]> git.ipfire.org Git - thirdparty/man-pages.git/blame - man3/getifaddrs.3
proc.5: wfix (mainly "only")
[thirdparty/man-pages.git] / man3 / getifaddrs.3
CommitLineData
413b9757
PB
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)
413b9757
PB
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.\"
15.\" Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
16.\" manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date.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.
22.\"
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.\"
413b9757
PB
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.\"
bbeb81bd 36.TH GETIFADDRS 3 2012-11-11 "GNU" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
413b9757
PB
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.)
d6eac69b 108This field may contain a NULL pointer.
413b9757
PB
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.
d6eac69b 115This field may contain a NULL pointer.
413b9757
PB
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
413b9757
PB
143On success,
144.BR getifaddrs ()
145returns zero;
c3074d70 146on error, \-1 is returned, and
413b9757
PB
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),
413b9757
PB
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,
166the implementation only supported IPv4 addresses;
167IPv6 support was added in glibc 2.3.3.
d664f7ce
PB
168Support of address families other than IPv4 is only available
169on kernels that support netlink.
413b9757
PB
170.SH CONFORMING TO
171Not in POSIX.1-2001.
172This function first appeared in BSDi and is
173present on the BSD systems, but with slightly different
174semantics documented\(emreturning one entry per interface,
175not per address.
176This means
177.I ifa_addr
178and other fields can actually be NULL if the interface has no address,
179and no link-level address is returned if the interface has an IP address
180assigned.
181Also, the way of choosing either
182.I ifa_broadaddr
183or
184.I ifa_dstaddr
185differs on various systems.
186.\" , but the BSD-derived documentation generally
187.\" appears to be confused and obsolete on this point.
188.\" i.e., commonly it still says one of them will be NULL, even if
189.\" the ifa_ifu union is already present
190.SH NOTES
191The addresses returned on Linux will usually be the IPv4 and IPv6 addresses
192assigned to the interface, but also one
193.B AF_PACKET
194address per interface containing lower-level details about the interface
195and its physical layer.
196In this case, the
197.I ifa_data
198field may contain a pointer to a
bbeb81bd
MK
199.IR "struct rtnl_link_stats" ,
200defined in
201.IR <linux/if_link.h>
202(in Linux 2.4 and earlier,
413b9757
PB
203.IR "struct net_device_stats" ,
204defined in
bbeb81bd 205.IR <linux/netdevice.h> ),
413b9757
PB
206which contains various interface attributes and statistics.
207.SH EXAMPLE
208The program below demonstrates the use of
209.BR getifaddrs (),
210.BR freeifaddrs (),
211and
d664f7ce 212.BR getnameinfo (3).
413b9757
PB
213Here is what we see when running this program on one system:
214.in +4n
215.nf
216
217$ \fB./a.out\fP
218lo address family: 17 (AF_PACKET)
219eth0 address family: 17 (AF_PACKET)
220lo address family: 2 (AF_INET)
221 address: <127.0.0.1>
222eth0 address family: 2 (AF_INET)
223 address: <10.1.1.4>
224lo address family: 10 (AF_INET6)
225 address: <::1>
226eth0 address family: 10 (AF_INET6)
227 address: <fe80::2d0:59ff:feda:eb51%eth0>
228.fi
229.in
230.SS Program source
231\&
232.nf
233#include <arpa/inet.h>
234#include <sys/socket.h>
235#include <netdb.h>
236#include <ifaddrs.h>
237#include <stdio.h>
238#include <stdlib.h>
239#include <unistd.h>
240
241int
242main(int argc, char *argv[])
243{
54457ec1 244 struct ifaddrs *ifaddr, *ifa;
413b9757
PB
245 int family, s;
246 char host[NI_MAXHOST];
247
248 if (getifaddrs(&ifaddr) == \-1) {
249 perror("getifaddrs");
250 exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
251 }
252
54457ec1
LM
253 /* Walk through linked list, maintaining head pointer so we
254 can free list later */
255
906472fd 256 for (ifa = ifaddr; ifa != NULL; ifa = ifa\->ifa_next) {
ebd05fec
TJ
257 if (ifa\->ifa_addr == NULL)
258 continue;
259
54457ec1 260 family = ifa\->ifa_addr\->sa_family;
413b9757
PB
261
262 /* Display interface name and family (including symbolic
263 form of the latter for the common families) */
264
d664f7ce 265 printf("%s\t address family: %d%s\\n",
54457ec1 266 ifa\->ifa_name, family,
413b9757
PB
267 (family == AF_PACKET) ? " (AF_PACKET)" :
268 (family == AF_INET) ? " (AF_INET)" :
269 (family == AF_INET6) ? " (AF_INET6)" : "");
270
271 /* For an AF_INET* interface address, display the address */
272
273 if (family == AF_INET || family == AF_INET6) {
54457ec1 274 s = getnameinfo(ifa\->ifa_addr,
413b9757
PB
275 (family == AF_INET) ? sizeof(struct sockaddr_in) :
276 sizeof(struct sockaddr_in6),
277 host, NI_MAXHOST, NULL, 0, NI_NUMERICHOST);
278 if (s != 0) {
279 printf("getnameinfo() failed: %s\\n", gai_strerror(s));
280 exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
281 }
282 printf("\\taddress: <%s>\\n", host);
283 }
413b9757
PB
284 }
285
286 freeifaddrs(ifaddr);
287 exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
288}
289.fi
290.SH SEE ALSO
291.BR bind (2),
292.BR getsockname (2),
293.BR socket (2),
294.BR packet (7),
295.BR ifconfig (8)