return (get(argv[1]));
}

Deleting a mapping would work similarly, except that instead of using
SIOCLIFGETND, you would instead use the SIOCLIFDELND ioctl.

Example 2: Adding a mapping
$ gcc -Wall -lsocket -o set set.c
$ cat set.c
/*
* Example of setting a mapping to an all-zero Ethernet address.
*/
#include <strings.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <sys/sockio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <netdb.h>
#include <net/if.h>

int set(char *host) {
struct lifreq lifr;
struct addrinfo hints, *serverinfo, *p;
int err, s;

bzero(&hints, sizeof (struct addrinfo));
hints.ai_family = PF_INET6;
hints.ai_protocol = IPPROTO_IPV6;

if ((err = getaddrinfo(host, NULL, &hints, &serverinfo)) != 0) {
(void) fprintf(stderr, "Unable to lookup %s: %s\n", host,
gai_strerror(err));
return (1);
}

s = socket(AF_INET6, SOCK_DGRAM, 0);
if (s < 0) {
perror("Failed to open IPv6 socket");
return (1);
}

for (p = serverinfo; p != NULL; p = p->ai_next) {
/* Zero out structure */
bzero(&lifr, sizeof (struct lifreq));
(void) strlcpy(lifr.lifr_name, "net0",
sizeof (lifr.lifr_name));
(void) memcpy(&lifr.lifr_nd.lnr_addr, p->ai_addr,
sizeof (struct sockaddr_storage));

lifr.lifr_nd.lnr_state_create = ND_REACHABLE;
lifr.lifr_nd.lnr_flags = NDF_STATIC;

/* Get mapping */
if (ioctl(s, SIOCLIFSETND, &lifr) < 0) {
perror("Unable to set NDP mapping");
continue;
}
}

/*
* Clean up linked list.
*/
freeaddrinfo(serverinfo);
return (0);
}

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
if (argc < 2)
exit(1);
return (set(argv[1]));
}

SEE ALSO


sockaddr_in6(3SOCKET), privileges(7), ifconfig(8), in.ndpd(8), ndp(8)

Narten, T., Nordmark, E., Simpson, W., and Soliman, H., RFC 4861, Neighbor
Discovery for IP version 6, September 2007.

illumos December 2, 2023 illumos