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1.\" Copyright (c) 2008 Petr Baudis <pasky@suse.cz>
2.\" and copyright (c) 2009, Linux Foundation, written by Michael Kerrisk
3.\" <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
4.\"
93015253 5.\" %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM)
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6.\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
7.\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
8.\" preserved on all copies.
9.\"
10.\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
11.\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
12.\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
13.\" permission notice identical to this one.
14.\"
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16.\" manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date. The author(s) assume no
17.\" responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from
18.\" the use of the information contained herein. The author(s) may not
19.\" have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual,
20.\" which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
21.\" professionally.
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23.\" Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
24.\" the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.
4b72fb64 25.\" %%%LICENSE_END
9f9c6de1 26.\"
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27.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
28.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
29.\" are met:
30.\"
31.\" 2008-12-08 Petr Baudis <pasky@suse.cz>
32.\" Rewrite the BSD manpage in the Linux man pages style and account
33.\" for glibc specificities, provide an example.
34.\" 2009-01-14 mtk, many edits and changes, rewrote example program.
35.\"
5722c835 36.TH GETIFADDRS 3 2015-07-23 "GNU" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
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37.SH NAME
38getifaddrs, freeifaddrs \- get interface addresses
39.SH SYNOPSIS
40.nf
41.B #include <sys/types.h>
42.B #include <ifaddrs.h>
43.sp
44.BI "int getifaddrs(struct ifaddrs **" "ifap" );
45.sp
46.BI "void freeifaddrs(struct ifaddrs *" "ifa" );
47.fi
48.SH DESCRIPTION
49The
50.BR getifaddrs ()
51function creates a linked list of structures describing
52the network interfaces of the local system,
53and stores the address of the first item of the list in
54.IR *ifap .
55The list consists of
56.I ifaddrs
57structures, defined as follows:
58.sp
59.in +4n
60.nf
61struct ifaddrs {
62 struct ifaddrs *ifa_next; /* Next item in list */
63 char *ifa_name; /* Name of interface */
64 unsigned int ifa_flags; /* Flags from SIOCGIFFLAGS */
65 struct sockaddr *ifa_addr; /* Address of interface */
66 struct sockaddr *ifa_netmask; /* Netmask of interface */
67 union {
68 struct sockaddr *ifu_broadaddr;
69 /* Broadcast address of interface */
70 struct sockaddr *ifu_dstaddr;
71 /* Point-to-point destination address */
72 } ifa_ifu;
73#define ifa_broadaddr ifa_ifu.ifu_broadaddr
74#define ifa_dstaddr ifa_ifu.ifu_dstaddr
75 void *ifa_data; /* Address-specific data */
76};
77.fi
78.in
79.PP
80The
81.I ifa_next
82field contains a pointer to the next structure on the list,
83or NULL if this is the last item of the list.
84.PP
85The
86.I ifa_name
87points to the null-terminated interface name.
88.\" The constant
89.\" .B IF NAMESIZE
90.\" indicates the maximum length of this field.
91.PP
92The
93.I ifa_flags
94field contains the interface flags, as returned by the
95.B SIOCGIFFLAGS
96.BR ioctl (2)
97operation (see
98.BR netdevice (7)
99for a list of these flags).
100.PP
101The
102.I ifa_addr
103field points to a structure containing the interface address.
104(The
105.I sa_family
310672d6 106subfield should be consulted to determine the format of the
413b9757 107address structure.)
b437fdd9 108This field may contain a null pointer.
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109.PP
110The
111.I ifa_netmask
112field points to a structure containing the netmask associated with
113.IR ifa_addr ,
114if applicable for the address family.
b437fdd9 115This field may contain a null pointer.
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116.PP
117Depending on whether the bit
118.B IFF_BROADCAST
119or
120.B IFF_POINTOPOINT
121is set in
122.I ifa_flags
123(only one can be set at a time),
124either
125.I ifa_broadaddr
126will contain the broadcast address associated with
127.I ifa_addr
128(if applicable for the address family) or
129.I ifa_dstaddr
130will contain the destination address of the point-to-point interface.
131.PP
132The
133.I ifa_data
134field points to a buffer containing address-family-specific data;
135this field may be NULL if there is no such data for this interface.
136.PP
137The data returned by
138.BR getifaddrs ()
139is dynamically allocated and should be freed using
140.BR freeifaddrs ()
141when no longer needed.
0bb542ed 142.SH RETURN VALUE
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143On success,
144.BR getifaddrs ()
145returns zero;
c3074d70 146on error, \-1 is returned, and
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147.I errno
148is set appropriately.
149.SH ERRORS
150.BR getifaddrs ()
151may fail and set
152.I errno
153for any of the errors specified for
154.BR socket (2),
155.BR bind (2),
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156.BR getsockname (2),
157.BR recvmsg (2),
158.BR sendto (2),
159.BR malloc (3),
160or
161.BR realloc (3).
162.SH VERSIONS
163The
164.BR getifaddrs ()
165function first appeared in glibc 2.3, but before glibc 2.3.3,
33a0ccb2 166the implementation supported only IPv4 addresses;
413b9757 167IPv6 support was added in glibc 2.3.3.
33a0ccb2 168Support of address families other than IPv4 is available only
d664f7ce 169on kernels that support netlink.
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170.SH ATTRIBUTES
171For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see
172.BR attributes (7).
173.TS
174allbox;
175lbw27 lb lb
176l l l.
177Interface Attribute Value
178T{
179.BR getifaddrs (),
180.BR freeifaddrs ()
181T} Thread safety MT-Safe
182.TE
183
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184.SH CONFORMING TO
185Not in POSIX.1-2001.
186This function first appeared in BSDi and is
187present on the BSD systems, but with slightly different
188semantics documented\(emreturning one entry per interface,
189not per address.
190This means
191.I ifa_addr
192and other fields can actually be NULL if the interface has no address,
193and no link-level address is returned if the interface has an IP address
194assigned.
195Also, the way of choosing either
196.I ifa_broadaddr
197or
198.I ifa_dstaddr
199differs on various systems.
200.\" , but the BSD-derived documentation generally
201.\" appears to be confused and obsolete on this point.
202.\" i.e., commonly it still says one of them will be NULL, even if
203.\" the ifa_ifu union is already present
204.SH NOTES
205The addresses returned on Linux will usually be the IPv4 and IPv6 addresses
206assigned to the interface, but also one
207.B AF_PACKET
208address per interface containing lower-level details about the interface
209and its physical layer.
210In this case, the
211.I ifa_data
212field may contain a pointer to a
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213.IR "struct rtnl_link_stats" ,
214defined in
215.IR <linux/if_link.h>
216(in Linux 2.4 and earlier,
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217.IR "struct net_device_stats" ,
218defined in
bbeb81bd 219.IR <linux/netdevice.h> ),
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220which contains various interface attributes and statistics.
221.SH EXAMPLE
222The program below demonstrates the use of
223.BR getifaddrs (),
224.BR freeifaddrs (),
225and
d664f7ce 226.BR getnameinfo (3).
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227Here is what we see when running this program on one system:
228.in +4n
229.nf
230
231$ \fB./a.out\fP
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232lo AF_PACKET (17)
233 tx_packets = 524; rx_packets = 524
234 tx_bytes = 38788; rx_bytes = 38788
235wlp3s0 AF_PACKET (17)
236 tx_packets = 108391; rx_packets = 130245
237 tx_bytes = 30420659; rx_bytes = 94230014
238em1 AF_PACKET (17)
239 tx_packets = 0; rx_packets = 0
240 tx_bytes = 0; rx_bytes = 0
241lo AF_INET (2)
242 address: <127.0.0.1>
243wlp3s0 AF_INET (2)
244 address: <192.168.235.137>
245lo AF_INET6 (10)
246 address: <::1>
247wlp3s0 AF_INET6 (10)
248 address: <fe80::7ee9:d3ff:fef5:1a91%wlp3s0>
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249.fi
250.in
251.SS Program source
252\&
253.nf
83a1c50f 254#define _GNU_SOURCE /* To get defns of NI_MAXSERV and NI_MAXHOST */
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255#include <arpa/inet.h>
256#include <sys/socket.h>
257#include <netdb.h>
258#include <ifaddrs.h>
259#include <stdio.h>
260#include <stdlib.h>
261#include <unistd.h>
83a1c50f 262#include <linux/if_link.h>
413b9757 263
83a1c50f 264int main(int argc, char *argv[])
413b9757 265{
54457ec1 266 struct ifaddrs *ifaddr, *ifa;
83a1c50f 267 int family, s, n;
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268 char host[NI_MAXHOST];
269
270 if (getifaddrs(&ifaddr) == \-1) {
271 perror("getifaddrs");
272 exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
273 }
274
54457ec1
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275 /* Walk through linked list, maintaining head pointer so we
276 can free list later */
277
83a1c50f 278 for (ifa = ifaddr, n = 0; ifa != NULL; ifa = ifa\->ifa_next, n++) {
ebd05fec
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279 if (ifa\->ifa_addr == NULL)
280 continue;
281
54457ec1 282 family = ifa\->ifa_addr\->sa_family;
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283
284 /* Display interface name and family (including symbolic
285 form of the latter for the common families) */
286
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287 printf("%\-8s %s (%d)\\n",
288 ifa\->ifa_name,
289 (family == AF_PACKET) ? "AF_PACKET" :
290 (family == AF_INET) ? "AF_INET" :
291 (family == AF_INET6) ? "AF_INET6" : "???",
292 family);
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293
294 /* For an AF_INET* interface address, display the address */
295
296 if (family == AF_INET || family == AF_INET6) {
54457ec1 297 s = getnameinfo(ifa\->ifa_addr,
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298 (family == AF_INET) ? sizeof(struct sockaddr_in) :
299 sizeof(struct sockaddr_in6),
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300 host, NI_MAXHOST,
301 NULL, 0, NI_NUMERICHOST);
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302 if (s != 0) {
303 printf("getnameinfo() failed: %s\\n", gai_strerror(s));
304 exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
305 }
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306
307 printf("\\t\\taddress: <%s>\\n", host);
308
309 } else if (family == AF_PACKET && ifa\->ifa_data != NULL) {
310 struct rtnl_link_stats *stats = ifa\->ifa_data;
311
312 printf("\\t\\ttx_packets = %10u; rx_packets = %10u\\n"
313 "\\t\\ttx_bytes = %10u; rx_bytes = %10u\\n",
314 stats\->tx_packets, stats\->rx_packets,
315 stats\->tx_bytes, stats\->rx_bytes);
413b9757 316 }
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317 }
318
319 freeifaddrs(ifaddr);
320 exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
321}
322.fi
323.SH SEE ALSO
324.BR bind (2),
325.BR getsockname (2),
326.BR socket (2),
327.BR packet (7),
328.BR ifconfig (8)