Sunday, August 1, 2010

How to use Netlink Sockets

 After reading kernel source I finally managed to make netlink sockets work for me. Below is an example of Netlink socket basics i.e opening a netlink socket, reading and writing to it and closing it.



Kernel Module

#include <linux/module.h>
#include <net/sock.h>
#include <linux/netlink.h>
#include <linux/skbuff.h>

#define NETLINK_USER 31

struct sock *nl_sk = NULL;

static void hello_nl_recv_msg(struct sk_buff *skb)
{
    struct nlmsghdr *nlh;
    int pid;
    struct sk_buff *skb_out;
    int msg_size;
    char *msg="Hello from kernel";
    int res;

    printk(KERN_INFO "Entering: %s\n", __FUNCTION__);
    
    msg_size=strlen(msg);
    
    nlh=(struct nlmsghdr*)skb->data;
    printk(KERN_INFO "Netlink received msg payload: %s\n",(char*)nlmsg_data(nlh));
    pid = nlh->nlmsg_pid; /*pid of sending process */

    skb_out = nlmsg_new(msg_size,0);

    if(!skb_out)
    {
        printk(KERN_ERR "Failed to allocate new skb\n");
        return;
    } 
    nlh=nlmsg_put(skb_out,0,0,NLMSG_DONE,msg_size,0);

    NETLINK_CB(skb_out).dst_group = 0; /* not in mcast group */
    strncpy(nlmsg_data(nlh),msg,msg_size);
    
    res=nlmsg_unicast(nl_sk,skb_out,pid);
    
    if(res<0)
        printk(KERN_INFO "Error while sending bak to user\n");
}

static int __init hello_init(void)
{
    printk("Entering: %s\n",__FUNCTION__);
    nl_sk=netlink_kernel_create(&init_net, NETLINK_USER, 0, hello_nl_recv_msg, NULL, THIS_MODULE);
    if(!nl_sk)
    {
        printk(KERN_ALERT "Error creating socket.\n");
        return -10;
    }
    return 0;
}

static void __exit hello_exit(void){
    printk(KERN_INFO "exiting hello module\n");
    netlink_kernel_release(nl_sk);
}

module_init(hello_init);
module_exit(hello_exit);

MODULE_LICENSE("GPL");


User Program

#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <linux/netlink.h>

#define NETLINK_USER 31

#define MAX_PAYLOAD 1024  /* maximum payload size*/
struct sockaddr_nl src_addr, dest_addr;
struct nlmsghdr *nlh = NULL;
struct iovec iov;
int sock_fd;
struct msghdr msg;

void main() {
    sock_fd=socket(PF_NETLINK, SOCK_RAW, NETLINK_USER);
    if(sock_fd<0)
return -1;

    memset(&src_addr, 0, sizeof(src_addr));
    src_addr.nl_family = AF_NETLINK;
    src_addr.nl_pid = getpid();  /* self pid */
    /* interested in group 1<<0 */
    bind(sock_fd, (struct sockaddr*)&src_addr,
        sizeof(src_addr));

    memset(&dest_addr, 0, sizeof(dest_addr));
    memset(&dest_addr, 0, sizeof(dest_addr));
    dest_addr.nl_family = AF_NETLINK;
    dest_addr.nl_pid = 0;   /* For Linux Kernel */
    dest_addr.nl_groups = 0; /* unicast */
    
    nlh = (struct nlmsghdr *)malloc(NLMSG_SPACE(MAX_PAYLOAD));
    memset(nlh, 0, NLMSG_SPACE(MAX_PAYLOAD));
    nlh->nlmsg_len = NLMSG_SPACE(MAX_PAYLOAD);
    nlh->nlmsg_pid = getpid();
    nlh->nlmsg_flags = 0;
    strcpy(NLMSG_DATA(nlh), "Hello");
    iov.iov_base = (void *)nlh;
    iov.iov_len = nlh->nlmsg_len;
    msg.msg_name = (void *)&dest_addr;
    msg.msg_namelen = sizeof(dest_addr);
    msg.msg_iov = &iov;
    msg.msg_iovlen = 1;

    printf("Sending message to kernel\n");
    sendmsg(sock_fd,&msg,0);
    printf("Waiting for message from kernel\n");

    /* Read message from kernel */
    recvmsg(sock_fd, &msg, 0);
    printf(" Received message payload: %s\n",
           NLMSG_DATA(nlh));
    close(sock_fd);
}