netgraph
- graph based kernel networking subsystem
DESCRIPTION
The
system provides a uniform and modular system for the implementation
of kernel objects which perform various networking functions.
The objects, known as
nodes
can be arranged into arbitrarily complicated graphs.
Nodes have
hooks
which are used to connect two nodes together, forming the edges in the graph.
Nodes communicate along the edges to process data, implement protocols, etc.
The aim of
is to supplement rather than replace the existing kernel networking
infrastructure.
It provides:
A flexible way of combining protocol and link level drivers.
A modular way to implement new protocols.
A common framework for kernel entities to inter-communicate.
A reasonably fast, kernel-based implementation.
Nodes and Types
The most fundamental concept in
is that of a
node
All nodes implement a number of predefined methods which allow them
to interact with other nodes in a well defined manner.
Each node has a
type
which is a static property of the node determined at node creation time.
A node's type is described by a unique
ASCII
type name.
The type implies what the node does and how it may be connected
to other nodes.
In object-oriented language, types are classes, and nodes are instances
of their respective class.
All node types are subclasses of the generic node
type, and hence inherit certain common functionality and capabilities
(e.g., the ability to have an
ASCII
name).
Nodes may be assigned a globally unique
ASCII
name which can be
used to refer to the node.
The name must not contain the characters
`.'
or
`:'
,
and is limited to
NG_NODESIZ
characters (including the terminating
NUL
character).
Each node instance has a unique
ID number
which is expressed as a 32-bit hexadecimal value.
This value may be used to refer to a node when there is no
ASCII
name assigned to it.
Hooks
Nodes are connected to other nodes by connecting a pair of
hooks
one from each node.
Data flows bidirectionally between nodes along
connected pairs of hooks.
A node may have as many hooks as it
needs, and may assign whatever meaning it wants to a hook.
Hooks have these properties:
A hook has an
ASCII
name which is unique among all hooks
on that node (other hooks on other nodes may have the same name).
The name must not contain the characters
`.'
or
`:'
,
and is
limited to
NG_HOOKSIZ
characters (including the terminating
NUL
character).
A hook is always connected to another hook.
That is, hooks are
created at the time they are connected, and breaking an edge by
removing either hook destroys both hooks.
A hook can be set into a state where incoming packets are always queued
by the input queueing system, rather than being delivered directly.
This can be used when the data is sent from an interrupt handler,
and processing must be quick so as not to block other interrupts.
A hook may supply overriding receive data and receive message functions,
which should be used for data and messages received through that hook
in preference to the general node-wide methods.
A node may decide to assign special meaning to some hooks.
For example, connecting to the hook named
debug
might trigger
the node to start sending debugging information to that hook.
Data Flow
Two types of information flow between nodes: data messages and
control messages.
Data messages are passed in
Vt mbuf chains
along the edges
in the graph, one edge at a time.
The first
Vt mbuf
in a chain must have the
M_PKTHDR
flag set.
Each node decides how to handle data received through one of its hooks.
Along with data, nodes can also receive control messages.
There are generic and type-specific control messages.
Control messages have a common
header format, followed by type-specific data, and are binary structures
for efficiency.
However, node types may also support conversion of the
type-specific data between binary and
ASCII
formats,
for debugging and human interface purposes (see the
NGM_ASCII2BINARY
and
NGM_BINARY2ASCII
generic control messages below).
Nodes are not required to support these conversions.
There are three ways to address a control message.
If there is a sequence of edges connecting the two nodes, the message
may be
``source routed''
by specifying the corresponding sequence
of
ASCII
hook names as the destination address for the message (relative
addressing).
If the destination is adjacent to the source, then the source
node may simply specify (as a pointer in the code) the hook across which the
message should be sent.
Otherwise, the recipient node's global
ASCII
name
(or equivalent ID-based name) is used as the destination address
for the message (absolute addressing).
The two types of
ASCII
addressing
may be combined, by specifying an absolute start node and a sequence
of hooks.
Only the
ASCII
addressing modes are available to control programs outside the kernel;
use of direct pointers is limited to kernel modules.
Messages often represent commands that are followed by a reply message
in the reverse direction.
To facilitate this, the recipient of a
control message is supplied with a
``return address''
that is suitable for addressing a reply.
Each control message contains a 32-bit value, called a
``typecookie''
indicating the type of the message, i.e. how to interpret it.
Typically each type defines a unique typecookie for the messages
that it understands.
However, a node may choose to recognize and
implement more than one type of messages.
If a message is delivered to an address that implies that it arrived
at that node through a particular hook (as opposed to having been directly
addressed using its ID or global name) then that hook is identified to the
receiving node.
This allows a message to be re-routed or passed on, should
a node decide that this is required, in much the same way that data packets
are passed around between nodes.
A set of standard
messages for flow control and link management purposes are
defined by the base system that are usually
passed around in this manner.
Flow control message would usually travel
in the opposite direction to the data to which they pertain.
Netgraph is (Usually) Functional
In order to minimize latency, most
operations are functional.
That is, data and control messages are delivered by making function
calls rather than by using queues and mailboxes.
For example, if node
A wishes to send a data
Vt mbuf
to neighboring node B, it calls the
generic
data delivery function.
This function in turn locates
node B and calls B's
``receive data''
method.
There are exceptions to this.
Each node has an input queue, and some operations can be considered to
be
writers
in that they alter the state of the node.
Obviously, in an SMP
world it would be bad if the state of a node were changed while another
data packet were transiting the node.
For this purpose, the input queue implements a
reader/writer
semantic so that when there is a writer in the node, all other requests
are queued, and while there are readers, a writer, and any following
packets are queued.
In the case where there is no reason to queue the
data, the input method is called directly, as mentioned above.
A node may declare that all requests should be considered as writers,
or that requests coming in over a particular hook should be considered to
be a writer, or even that packets leaving or entering across a particular
hook should always be queued, rather than delivered directly (often useful
for interrupt routines who want to get back to the hardware quickly).
By default, all control message packets are considered to be writers
unless specifically declared to be a reader in their definition.
(See
NGM_READONLY
in
In ng_message.h . )
While this mode of operation
results in good performance, it has a few implications for node
developers:
Whenever a node delivers a data or control message, the node
may need to allow for the possibility of receiving a returning
message before the original delivery function call returns.
Netgraph
provides internal synchronization between nodes.
Data always enters a
``graph''
at an
edge node
An
edge node
is a node that interfaces between
and some other part of the system.
Examples of
``edge nodes''
include device drivers, the
Vt socket , ether , tty ,
and
Vt ksocket
node type.
#include <these> edge nodes
the calling thread directly executes code in the node, and from that code
calls upon the
framework to deliver data across some edge
in the graph.
From an execution point of view, the calling thread will execute the
framework methods, and if it can acquire a lock to do so,
the input methods of the next node.
This continues until either the data is discarded or queued for some
device or system entity, or the thread is unable to acquire a lock on
the next node.
In that case, the data is queued for the node, and execution rewinds
back to the original calling entity.
The queued data will be picked up and processed by either the current
holder of the lock when they have completed their operations, or by
a special
thread that is activated when there are such items
queued.
It is possible for an infinite loop to occur if the graph contains cycles.
So far, these issues have not proven problematical in practice.
Interaction with Other Parts of the Kernel
A node may have a hidden interaction with other components of the
kernel outside of the
subsystem, such as device hardware,
kernel protocol stacks, etc.
In fact, one of the benefits of
is the ability to join disparate kernel networking entities together in a
consistent communication framework.
An example is the
Vt socket
node type which is both a
node and a
socket(2)
in the protocol family
PF_NETGRAPH
Socket nodes allow user processes to participate in
.
Other nodes communicate with socket nodes using the usual methods, and the
node hides the fact that it is also passing information to and from a
cooperating user process.
Another example is a device driver that presents
a node interface to the hardware.
Node Methods
Nodes are notified of the following actions via function calls
to the following node methods,
and may accept or reject that action (by returning the appropriate
error code):
Creation of a new node
The constructor for the type is called.
If creation of a new node is allowed, constructor method may allocate any
special resources it needs.
For nodes that correspond to hardware, this is typically done during the
device attach routine.
Often a global
ASCII
name corresponding to the
device name is assigned here as well.
Creation of a new hook
The hook is created and tentatively
linked to the node, and the node is told about the name that will be
used to describe this hook.
The node sets up any special data structures
it needs, or may reject the connection, based on the name of the hook.
Successful connection of two hooks
After both ends have accepted their
hooks, and the links have been made, the nodes get a chance to
find out who their peer is across the link, and can then decide to reject
the connection.
Tear-down is automatic.
This is also the time at which
a node may decide whether to set a particular hook (or its peer) into
the
queueing
mode.
Destruction of a hook
The node is notified of a broken connection.
The node may consider some hooks
to be critical to operation and others to be expendable: the disconnection
of one hook may be an acceptable event while for another it
may effect a total shutdown for the node.
Preshutdown of a node
This method is called before real shutdown, which is discussed below.
While in this method, the node is fully operational and can send a
``goodbye''
message to its peers, or it can exclude itself from the chain and reconnect
its peers together, like the
ng_tee4
node type does.
Shutdown of a node
This method allows a node to clean up
and to ensure that any actions that need to be performed
at this time are taken.
The method is called by the generic (i.e., superclass)
node destructor which will get rid of the generic components of the node.
Some nodes (usually associated with a piece of hardware) may be
persistent
in that a shutdown breaks all edges and resets the node,
but does not remove it.
In this case, the shutdown method should not
free its resources, but rather, clean up and then call the
NG_NODE_REVIVE ();
macro to signal the generic code that the shutdown is aborted.
In the case where the shutdown is started by the node itself due to hardware
removal or unloading (via
ng_rmnode_self () ,);
it should set the
NGF_REALLY_DIE
flag to signal to its own shutdown method that it is not to persist.
Sending and Receiving Data
Two other methods are also supported by all nodes:
Receive data message
A
queueable request item
usually referred to as an
item
is received by this function.
The item contains a pointer to an
Vt mbuf .
The node is notified on which hook the item has arrived,
and can use this information in its processing decision.
The receiving node must always
NG_FREE_M ();
the
Vt mbuf chain
on completion or error, or pass it on to another node
(or kernel module) which will then be responsible for freeing it.
Similarly, the
item
must be freed if it is not to be passed on to another node, by using the
NG_FREE_ITEM ();
macro.
If the item still holds references to
Vt mbufs
at the time of
freeing then they will also be appropriately freed.
Therefore, if there is any chance that the
Vt mbuf
will be
changed or freed separately from the item, it is very important
that it be retrieved using the
NGI_GET_M ();
macro that also removes the reference within the item.
(Or multiple frees of the same object will occur.)
If it is only required to examine the contents of the
Vt mbufs ,
then it is possible to use the
NGI_M ();
macro to both read and rewrite
Vt mbuf
pointer inside the item.
If developer needs to pass any meta information along with the
Vt mbuf chain ,
he should use
mbuf_tags9
framework.
Bf -symbolic
Note that old
specific meta-data format is obsoleted now.
Ef
The receiving node may decide to defer the data by queueing it in the
NETISR system (see below).
It achieves this by setting the
HK_QUEUE
flag in the flags word of the hook on which that data will arrive.
The infrastructure will respect that bit and queue the data for delivery at
a later time, rather than deliver it directly.
A node may decide to set
the bit on the
peer
node, so that its own output packets are queued.
The node may elect to nominate a different receive data function
for data received on a particular hook, to simplify coding.
It uses the
NG_HOOK_SET_RCVDATA (hook fn);
macro to do this.
The function receives the same arguments in every way
other than it will receive all (and only) packets from that hook.
Receive control message
This method is called when a control message is addressed to the node.
As with the received data, an
item
is received, with a pointer to the control message.
The message can be examined using the
NGI_MSG ();
macro, or completely extracted from the item using the
NGI_GET_MSG ();
which also removes the reference within the item.
If the Item still holds a reference to the message when it is freed
(using the
NG_FREE_ITEM ();
macro), then the message will also be freed appropriately.
If the
reference has been removed, the node must free the message itself using the
NG_FREE_MSG ();
macro.
A return address is always supplied, giving the address of the node
that originated the message so a reply message can be sent anytime later.
The return address is retrieved from the
item
using the
NGI_RETADDR ();
macro and is of type
Vt ng_ID_t .
All control messages and replies are
allocated with the
malloc(9)
type
M_NETGRAPH_MSG
however it is more convenient to use the
NG_MKMESSAGE ();
and
NG_MKRESPONSE ();
macros to allocate and fill out a message.
Messages must be freed using the
NG_FREE_MSG ();
macro.
If the message was delivered via a specific hook, that hook will
also be made known, which allows the use of such things as flow-control
messages, and status change messages, where the node may want to forward
the message out another hook to that on which it arrived.
The node may elect to nominate a different receive message function
for messages received on a particular hook, to simplify coding.
It uses the
NG_HOOK_SET_RCVMSG (hook fn);
macro to do this.
The function receives the same arguments in every way
other than it will receive all (and only) messages from that hook.
Much use has been made of reference counts, so that nodes being
freed of all references are automatically freed, and this behaviour
has been tested and debugged to present a consistent and trustworthy
framework for the
``type module''
writer to use.
Addressing
The
framework provides an unambiguous and simple to use method of specifically
addressing any single node in the graph.
The naming of a node is
independent of its type, in that another node, or external component
need not know anything about the node's type in order to address it so as
to send it a generic message type.
Node and hook names should be
chosen so as to make addresses meaningful.
Addresses are either absolute or relative.
An absolute address begins
with a node name or ID, followed by a colon, followed by a sequence of hook
names separated by periods.
This addresses the node reached by starting
at the named node and following the specified sequence of hooks.
A relative address includes only the sequence of hook names, implicitly
starting hook traversal at the local node.
There are a couple of special possibilities for the node name.
The name
`.'
(referred to as
`.:'
)
always refers to the local node.
Also, nodes that have no global name may be addressed by their ID numbers,
by enclosing the hexadecimal representation of the ID number within
the square brackets.
Here are some examples of valid
addresses:
.:
[3f]:
foo:
.:hook1
foo:hook1.hook2
[d80]:hook1
The following set of nodes might be created for a site with
a single physical frame relay line having two active logical DLCI channels,
with RFC 1490 frames on DLCI 16 and PPP frames over DLCI 20:
[type SYNC ] [type FRAME] [type RFC1490]
[ "Frame1" ](uplink)<-->(data)[<un-named>](dlci16)<-->(mux)[<un-named> ]
[ A ] [ B ](dlci20)<---+ [ C ]
|
| [ type PPP ]
+>(mux)[<un-named>]
[ D ]
One could always send a control message to node C from anywhere
by using the name
``Frame1:uplink.dlci16
''
In this case, node C would also be notified that the message
reached it via its hook
mux
Similarly,
``Frame1:uplink.dlci20
''
could reliably be used to reach node D, and node A could refer
to node B as
``.:uplink
''
or simply
``uplink
''
Conversely, B can refer to A as
``data
''
The address
``mux.data
''
could be used by both nodes C and D to address a message to node A.
Note that this is only for
control messages
In each of these cases, where a relative addressing mode is
used, the recipient is notified of the hook on which the
message arrived, as well as
the originating node.
This allows the option of hop-by-hop distribution of messages and
state information.
Data messages are
only
routed one hop at a time, by specifying the departing
hook, with each node making
the next routing decision.
So when B receives a frame on hook
data
it decodes the frame relay header to determine the DLCI,
and then forwards the unwrapped frame to either C or D.
In a similar way, flow control messages may be routed in the reverse
direction to outgoing data.
For example a
``buffer nearly full''
message from
``Frame1:
''
would be passed to node B
which might decide to send similar messages to both nodes
C and D.
The nodes would use
direct hook pointer
addressing to route the messages.
The message may have travelled from
``Frame1:
''
to B
as a synchronous reply, saving time and cycles.
A similar graph might be used to represent multi-link PPP running
over an ISDN line:
[ type BRI ](B1)<--->(link1)[ type MPP ]
[ "ISDN1" ](B2)<--->(link2)[ (no name) ]
[ ](D) <-+
|
+----------------+
|
+->(switch)[ type Q.921 ](term1)<---->(datalink)[ type Q.931 ]
[ (no name) ] [ (no name) ]
Netgraph Structures
Structures are defined in
#include <netgraph/netgraph.h>
(for kernel structures only of interest to nodes)
and
#include <netgraph/ng_message.h>
(for message definitions also of interest to user programs).
The two basic object types that are of interest to node authors are
nodes
and
hooks
These two objects have the following
properties that are also of interest to the node writers.
Vt struct ng_node
Node authors should always use the following
typedef
to declare
their pointers, and should never actually declare the structure.
Fd typedef struct ng_node *node_p;
The following properties are associated with a node, and can be
accessed in the following manner:
Validity
A driver or interrupt routine may want to check whether
the node is still valid.
It is assumed that the caller holds a reference
on the node so it will not have been freed, however it may have been
disabled or otherwise shut down.
Using the
NG_NODE_IS_VALID (node);
macro will return this state.
Eventually it should be almost impossible
for code to run in an invalid node but at this time that work has not been
completed.
Node ID (Vt ng_ID_t
)
This property can be retrieved using the macro
NG_NODE_ID (node .);
Node name
Optional globally unique name,
NUL
terminated string.
If there
is a value in here, it is the name of the node.
if (NG_NODE_NAME(node)[0] != '\0') ...
if (strcmp(NG_NODE_NAME(node), "fred") == 0) ...
A node dependent opaque cookie
Anything of the pointer type can be placed here.
The macros
NG_NODE_SET_PRIVATE (node value);
and
NG_NODE_PRIVATE (node);
set and retrieve this property, respectively.
Number of hooks
The
NG_NODE_NUMHOOKS (node);
macro is used
to retrieve this value.
Hooks
The node may have a number of hooks.
A traversal method is provided to allow all the hooks to be
tested for some condition.
NG_NODE_FOREACH_HOOK (node fn arg rethook);
where
Fa fn
is a function that will be called for each hook
with the form
fn (hook arg);
and returning 0 to terminate the search.
If the search is terminated, then
Fa rethook
will be set to the hook at which the search was terminated.
Vt struct ng_hook
Node authors should always use the following
typedef
to declare
their hook pointers.
Fd typedef struct ng_hook *hook_p;
The following properties are associated with a hook, and can be
accessed in the following manner:
A hook dependent opaque cookie
Anything of the pointer type can be placed here.
The macros
NG_HOOK_SET_PRIVATE (hook value);
and
NG_HOOK_PRIVATE (hook);
set and retrieve this property, respectively.
An associate node
The macro
NG_HOOK_NODE (hook);
finds the associated node.
A peer hook (Vt hook_p
)
The other hook in this connected pair.
The
NG_HOOK_PEER (hook);
macro finds the peer.
References
The
NG_HOOK_REF (hook);
and
NG_HOOK_UNREF (hook);
macros
increment and decrement the hook reference count accordingly.
After decrement you should always assume the hook has been freed
unless you have another reference still valid.
Override receive functions
The
NG_HOOK_SET_RCVDATA (hook fn);
and
NG_HOOK_SET_RCVMSG (hook fn);
macros can be used to set override methods that will be used in preference
to the generic receive data and receive message functions.
To unset these, use the macros to set them to
NULL
They will only be used for data and
messages received on the hook on which they are set.
The maintenance of the names, reference counts, and linked list
of hooks for each node is handled automatically by the
subsystem.
Typically a node's private info contains a back-pointer to the node or hook
structure, which counts as a new reference that must be included
in the reference count for the node.
When the node constructor is called,
there is already a reference for this calculated in, so that
when the node is destroyed, it should remember to do a
NG_NODE_UNREF ();
on the node.
From a hook you can obtain the corresponding node, and from
a node, it is possible to traverse all the active hooks.
A current example of how to define a node can always be seen in
src/sys/netgraph/ng_sample.c
and should be used as a starting point for new node writers.
Netgraph Message Structure
Control messages have the following structure:
#define NG_CMDSTRSIZ 32 /* Max command string (including nul) */
struct ng_mesg {
struct ng_msghdr {
u_char version; /* Must equal NG_VERSION */
u_char spare; /* Pad to 2 bytes */
u_short arglen; /* Length of cmd/resp data */
u_long flags; /* Message status flags */
u_long token; /* Reply should have the same token */
u_long typecookie; /* Node type understanding this message */
u_long cmd; /* Command identifier */
u_char cmdstr[NG_CMDSTRSIZ]; /* Cmd string (for debug) */
} header;
char data[0]; /* Start of cmd/resp data */
};
#define NG_ABI_VERSION 5 /* Netgraph kernel ABI version */
#define NG_VERSION 4 /* Netgraph message version */
#define NGF_ORIG 0x0000 /* Command */
#define NGF_RESP 0x0001 /* Response */
Control messages have the fixed header shown above, followed by a
variable length data section which depends on the type cookie
and the command.
Each field is explained below:
version
Indicates the version of the
message protocol itself.
The current version is
NG_VERSION
arglen
This is the length of any extra arguments, which begin at
data
flags
Indicates whether this is a command or a response control message.
token
The
token
is a means by which a sender can match a reply message to the
corresponding command message; the reply always has the same token.
typecookie
The corresponding node type's unique 32-bit value.
If a node does not recognize the type cookie it must reject the message
by returning
Er EINVAL .
Each type should have an include file that defines the commands,
argument format, and cookie for its own messages.
The typecookie
insures that the same header file was included by both sender and
receiver; when an incompatible change in the header file is made,
the typecookie
must
be changed.
The de-facto method for generating unique type cookies is to take the
seconds from the Epoch at the time the header file is written
(i.e., the output of
``date -u +%s
''
There is a predefined typecookie
NGM_GENERIC_COOKIE
for the
Vt generic
node type, and
a corresponding set of generic messages which all nodes understand.
The handling of these messages is automatic.
cmd
The identifier for the message command.
This is type specific,
and is defined in the same header file as the typecookie.
cmdstr
Room for a short human readable version of
command
(for debugging purposes only).
Some modules may choose to implement messages from more than one
of the header files and thus recognize more than one type cookie.
Control Message ASCII Form
Control messages are in binary format for efficiency.
However, for
debugging and human interface purposes, and if the node type supports
it, control messages may be converted to and from an equivalent
ASCII
form.
The
ASCII
form is similar to the binary form, with two exceptions:
The
cmdstr
header field must contain the
ASCII
name of the command, corresponding to the
cmd
header field.
The arguments field contains a
NUL -terminatedASCII
string version of the message arguments.
In general, the arguments field of a control message can be any
arbitrary C data type.
Netgraph
includes parsing routines to support
some pre-defined datatypes in
ASCII
with this simple syntax:
Integer types are represented by base 8, 10, or 16 numbers.
Strings are enclosed in double quotes and respect the normal
C language backslash escapes.
IP addresses have the obvious form.
Arrays are enclosed in square brackets, with the elements listed
consecutively starting at index zero.
An element may have an optional index and equals sign
(`='
)
preceding it.
Whenever an element
does not have an explicit index, the index is implicitly the previous
element's index plus one.
Structures are enclosed in curly braces, and each field is specified
in the form
fieldname = value
Any array element or structure field whose value is equal to its
``default value''
may be omitted.
For integer types, the default value
is usually zero; for string types, the empty string.
Array elements and structure fields may be specified in any order.
Each node type may define its own arbitrary types by providing
the necessary routines to parse and unparse.
ASCII
forms defined
for a specific node type are documented in the corresponding man page.
Generic Control Messages
There are a number of standard predefined messages that will work
for any node, as they are supported directly by the framework itself.
These are defined in
#include <netgraph/ng_message.h>
along with the basic layout of messages and other similar information.
NGM_CONNECT
Connect to another node, using the supplied hook names on either end.
NGM_MKPEER
Construct a node of the given type and then connect to it using the
supplied hook names.
NGM_SHUTDOWN
The target node should disconnect from all its neighbours and shut down.
Persistent nodes such as those representing physical hardware
might not disappear from the node namespace, but only reset themselves.
The node must disconnect all of its hooks.
This may result in neighbors shutting themselves down, and possibly a
cascading shutdown of the entire connected graph.
NGM_NAME
Assign a name to a node.
Nodes can exist without having a name, and this
is the default for nodes created using the
NGM_MKPEER
method.
Such nodes can only be addressed relatively or by their ID number.
NGM_RMHOOK
Ask the node to break a hook connection to one of its neighbours.
Both nodes will have their
``disconnect''
method invoked.
Either node may elect to totally shut down as a result.
NGM_NODEINFO
Asks the target node to describe itself.
The four returned fields
are the node name (if named), the node type, the node ID and the
number of hooks attached.
The ID is an internal number unique to that node.
NGM_LISTHOOKS
This returns the information given by
NGM_NODEINFO
but in addition
includes an array of fields describing each link, and the description for
the node at the far end of that link.
NGM_LISTNAMES
This returns an array of node descriptions (as for
NGM_NODEINFO
where each entry of the array describes a named node.
All named nodes will be described.
NGM_LISTNODES
This is the same as
NGM_LISTNAMES
except that all nodes are listed regardless of whether they have a name or not.
NGM_LISTTYPES
This returns a list of all currently installed
types.
NGM_TEXT_STATUS
The node may return a text formatted status message.
The status information is determined entirely by the node type.
It is the only
``generic''
message
that requires any support within the node itself and as such the node may
elect to not support this message.
The text response must be less than
NG_TEXTRESPONSE
bytes in length (presently 1024).
This can be used to return general
status information in human readable form.
NGM_BINARY2ASCII
This message converts a binary control message to its
ASCII
form.
The entire control message to be converted is contained within the
arguments field of the
NGM_BINARY2ASCII
message itself.
If successful, the reply will contain the same control
message in
ASCII
form.
A node will typically only know how to translate messages that it
itself understands, so the target node of the
NGM_BINARY2ASCII
is often the same node that would actually receive that message.
NGM_ASCII2BINARY
The opposite of
NGM_BINARY2ASCII
The entire control message to be converted, in
ASCII
form, is contained
in the arguments section of the
NGM_ASCII2BINARY
and need only have the
flags , cmdstr
and
arglen
header fields filled in, plus the
NUL -terminated string version of
the arguments in the arguments field.
If successful, the reply
contains the binary version of the control message.
Flow Control Messages
In addition to the control messages that affect nodes with respect to the
graph, there are also a number of
flow control
messages defined.
At present these are
not
handled automatically by the system, so
nodes need to handle them if they are going to be used in a graph utilising
flow control, and will be in the likely path of these messages.
The default action of a node that does not understand these messages should
be to pass them onto the next node.
Hopefully some helper functions will assist in this eventually.
These messages are also defined in
#include <netgraph/ng_message.h>
and have a separate cookie
NG_FLOW_COOKIE
to help identify them.
They will not be covered in depth here.
INITIALIZATION
The base
code may either be statically compiled
into the kernel or else loaded dynamically as a KLD via
kldload(8).
In the former case, include
in your kernel configuration file.
You may also include selected
node types in the kernel compilation, for example:
Once the
subsystem is loaded, individual node types may be loaded at any time
as KLD modules via
kldload(8).
Moreover,
knows how to automatically do this; when a request to create a new
node of unknown type
type
is made,
will attempt to load the KLD module
ng_ Ao type Ac .ko
Types can also be installed at boot time, as certain device drivers
may want to export each instance of the device as a
node.
In general, new types can be installed at any time from within the
kernel by calling
ng_newtype (,);
supplying a pointer to the type's
Vt struct ng_type
structure.
The
NETGRAPH_INIT ();
macro automates this process by using a linker set.
EXISTING NODE TYPES
Several node types currently exist.
Each is fully documented in its own man page:
SOCKET
The socket type implements two new sockets in the new protocol domain
PF_NETGRAPH
The new sockets protocols are
NG_DATA
and
NG_CONTROL
both of type
SOCK_DGRAM
Typically one of each is associated with a socket node.
When both sockets have closed, the node will shut down.
The
NG_DATA
socket is used for sending and receiving data, while the
NG_CONTROL
socket is used for sending and receiving control messages.
Data and control messages are passed using the
sendto(2)
and
recvfrom(2)
system calls, using a
Vt struct sockaddr_ng
socket address.
HOLE
Responds only to generic messages and is a
``black hole''
for data.
Useful for testing.
Always accepts new hooks.
ECHO
Responds only to generic messages and always echoes data back through the
hook from which it arrived.
Returns any non-generic messages as their own response.
Useful for testing.
Always accepts new hooks.
TEE
This node is useful for
``snooping''
It has 4 hooks:
left , right , left2right
and
right2left
Data entering from the
right
is passed to the
left
and duplicated on
right2left
and data entering from the
left
is passed to the
right
and duplicated on
left2right
Data entering from
left2right
is sent to the
right
and data from
right2left
to
left
RFC1490 MUX
Encapsulates/de-encapsulates frames encoded according to RFC 1490.
Has a hook for the encapsulated packets
(downstream
)
and one hook
for each protocol (i.e., IP, PPP, etc.).
FRAME RELAY MUX
Encapsulates/de-encapsulates Frame Relay frames.
Has a hook for the encapsulated packets
(downstream
)
and one hook
for each DLCI.
FRAME RELAY LMI
Automatically handles frame relay
``LMI''
(link management interface) operations and packets.
Automatically probes and detects which of several LMI standards
is in use at the exchange.
TTY
This node is also a line discipline.
It simply converts between
Vt mbuf
frames and sequential serial data, allowing a TTY to appear as a
node.
It has a programmable
``hotkey''
character.
ASYNC
This node encapsulates and de-encapsulates asynchronous frames
according to RFC 1662.
This is used in conjunction with the TTY node
type for supporting PPP links over asynchronous serial lines.
ETHERNET
This node is attached to every Ethernet interface in the system.
It allows capturing raw Ethernet frames from the network, as well as
sending frames out of the interface.
INTERFACE
This node is also a system networking interface.
It has hooks representing
each protocol family (IP, AppleTalk, IPX, etc.) and appears in the output of
ifconfig(8).
The interfaces are named
``ng0
''
``ng1
''
etc.
ONE2MANY
This node implements a simple round-robin multiplexer.
It can be used
for example to make several LAN ports act together to get a higher speed
link between two machines.
Various PPP related nodes
There is a full multilink PPP implementation that runs in
.
The
net/mpd
port can use these modules to make a very low latency high
capacity PPP system.
It also supports
PPTP
VPNs using the PPTP node.
PPPOE
A server and client side implementation of PPPoE.
Used in conjunction with
either
ppp(8)
or the
net/mpd
port.
BRIDGE
This node, together with the Ethernet nodes, allows a very flexible
bridging system to be implemented.
KSOCKET
This intriguing node looks like a socket to the system but diverts
all data to and from the
system for further processing.
This allows
such things as UDP tunnels to be almost trivially implemented from the
command line.
Refer to the section at the end of this man page for more nodes types.
NOTES
Whether a named node exists can be checked by trying to send a control message
to it (e.g.,
NGM_NODEINFO )
If it does not exist,
Er ENOENT
will be returned.
All data messages are
Vt mbuf chains
with the
M_PKTHDR
flag set.
Nodes are responsible for freeing what they allocate.
There are three exceptions:
Vt Mbufs
sent across a data link are never to be freed by the sender.
#include <the>
case of error, they should be considered freed.
Messages sent using one of
NG_SEND_MSG_ (*);
family macros are freed by the recipient.
As in the case above, the addresses
associated with the message are freed by whatever allocated them so the
recipient should copy them if it wants to keep that information.
Both control messages and data are delivered and queued with a
item
The item must be freed using
NG_FREE_ITEM (item);
or passed on to another node.
FILES
In netgraph/netgraph.h
Definitions for use solely within the kernel by
nodes.
In netgraph/ng_message.h
Definitions needed by any file that needs to deal with
messages.
In netgraph/ng_socket.h
Definitions needed to use
Vt socket
type nodes.
In netgraph/ng_ Ao type Ac .h
Definitions needed to use
type
nodes, including the type cookie definition.
/boot/kernel/netgraph.ko
The
subsystem loadable KLD module.
/boot/kernel/ng_ Ao type Ac .ko
Loadable KLD module for node type
type
src/sys/netgraph/ng_sample.c
Skeleton
node.
Use this as a starting point for new node types.
USER MODE SUPPORT
There is a library for supporting user-mode programs that wish
to interact with the
system.
See
netgraph(3)
for details.
Two user-mode support programs,
ngctl(8)
and
nghook(8),
are available to assist manual configuration and debugging.
There are a few useful techniques for debugging new node types.
First, implementing new node types in user-mode first
makes debugging easier.
The
Vt tee
node type is also useful for debugging, especially in conjunction with
ngctl(8)
and
nghook(8).
Also look in
/usr/share/examples/netgraph
for solutions to several
common networking problems, solved using
.
The
system was designed and first implemented at Whistle Communications, Inc.
in a version of
Fx 2.2
customized for the Whistle InterJet.
It first made its debut in the main tree in
Fx 3.4 .