cmsg(3) — Linux manual page

NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | VERSIONS | STANDARDS | HISTORY | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

CMSG(3)                 Library Functions Manual                 CMSG(3)

NAME         top

       CMSG_ALIGN, CMSG_SPACE, CMSG_NXTHDR, CMSG_FIRSTHDR - access
       ancillary data

LIBRARY         top

       Standard C library (libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <sys/socket.h>

       struct cmsghdr *CMSG_FIRSTHDR(struct msghdr *msgh);
       struct cmsghdr *CMSG_NXTHDR(struct msghdr *msgh,
                                   struct cmsghdr *cmsg);
       size_t CMSG_ALIGN(size_t length);
       size_t CMSG_SPACE(size_t length);
       size_t CMSG_LEN(size_t length);
       unsigned char *CMSG_DATA(struct cmsghdr *cmsg);

DESCRIPTION         top

       These macros are used to create and access control messages (also
       called ancillary data) that are not a part of the socket payload.
       This control information may include the interface the packet was
       received on, various rarely used header fields, an extended error
       description, a set of file descriptors, or UNIX credentials.  For
       instance, control messages can be used to send additional header
       fields such as IP options.  Ancillary data is sent by calling
       sendmsg(2) and received by calling recvmsg(2).  See their manual
       pages for more information.

       Ancillary data is a sequence of cmsghdr structures with appended
       data.  See the specific protocol man pages for the available
       control message types.  The maximum ancillary buffer size allowed
       per socket can be set using /proc/sys/net/core/optmem_max; see
       socket(7).

       The cmsghdr structure is defined as follows:

           struct cmsghdr {
               size_t cmsg_len;    /* Data byte count, including header
                                      (type is socklen_t in POSIX) */
               int    cmsg_level;  /* Originating protocol */
               int    cmsg_type;   /* Protocol-specific type */
           /* followed by
              unsigned char cmsg_data[]; */
           };

       The sequence of cmsghdr structures should never be accessed
       directly.  Instead, use only the following macros:

       CMSG_FIRSTHDR()
              returns a pointer to the first cmsghdr in the ancillary
              data buffer associated with the passed msghdr.  It returns
              NULL if there isn't enough space for a cmsghdr in the
              buffer.

       CMSG_NXTHDR()
              returns the next valid cmsghdr after the passed cmsghdr.
              It returns NULL when there isn't enough space left in the
              buffer.

              When initializing a buffer that will contain a series of
              cmsghdr structures (e.g., to be sent with sendmsg(2)),
              that buffer should first be zero-initialized to ensure the
              correct operation of CMSG_NXTHDR().

       CMSG_ALIGN(),
              given a length, returns it including the required
              alignment.  This is a constant expression.

       CMSG_SPACE()
              returns the number of bytes an ancillary element with
              payload of the passed data length occupies.  This is a
              constant expression.

       CMSG_DATA()
              returns a pointer to the data portion of a cmsghdr.  The
              pointer returned cannot be assumed to be suitably aligned
              for accessing arbitrary payload data types.  Applications
              should not cast it to a pointer type matching the payload,
              but should instead use memcpy(3) to copy data to or from a
              suitably declared object.

       CMSG_LEN()
              returns the value to store in the cmsg_len member of the
              cmsghdr structure, taking into account any necessary
              alignment.  It takes the data length as an argument.  This
              is a constant expression.

       To create ancillary data, first initialize the msg_controllen
       member of the msghdr with the length of the control message
       buffer.  Use CMSG_FIRSTHDR() on the msghdr to get the first
       control message and CMSG_NXTHDR() to get all subsequent ones.  In
       each control message, initialize cmsg_len (with CMSG_LEN()), the
       other cmsghdr header fields, and the data portion using
       CMSG_DATA().  Finally, the msg_controllen field of the msghdr
       should be set to the sum of the CMSG_SPACE() of the length of all
       control messages in the buffer.  For more information on the
       msghdr, see recvmsg(2).

VERSIONS         top

       For portability, ancillary data should be accessed using only the
       macros described here.

       In Linux, CMSG_LEN(), CMSG_DATA(), and CMSG_ALIGN() are constant
       expressions (assuming their argument is constant), meaning that
       these values can be used to declare the size of global variables.
       This may not be portable, however.

STANDARDS         top

       CMSG_FIRSTHDR()
       CMSG_NXTHDR()
       CMSG_DATA()
              POSIX.1-2008.

       CMSG_SPACE()
       CMSG_LEN()
       CMSG_ALIGN()
              Linux.

HISTORY         top

       This ancillary data model conforms to the POSIX.1g draft, 4.4BSD-
       Lite, the IPv6 advanced API described in RFC 2292 and SUSv2.

       CMSG_SPACE() and CMSG_LEN() will be included in the next POSIX
       release (Issue 8).

EXAMPLES         top

       This code looks for the IP_TTL option in a received ancillary
       buffer:

           struct msghdr msgh;
           struct cmsghdr *cmsg;
           int received_ttl;

           /* Receive auxiliary data in msgh */

           for (cmsg = CMSG_FIRSTHDR(&msgh); cmsg != NULL;
                   cmsg = CMSG_NXTHDR(&msgh, cmsg)) {
               if (cmsg->cmsg_level == IPPROTO_IP
                       && cmsg->cmsg_type == IP_TTL) {
                   memcpy(&receive_ttl, CMSG_DATA(cmsg), sizeof(received_ttl));
                   break;
               }
           }

           if (cmsg == NULL) {
               /* Error: IP_TTL not enabled or small buffer or I/O error */
           }

       The code below passes an array of file descriptors over a UNIX
       domain socket using SCM_RIGHTS:

           struct msghdr msg = { 0 };
           struct cmsghdr *cmsg;
           int myfds[NUM_FD];  /* Contains the file descriptors to pass */
           char iobuf[1];
           struct iovec io = {
               .iov_base = iobuf,
               .iov_len = sizeof(iobuf)
           };
           union {         /* Ancillary data buffer, wrapped in a union
                              in order to ensure it is suitably aligned */
               char buf[CMSG_SPACE(sizeof(myfds))];
               struct cmsghdr align;
           } u;

           msg.msg_iov = &io;
           msg.msg_iovlen = 1;
           msg.msg_control = u.buf;
           msg.msg_controllen = sizeof(u.buf);
           cmsg = CMSG_FIRSTHDR(&msg);
           cmsg->cmsg_level = SOL_SOCKET;
           cmsg->cmsg_type = SCM_RIGHTS;
           cmsg->cmsg_len = CMSG_LEN(sizeof(myfds));
           memcpy(CMSG_DATA(cmsg), myfds, sizeof(myfds));

       For a complete code example that shows passing of file
       descriptors over a UNIX domain socket, see seccomp_unotify(2).

SEE ALSO         top

       recvmsg(2), sendmsg(2)

       RFC 2292

COLOPHON         top

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Linux man-pages 6.9.1          2024-05-02                        CMSG(3)

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