NAME
getifaddrs, freeifaddrs - get interface addresses
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <ifaddrs.h>
int getifaddrs(struct ifaddrs **ifap);
void freeifaddrs(struct ifaddrs *ifa);
DESCRIPTION
The getifaddrs() function creates a linked list of structures
describing the network interfaces of the local system, and stores the
address of the first item of the list in *ifap. The list consists of
ifaddrs structures, defined as follows:
struct ifaddrs {
struct ifaddrs *ifa_next; /* Next item in list */
char *ifa_name; /* Name of interface */
unsigned int ifa_flags; /* Flags from SIOCGIFFLAGS */
struct sockaddr *ifa_addr; /* Address of interface */
struct sockaddr *ifa_netmask; /* Netmask of interface */
union {
struct sockaddr *ifu_broadaddr;
/* Broadcast address of interface */
struct sockaddr *ifu_dstaddr;
/* Point-to-point destination address */
} ifa_ifu;
#define ifa_broadaddr ifa_ifu.ifu_broadaddr
#define ifa_dstaddr ifa_ifu.ifu_dstaddr
void *ifa_data; /* Address-specific data */
};
The ifa_next field contains a pointer to the next structure on the
list, or NULL if this is the last item of the list.
The ifa_name points to the null-terminated interface name.
The ifa_flags field contains the interface flags, as returned by the
SIOCGIFFLAGS ioctl(2) operation (see netdevice(7) for a list of these
flags).
The ifa_addr field points to a structure containing the interface
address. (The sa_family subfield should be consulted to determine the
format of the address structure.)
The ifa_netmask field points to a structure containing the netmask
associated with ifa_addr, if applicable for the address family.
Depending on whether the bit IFF_BROADCAST or IFF_POINTOPOINT is set in
ifa_flags (only one can be set at a time), either ifa_broadaddr will
contain the broadcast address associated with ifa_addr (if applicable
for the address family) or ifa_dstaddr will contain the destination
address of the point-to-point interface.
The ifa_data field points to a buffer containing address-family-
specific data; this field may be NULL if there is no such data for this
interface.
The data returned by getifaddrs() is dynamically allocated and should
be freed using freeifaddrs() when no longer needed.
RETURN VALUES
On success, getifaddrs() returns zero; on error, -1 is returned, and
errno is set appropriately.
ERRORS
getifaddrs() may fail and set errno for any of the errors specified for
socket(2), bind(2), getsockname(2), recvmsg(2), sendto(2), malloc(3),
or realloc(3).
VERSIONS
The getifaddrs() function first appeared in glibc 2.3, but before glibc
2.3.3, the implementation only supported IPv4 addresses; IPv6 support
was added in glibc 2.3.3. Support of address families other than IPv4
is only available on kernels that support netlink.
CONFORMING TO
Not in POSIX.1-2001. This function first appeared in BSDi and is
present on the BSD systems, but with slightly different semantics
documented—returning one entry per interface, not per address. This
means ifa_addr and other fields can actually be NULL if the interface
has no address, and no link-level address is returned if the interface
has an IP address assigned. Also, the way of choosing either
ifa_broadaddr or ifa_dstaddr differs on various systems.
NOTES
The addresses returned on Linux will usually be the IPv4 and IPv6
addresses assigned to the interface, but also one AF_PACKET address per
interface containing lower-level details about the interface and its
physical layer. In this case, the ifa_data field may contain a pointer
to a struct net_device_stats, defined in <linux/netdevice.h>, which
contains various interface attributes and statistics.
EXAMPLE
The program below demonstrates the use of getifaddrs(), freeifaddrs(),
and getnameinfo(3). Here is what we see when running this program on
one system:
$ ./a.out
lo address family: 17 (AF_PACKET)
eth0 address family: 17 (AF_PACKET)
lo address family: 2 (AF_INET)
address: <127.0.0.1>
eth0 address family: 2 (AF_INET)
address: <10.1.1.4>
lo address family: 10 (AF_INET6)
address: <::1>
eth0 address family: 10 (AF_INET6)
address: <fe80::2d0:59ff:feda:eb51%eth0>
Program source
#include <arpa/inet.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netdb.h>
#include <ifaddrs.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
struct ifaddrs *ifaddr, *ifa;
int family, s;
char host[NI_MAXHOST];
if (getifaddrs(&ifaddr) == -1) {
perror("getifaddrs");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
/* Walk through linked list, maintaining head pointer so we
can free list later */
for (ifa = ifaddr; ifa != NULL; ifa = ifa->ifa_next) {
family = ifa->ifa_addr->sa_family;
/* Display interface name and family (including symbolic
form of the latter for the common families) */
printf("%s address family: %d%s\n",
ifa->ifa_name, family,
(family == AF_PACKET) ? " (AF_PACKET)" :
(family == AF_INET) ? " (AF_INET)" :
(family == AF_INET6) ? " (AF_INET6)" : "");
/* For an AF_INET* interface address, display the address */
if (family == AF_INET || family == AF_INET6) {
s = getnameinfo(ifa->ifa_addr,
(family == AF_INET) ? sizeof(struct sockaddr_in) :
sizeof(struct sockaddr_in6),
host, NI_MAXHOST, NULL, 0, NI_NUMERICHOST);
if (s != 0) {
printf("getnameinfo() failed: %s\n", gai_strerror(s));
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
printf("\taddress: <%s>\n", host);
}
}
freeifaddrs(ifaddr);
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
SEE ALSO
bind(2), getsockname(2), socket(2), packet(7), ifconfig(8)
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.24 of the Linux man-pages project. A
description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.