tcpdump mailing list archives

libdlpi with libpcap


From: sagun shakya <Sagun.Shakya () Sun COM>
Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2007 18:35:52 -0400

Scope:
------
Add libpcap support for upcoming Solaris features such as vanity naming, IP Tunneling and IP observability.

Reason for changes:
-------------------
When the features mentioned above integrate into Solaris, an extensible way to open DLPI links under different directories will be required. The libdlpi(3LIB) library provides an interface that provides an abstraction around this so that DLPI applications do not need to know where the actual DLPI link is located in the filesystem.

Improvements after adding support to libpcap:
---------------------------------------------
* Observe all IP layer network traffic, including loopback, IPMP group, IP tunnel traffic and IP layer network traffic flowing to and from a zone.

* Currently, pcap_findalldevs() which lists all the network devices on
the system for packet capturing uses SIOCGLIFCONF to generate the list on Solaris. This limits the lists to network devices that are plumbed IP interfaces. libdlpi has an interface dlpi_walk(), which will walk all the network device, thus will provide a complete list.

I would like to hear from you for suggestions on how libpcap can be
updated to libdlpi. I have a couple of possible approaches to make this addition but they may not necessarily be the best approach:

1) Introduce a new pcap-libdlpi-solaris.c file which will handle all the
versions of Solaris with libdlpi. The existing pcap-dlpi.c will continue
working for pre-libdlpi versions of Solaris.

2) Continue with the use of ifdef #HAVE_SOLARIS approach in the existing
pcap-dlpi.c file to call libdlpi functions for releases that support
libdlpi.

3) Instead of using libdlpi, add support to open different directories, i.e /dev/net, /dev/ipnet, and add other Solaris-specific ioctls to the existing pcap-dlpi.c file under #ifdef protection.

Just to state the obvious, once we come to a conclusion, fixes to the
necessary makefiles, configure.in etc will be made. Also a
README.solaris for notes on using libpcap on Solaris will be added.

I would appreciate your comment or suggestion. Please also cc
clearview-discuss () opensolaris org so other members of our project can
participate in the discussion.

For further information on the details for features mentioned above, check the Clearview Project website: http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/clearview/

Thanks,

Sagun

PS. The clearview-discuss () opensolaris org list is moderated and non-members may receive automated replies from the server stating that since they're not a member of the list, their message are being queued for manual administrative approval.



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