Chapter 5. Networking Services

Table of Contents

5.1. IEEE 802.11
5.2. ISDN
5.3. IPSec
5.4. Networking pseudo-devices
5.5. Packet Filters

Services built on top of the core networking functionality are described here. They include, for example, the IEEE 802.11 subsystem and the ISDN subsystem. Additionally, networking pseudo devices and their operation is described.

5.1. IEEE 802.11

The net80211 layer provides functionality required by wireless cards. It is located under sys/net80211. The code is meant to be shared between FreeBSD and NetBSD and therefore NetBSD-specific bits should be attempted to be kept in the source file ieee80211_netbsd.c (likewise, there is ieee80211_freebsd.c in FreeBSD).

The ieee80211 interfaces are documented in Chapter 9 of the NetBSD manual pages. This document does not attempt to duplicate information already available there.

The responsibilities of the net80211 layer are the following:

  • MAC address based access control

  • crypto

  • input and output frame handling

  • node management

  • radiotap framework for bpf/tcpdump

  • rate adaption

  • supplementary routines such a kernel diagnostic output, conversion functions and resource management

The ieee80211 layer positions itself logically between the device driver and the ethernet module, although for transmission it is called indirectly by the device driver instead of control passing straight through it. For input, the ieee80211 layer receives packets from the device driver, strips any information useful only to wireless devices and in case of data payload proceeds to hand the Ethernet frame up to ether_input.

5.1.1. Device Management

The way to describe an ieee80211 device to the ieee80211 layer is by using a struct ieee80211com, declared in sys/net80211/ieee80211_var.h. It is used to register a device to the ieee80211 from the device driver by calling ieee80211_ifattach. Fields to be filled out by the caller include the underlying struct ifnet pointer, function callbacks and device capability flags. If a device is detached, the ieee80211 layer can be notified with the call ieee80211_ifdetach.

5.1.2. Nodes

A node represents another entity in the wireless network. It is usually a base station when operating in BSS mode, but can also represent entities in an ad-hoc network. A node is described by struct ieee80211_node, declared in sys/net80211/ieee80211_node.h. Examples of fields contained in the structure include the node unicast encryption key, current transmit power, the negotiated rate set and various statistics.

A list of all the nodes seen by a certain device is kept in the struct ieee80211com instance in the field ic_sta and can be manipulated with the helper functions provided in sys/net80211/ieee80211_node.c. The functions include, for example, methods to scan for nodes, iterate through the nodelist and functionality for maintaining the network structure.

5.1.3. Crypto Support

Crypto support enables the encryption and decryption of the network frames. It provides a framework for multiple encryption methods such as WEP and null crypto. Crypto keys are mostly managed through the ioctl interface and inside the ieee80211 layer, and the only time drivers need to worry about them is in the send routine when they must test for an encapsulation requirement and call ieee80211_crypto_encap if necessary.

5.2. ISDN

The ISDN kernel subsystem found under the directory sys/netisdn was originally developed as a separate package called ISDN4BSD. It was integrated into NetBSD for the NetBSD 1.6 release and some minor architectural changes were made.

The entire subsystem consists both of a kernel part and a userspace part (isdnd being the main element) with much of the operating logic spread between them. Communication is accomplished through various device nodes, /dev/isdn*, but the control state is somewhat spread between both parties.

The netisdn architecture is usually described as four layers:

  1. Layer 1 consists of the physical ISDN card hardware. From the software perspective, support means a device driver.

  2. Layer 2 implements the Link Access Protocol Channel D (LAPD), which is the link layer protocol used in ISDN. The protocol used here is described by ITU-T document series Q.92x.

  3. Layer 3 is the networking layer of ISDN, which takes care of call setup and termination. It is described by the ITU-T series Q.93x.

  4. Layer 4 abstracts the interface to the protocol stack.

The ISDN system can accommodate both "passive" and "active" hardware. The difference between these two is that "active" cards implement the ISDN protocols already in their firmware. Therefore they do not need the software implementation of layers 2 and 3 provided as part of netisdn.

Since layers 2 and 3 are well stabilized and the probability of having to deal with them is quite low, only the device driver interface and layer 4 are discussed here.

Finally, some general terminology is described:

Table 5.1. netisdn terminology

name description
controller An ISDN card. The identifier is a number opaque outside the subsystem and is received at the time of attaching the device driver to the ISDN subsystem.
channel The ISDN B channel identifier. These are numbered in the controller's local space, i.e. every controller has a channel 1 (known as CHAN_B1)
CDID Call Descriptor ID. This is an opaque, unique identifier for a call.


5.2.1. Layer 1: Device Drivers

A device driver must register itself for the netisdn code to function. This is done by calling isdn_attach_isdnif and by specifying the callback interface struct, struct isdn_l3_driver_functions, filled with the appropriate driver callbacks as a parameter. This call also informs the isdn subsystem is card a basic rate card (2 B channels) or primary rate card (30 B channels). After this, if applicable (i.e. a passive card), Layer 2 must be notified of a card attachment by calling isdn_layer2_status_ind. Finally, the subsystem must be notified that the card is ready for action by calling isdn_isdnif_ready.

Cards supporting the ISDN CAPI should not attach using the above method. Instead, they should hook to the CAPI layer. This is done by filling out the link structure capi_softc_t and calling capi_ll_attach. Currently, detaching a CAPI card is not possible, since capi_ll_detach detach is not implemented.

5.2.2. Layer 4: User Interface

Interaction from userspace with the subsystem is done through ioctl's. The actual implementations are spread over several files, depending on the part of the subsystem to interface with.

5.2.2.1. I4B driver

The device node /dev/isdn used by the ISDN userspace part, isdnd is backed by the kernel implementation in sys/netisdn/i4b_i4bdrv.c. The ioctl handler is the function isdnioctl. The type of structure passed as the ioctl argument depends on the ioctl command issued, and, for example, is msg_connect_req_t for the isdnd issued dialout request I4B_CONNECT_REQ. The messages exchanged between the kernel and isdndn are documented on the isdnd(8) manual page.

5.2.2.2. ISDN Telephony

The telephony driver is used for audio calls. It consists of two different device nodes: /dev/isdntel[n] and /dev/isdnteld[n] used as the telephony device and the telephony dialout device, respectively. Requests are handled in sys/netisdn/i4b_tel.c in the function isdntelioctl. Further documentation is available from the isdntel(8) and isdntel(4) manual pages.

5.3. IPSec

IPSec is collection of security-related protocols: Authentication Header (AH) and Encapsulated Security Payload (ESP). This section, however, is TODO.

5.4. Networking pseudo-devices

A networking pseudo-device does not have a physical hardware component backing the device. Pseudo devices can be roughly divided into two different categories: pseudo-devices which behave like an interface and devices which are controlled through a device node. An interface built on top of a pseudo-device acts completely the same as an interface with hardware backing the interface.

Since there is no backing hardware involved, most of these interfaces can be generated and destroyed dynamically at runtime. Interfaces that can dynamically de/allocate themselves known as cloning interfaces. They are created and destroyed by the ifconfig tool by using ifconfig create and ifconfig destroy, respectively. Additionally, the interface names available for cloning can be requested by ifconfig -C.

The list of networking pseudo-devices with short descriptions is presented below.

Table 5.2. Available networking pseudo-devices

name description
bpfilter Berkeley Packet filter, bpf(4). Can be used to capture network traffic matching certain pattens.
ipfilter IP Filter Firewall, ipf(4). Used to filter IP traffic.
loop The loopback network device, lo(4). All output is directed as input for the loopback interface.
ppp Point-to-Point Protocol, ppp(4). This interface allows to create point-to-point network links.
pppoe Point-to-Point Protocol Over Ethernet, pppoe(4). Encapsulates PPP inside Ethernet frames.
sl Serial Line IP, sl(4). Used to transport IP over a serial connection.
strip STarmode Radio IP, strip(4). Similar to SLIP, except uses the STRIP protocol instead of SLIP.
tap A virtual ethernet device, tap(4). The tap[n] interface is attached to /dev/tap[n]. I/O on the device node maps to Ethernet traffic on the interface and vice versa.
tun Tunneling network device, tun(4). Similar to tap, except that the packets handled are network layer packets instead of Ethernet frames.
gre Encapsulating network device, gre(4). The gre device can encapsulate datagrams into IP packets in multiple formats, e.g. IP protocols 47 and 55, and tunnels the packets over an IP network.
gif the generic tunneling interface, gif(4). gif can encapsulate and tunnel IPv{4,6} over IPv{4,6}.
faith IPv6-to-IPv4 TCP relay interface, faith(4). Can use used, in conjunction with faithd, to relay TCPv6 traffic to IPv4 addresses.
stf Six To Four tunneling interface, stf(4). Tunnels IPv6 over IPv4, RFC3056.
vlan IEEE 802.1Q Virtual LAN, vlan(4). Supports Virtual LAN interfaces which can be attached to physical interfaces and then be used to send virtual lan tagged traffic.
bridge Bridging device, bridge(4). The bridging device is used to attach IEEE 802 networks together on the link layer.
pf Packet Filter, pf(4). The packet filter is a traffic filter.


5.4.1. Cloning devices

In the distant past, the number of pseudo-device instances for each device type was hardcoded into the kernel configuration and fixed at compile-time. This, while the fastest method for implementation, was wasteful because it allocated resources based on a compile-decision and limiting because it required recompilation when wanting to use the n+1'th device. Cloning devices allow resource allocation and resource release dynamically at runtime.

This discussion will concentrate on cloning interfaces, i.e. cloners which are created using ifconfig.

Most of the work behind in cloning in interface is handled in common code in net/if.c in the if_clone family of functions. Cloning interfaces are registered and deregistered using if_clone_attach and if_clone_detach, respectively. These calls are usually made in the pseudo-device attach and detach routines. Both functions take as an argument a pointer to the if_clone structure, which identifies the cloning interface.

struct if_clone is initialized by using the IF_CLONE_INITIALIZER macro:

struct if_clone cloner =
    IF_CLONE_INITIALIZER("clonername", cloner_create, cloner_destroy);

The parameters cloner_create and cloner_destroy are pointers to functions to be called from the common code. Create is responsible for allocating resources and attaching the interface to the rest of the framework while destroy is responsible for the opposite. Of course, destroy must preserve normal system semantics and not remove resources which are still in use. This is relevant with for example the tun device, where users open the /dev/tun[n] when using tun interface n.

A create or destroy operation coming from userspace passes through sys_ioctl and soo_ioctl before landing at ifioctl. The correct struct if_clone is found by searching the names of the attached cloners, i.e. doing string comparison. After this the function pointers in the structure are used.

5.4.2. Pseudo Interface Operation

The operation and attachment to the rest of the operating system kernel for a pseudo device depend greatly on the device's functionality. The following are some examples:

  • The vlan interface is always attached to a parent device when operational. It sends packets by vlan encapsulating them and enqueueing them onto the parent device packet send queue. It receives packets from ether_input, removes the vlan encapsulation and passes it back to the parent interface's if_input routine.

  • The gif interface registers itself as an interface to the networking stack by using if_attach and gif_output as the output routine. This output routine is then called from the network layer output routine, ip_output and the output routine eventually calls ip_output again once the packet has been encapsulated. Input is handled by in_gif_input, which is called via the struct protosw input routine from the encapsulated packet input function.

  • The tap interface registers itself as a network interface using if_attach. When a packet is sent through it, it notifies the device node listener or, if corresponding device is not open, simply drops all packets. When a packet is written to the device node, it gets injected into the networking stack through the if_input routine in the associated struct ifnet.

5.5. Packet Filters

In principle there are three pseudo devices involved with packet filtering. Out of these ipfilter and pf are involved in filtering network traffic and bpf is an interface to capture and access raw network traffic. All will be discussed briefly from the point of view of their attachment to rest of the kernel; the packet inspection and modification engines they implement are beyond the scope of this document.

Out of these ipfilter and pf are implemented using pfil hooks, while bpf is implemented as a tap in all the network drivers.

5.5.1. Packet Filter Interface

pfil is a purely in-kernel interface to support packet filtering hooks. Packet filters can register hooks which should be called when packet processing taken place; in it's essence pfil is a list of callbacks for certain events. In addition to being able to register a filter for incoming and outgoing packets, pfil provides support for interface attach/detach and address change notifications. pfil is described on the pfil(9) manual page and is used by IP Filter and Packet Filter (pf) to hook to the packet stream for implementing firewalls and NAT.

5.5.2. IPFilter

IP Filter, found in sys/dist/ipf/netinet, is a multiplatform packet filtering device useful for creating a firewall and Network Address Translation (NAT). Operation is controlled through device nodes with userland tools. IP Filter is documented on multiple different manual pages: ipf(4), ipl(4), ipnat(4), ipf(5) and ipnat(5) are good starting points.

IP Filter is attached to the system by enabling it with the command line tool ipf -E. This causes the ioctl SIOCFRENB to be executed and function iplattach to be called. iplattach calls pfil routines to establish a packet filter hook to check for packet delivery. The packet filter hooks catch both incoming and outgoing packets and call the IP Filter routine fr_check, which, through various subroutine calls, decides if the packet should be let in or out and applies necessary address translations for NAT. Detachment is performed by removing the registered pfil hooks to stop packet delivery to IP Filter.

5.5.3. pf

pf, found in sys/dist/pf/net, provides roughly the same functionality as ipfilter. Its operation is also very similar. Some relevant manual pages describing pf are pf(4), pf.conf(5) and pfctl(8).

pf is started using the tool pfctl, which issues a DIOCSTART ioctl. This causes pf to call pf_pfil_attach, which runs the necessary pfil attachment routines. The key routines after this are pf_test and pf_test6, which are called for IPv4 and IPv6 packets, respectively, to test should they be allowed to be sent/received or dropped. The packet filter hooks, and therefore the whole of pf, are disabled with the DIOCSTOP ioctl, usually issued with pfctl.

5.5.4. Berkeley Packet Filter

The Berkeley Packet Filter (bpf) (sys/net/bpf.c) provides link layer access to data available on the network through interfaces attached to the system. bpf is used by opening a device node, /dev/bpf and issuing ioctl's to control the operation of the device. A popular example of a tool using bpf is tcpdump.

The device /dev/bpf is a cloning device, meaning it can be opened multiple times. It is in principle similar to a cloning interface, except bpf provides no network interface, only a method to open the same device multiple times.

To capture network traffic, a bpf device must be attached to an interface. The traffic on this interface is then passed to bpf to evaluation. For attaching an interface to an open bpf device, the ioctl BIOCSETIF is used. The interface is identified by passing a struct ifreq, which contains the interface name in ASCII encoding. This is used to find the interface from the kernel tables. bpf registers itself to the interfaces struct ifnet field if_bpf to inform the system that it is interested about traffic on this particular interface. The listener can also pass a set of filtering rules to capture only certain packets, for example ones matching a given host and port combination.

bpf captures packets by supplying a tapping interface, bpf_tap-functions, to link layer drivers and relying on the drivers to always pass packets to it. Drivers honor this request and commonly have code which, along both the input and output paths, does:

#if NBPFILTER > 0
		if (ifp->if_bpf)
			bpf_mtap(ifp->if_bpf, m0);
#endif

This passes the mbuf to the bpf for inspection. bpf inspects the data and decides is anyone listening to this particular interface is interested in it. The filter inspecting the data is highly optimized to minimize time spent inspecting each packet. If the filter matches, the packet is copied to await being read from the device.

The bpf tapping feature looks very much like the interfaces provided by pfil, so a valid is question is debating the necessity of both. Even though they provide similar services, their functionality is disjoint. The bpf mtap wants to access packets right off the wire without any alteration and possibly copy it for further use. Callers linking into pfil want to modify and possibly drop packets.