Re: Question about SIOCGIFCONF

[Jeffrey Merkey]

Review of the net-tools source code for IFCONFIG indicates that when
/proc is not loaded and/or /proc/net/dev is not available, IFCONFIG
will attempt to use this ioctl to determine which interfaces are
present in the system.  Since the ioctl will not report unbound
interfaces which are active, IFCONFIG will not properly report or
detect network adapters which are unbound.  This seems to be a hole,
although most of the time I assume /proc will always be mounted.
Someone should review this and make a decision as to whether or not
this could be a problem.  At any rate, it does not work as advertised.

Jeff

On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 12:31 PM, Jeffrey Merkey <jeffmerkey@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Actually,  I verified last night it only returns interfaces which have
> been bound to an IP address.  It does not return any interfaces which
> are active but for which an IP address has not been bound.  So what I
> said is accurate.  it's fucking busted.
>
> /proc/net/dev returns ALL interfaces.  this ioctl does not.
>
> Jeff
>
> On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 10:57 PM, Eric Dumazet <eric.dumazet@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Le jeudi 27 mai 2010 à 21:02 -0600, Jeffrey Merkey a écrit :
>>> Why is SIOGICONF only instrumented to return a single interface lo for
>>> example.  I noticed that ifconfig always uses /proc/net/dev but the
>>> older SIOCGIFCONF ioctl seems to be busted.  Anyone have an
>>> explanation or is this just how the shit is these days or is the
>>> fucking thing broken (seems to be). ?
>>
>> Shit comes from you eyes maybe ?
>>
>> Correction : Shit comes from your eyes, definitely.
>>
>> Proof :
>>
>> # strace -o /tmp/STRACE ifconfig -a
>> # grep SIOCGIFCONF /tmp/STRACE
>> ioctl(4, SIOCGIFCONF, {120, {{"lo", {AF_INET, inet_addr("127.0.0.1")}},
>> {"wlan0", {AF_INET, inet_addr("192.168.1.21")}}, {"ppp0", {AF_INET,
>> inet_addr("10.150.51.210")}}}}) = 0
>>
>>
>> Part of ifconfig :
>>
>>    ifc.ifc_buf = NULL;
>>    for (;;) {
>>        ifc.ifc_len = sizeof(struct ifreq) * numreqs;
>>        ifc.ifc_buf = xrealloc(ifc.ifc_buf, ifc.ifc_len);
>>
>>        if (ioctl(skfd, SIOCGIFCONF, &ifc) < 0) {
>>            perror("SIOCGIFCONF");
>>            goto out;
>>        }
>>        if (ifc.ifc_len == sizeof(struct ifreq) * numreqs) {
>>            /* assume it overflowed and try again */
>>            numreqs += 10;
>>            continue;
>>        }
>>        break;
>>    }
>>
>> maybe numreqs should be firt initialized to 64, then doubled each
>> round...
>>
>>
>>
>
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