Linux implements the Appletalk protocols described in
Inside Appletalk.
Only the DDP layer and AARP are present in
the kernel. They are designed to be used via the
netatalk
protocol
libraries. This page documents the interface for those who wish or need to
use the DDP layer directly.
The communication between Appletalk and the user program works using a
BSD-compatible socket interface. For more information on sockets, see
socket(4).
An AppleTalk socket is created by calling the
socket(2)
function with a
PF_APPLETALK
socket family argument. Valid socket types are
SOCK_DGRAM
to open a
ddp
socket or
SOCK_RAW
to open a
raw
socket.
protocol
is the Appletalk protocol to be received or sent. For
SOCK_RAW
you must specify
ATPROTO_DDP.
Raw sockets may be only opened by a process with effective user id 0 or when the process has the
CAP_NET_RAW
capability.
ADDRESS FORMAT
An Appletalk socket address is defined as a combination of a network number,
a node number, and a port number.
sat_family
is always set to
AF_APPLETALK. sat_port
contains the port. The port numbers below 129 are known as
reserved ports.
Only processes with the effective user id 0 or the
CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE
attribute
set may
bind(2)
to these sockets.
sat_addr
is the host address.
The
net
member of
struct at_addr
contains the host network in network byte order. The value of
AT_ANYNET
is a
wildcard and also implies lqthis network.rq
The
node
member of
struct at_addr
contains the host node number. The value of
AT_ANYNODE
is a
wildcard and also implies lqthis node.rq The value of
ATADDR_BCAST
is a link
local broadcast address.
SOCKET OPTIONS
No protocol-specific socket options are supported.
SYSCTLS
IP supports a sysctl interface to configure some global AppleTalk parameters.
The sysctls can be accessed by reading or writing the
/proc/sys/net/atalk/*
files or with the
sysctl(2)
interface.
aarp-expiry-time
The time interval (in seconds) before an AARP cache entry expires.
aarp-resolve-time
The time interval (in seconds) before an AARP cache entry is resolved.
aarp-retransmit-limit
The number of retransmissions of an AARP query before the node is declared
dead.
aarp-tick-time
The timer rate (in seconds) for the timer driving AARP.
The default values match the specification and should never need to be
changed.
IOCTLS
These ioctls can be accessed using
ioctl(2).
The correct syntax is:
Return a
struct timeval
with the receive timestamp of the last packet passed to the user. This is useful
for accurate round trip time measurements. See
setitimer(2)
for a description of
struct timeval.
FIOCSETOWN and SIOCSPGRP
Set the process or process group (negative value passed with a process group id
of the absolute value) to send
SIGIO
signal
to when an
asynchronous IO operation has finished.
Argument is a
pid_t.
Only processes of effective user id 0 may set this value to arbitrary
pids; all others are only for processes with a matching group id or effective user id.
FIOASYNC
Set a flag to enable or disable asynchronous mode of the socket. Asynchronous
mode means that
SIGIO
is raised when a new I/O event occurs.
Valid I/O events are: new data arrives; the socket send buffer has enough room
to queue new data; a new connection arrives (for connection-oriented
protocols); or the connection is broken.
SIGIO
is not sent when the connection
is broken from the local end using
shutdown(2)
or
close(2).
In some situations (multiple processes or the kernel sending data to a single socket) the condition that caused the
SIGIO
might already have disappeared when
the
SIGIO
is processed by the user process. When this happens the user process
should just wait again because Linux guarantees to resend a new
SIGIO
later.
FIOCGETOWN and SIOCGPGRP
Get the current process or process group that receive
SIGIO
or
SIGURG
signals,
or 0
when none is set. Argument is a
pid_t.
NOTES
Be very careful with the
SO_BROADCAST
option - it is not privileged in Linux. It is easy to overload the network
with careless sending to broadcast addresses.
VERSIONS
Appletalk is supported by Linux 2.0 or higher. The
sysctl
interface is
new in Linux 2.2.
ERRORS
ENOTCONN
The operation is only defined on a connected socket, but the socket wasn't
connected.
EINVAL
Invalid argument passed.
EMSGSIZE
Datagram is bigger than the DDP MTU.
EACCES
The user tried to execute an operation without the necessary permissions. These
include sending to a broadcast address without having the broadcast flag set,
and trying to bind to a reserved port without effective user id 0 or
CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE.
EADDRINUSE
Tried to bind to an address already in use.
ENOMEM and ENOBUFS
Not enough memory available.
ENOPROTOOPT and EOPNOTSUPP
Invalid socket option passed.
EPERM
User doesn't have permission to set high priority, make a configuration change,
or send signals to the requested process or group,
EADDRNOTAVAIL
A non-existent interface was requested or the requested source address was
not local.
EAGAIN
Operation on a nonblocking socket would block.
ESOCKTNOSUPPORT
The socket was unconfigured, or an unknown socket type was requested.
EISCONN
connect(2)
was called on an already connected socket.
EALREADY
A connection operation on a non-blocking socket is already in progress.
The connection was unexpectedly closed or shut down by the other end.
ENOENT
SIOCGSTAMP
was called on a socket where no packet arrived.
EHOSTUNREACH
No routing table entry matches the destination address.
ENODEV
Network device not available or not capable of sending IP.
ENOPKG
A kernel subsystem was not configured.
COMPATIBILITY
The basic AppleTalk socket interface is compatible with
netatalk
on BSD-derived systems. Many BSD systems fail to check
SO_BROADCAST
when sending broadcast frames; this can lead to compatibility problems.
The
raw
socket mode is unique to Linux and exists to support the alternative CAP
package and AppleTalk monitoring tools more easily.
BUGS
There are too many inconsistent error values.
The ioctls used to configure routing tables, devices, AARP tables and other
devices are not yet described.