Join a multicast group. Argument is an ip_mreqn structure.

imr_multiaddr contains the address of the multicast group the application wants to join or leave. It must be a valid multicast address (or setsockopt(2) fails with the error EINVAL). imr_address is the address of the local interface with which the system should join the multicast group; if it is equal to INADDR_ANY, an appropriate interface is chosen by the system. imr_ifindex is the interface index of the interface that should join/leave the imr_multiaddr group, or 0 to indicate any interface.

The ip_mreqn structure is available only since Linux 2.2. For compatibility, the old ip_mreq structure (present since Linux 1.2) is still supported; it differs from ip_mreqn only by not including the imr_ifindex field. (The kernel determines which structure is being passed based on the size passed in optlen.)

IP_ADD_MEMBERSHIP is valid only for setsockopt(2).

Join a multicast group and allow receiving data only from a specified source. Argument is an ip_mreq_source structure.

The ip_mreq_source structure is similar to ip_mreqn described under IP_ADD_MEMBERSIP. The imr_multiaddr field contains the address of the multicast group the application wants to join or leave. The imr_interface field is the address of the local interface with which the system should join the multicast group. Finally, the imr_sourceaddr field contains the address of the source the application wants to receive data from.

This option can be used multiple times to allow receiving data from more than one source.

Inform the kernel to not reserve an ephemeral port when using bind(2) with a port number of 0. The port will later be automatically chosen at connect(2) time, in a way that allows sharing a source port as long as the 4-tuple is unique.

Stop receiving multicast data from a specific source in a given group. This is valid only after the application has subscribed to the multicast group using either IP_ADD_MEMBERSHIP or IP_ADD_SOURCE_MEMBERSHIP.

Argument is an ip_mreq_source structure as described under IP_ADD_SOURCE_MEMBERSHIP.

Leave a multicast group. Argument is an ip_mreqn or ip_mreq structure similar to IP_ADD_MEMBERSHIP.

Leave a source-specific group—that is, stop receiving data from a given multicast group that come from a given source. If the application has subscribed to multiple sources within the same group, data from the remaining sources will still be delivered. To stop receiving data from all sources at once, use IP_DROP_MEMBERSHIP.

Argument is an ip_mreq_source structure as described under IP_ADD_SOURCE_MEMBERSHIP.

If enabled, this boolean option allows binding to an IP address that is nonlocal or does not (yet) exist. This permits listening on a socket, without requiring the underlying network interface or the specified dynamic IP address to be up at the time that the application is trying to bind to it. This option is the per-socket equivalent of the ip_nonlocal_bind /proc interface described below.

If enabled, the user supplies an IP header in front of the user data. Valid only for SOCK_RAW sockets; see raw(7) for more information. When this flag is enabled, the values set by IP_OPTIONS, IP_TTL, and IP_TOS are ignored.

This option provides access to the advanced full-state filtering API. Argument is an ip_msfilter structure.

There are two macros, MCAST_INCLUDE and MCAST_EXCLUDE, which can be used to specify the filtering mode. Additionally, the IP_MSFILTER_SIZE(n) macro exists to determine how much memory is needed to store ip_msfilter structure with n sources in the source list.

For the full description of multicast source filtering refer to RFC 3376.

Retrieve the current known path MTU of the current socket. Returns an integer.

IP_MTU is valid only for getsockopt(2) and can be employed only when the socket has been connected.

Set or receive the Path MTU Discovery setting for a socket. When enabled, Linux will perform Path MTU Discovery as defined in RFC 1191 on SOCK_STREAM sockets. For non-SOCK_STREAM sockets, IP_PMTUDISC_DO forces the don't-fragment flag to be set on all outgoing packets. It is the user's responsibility to packetize the data in MTU-sized chunks and to do the retransmits if necessary. The kernel will reject (with EMSGSIZE) datagrams that are bigger than the known path MTU. IP_PMTUDISC_WANT will fragment a datagram if needed according to the path MTU, or will set the don't-fragment flag otherwise.

The system-wide default can be toggled between IP_PMTUDISC_WANT and IP_PMTUDISC_DONT by writing (respectively, zero and nonzero values) to the /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_no_pmtu_disc file.

This option can be used to modify the delivery policy of multicast messages to sockets bound to the wildcard INADDR_ANY address. The argument is a boolean integer (defaults to 1). If set to 1, the socket will receive messages from all the groups that have been joined globally on the whole system. Otherwise, it will deliver messages only from the groups that have been explicitly joined (for example via the IP_ADD_MEMBERSHIP option) on this particular socket.

Set the local device for a multicast socket. The argument for setsockopt(2) is an ip_mreqn or (since Linux 3.5) ip_mreq structure similar to IP_ADD_MEMBERSHIP, or an in_addr structure. (The kernel determines which structure is being passed based on the size passed in optlen.) For getsockopt(2), the argument is an in_addr structure.

Set or read a boolean integer argument that determines whether sent multicast packets should be looped back to the local sockets.

Set or read the time-to-live value of outgoing multicast packets for this socket. It is very important for multicast packets to set the smallest TTL possible. The default is 1 which means that multicast packets don't leave the local network unless the user program explicitly requests it. Argument is an integer.

If enabled (argument is nonzero), the reassembly of outgoing packets is disabled in the netfilter layer. The argument is an integer.

This option is valid only for SOCK_RAW sockets.

Set or get the IP options to be sent with every packet from this socket. The arguments are a pointer to a memory buffer containing the options and the option length. The setsockopt(2) call sets the IP options associated with a socket. The maximum option size for IPv4 is 40 bytes. See RFC 791 for the allowed options. When the initial connection request packet for a SOCK_STREAM socket contains IP options, the IP options will be set automatically to the options from the initial packet with routing headers reversed. Incoming packets are not allowed to change options after the connection is established. The processing of all incoming source routing options is disabled by default and can be enabled by using the accept_source_route /proc interface. Other options like timestamps are still handled. For datagram sockets, IP options can be only set by the local user. Calling getsockopt(2) with IP_OPTIONS puts the current IP options used for sending into the supplied buffer.

Pass an IP_PKTINFO ancillary message that contains a pktinfo structure that supplies some information about the incoming packet. This only works for datagram oriented sockets. The argument is a flag that tells the socket whether the IP_PKTINFO message should be passed or not. The message itself can only be sent/retrieved as control message with a packet using recvmsg(2) or sendmsg(2).

ipi_ifindex is the unique index of the interface the packet was received on. ipi_spec_dst is the local address of the packet and ipi_addr is the destination address in the packet header. If IP_PKTINFO is passed to sendmsg(2) and ipi_spec_dst is not zero, then it is used as the local source address for the routing table lookup and for setting up IP source route options. When ipi_ifindex is not zero, the primary local address of the interface specified by the index overwrites ipi_spec_dst for the routing table lookup.

Enable extended reliable error message passing. When enabled on a datagram socket, all generated errors will be queued in a per-socket error queue. When the user receives an error from a socket operation, the errors can be received by calling recvmsg(2) with the MSG_ERRQUEUE flag set. The sock_extended_err structure describing the error will be passed in an ancillary message with the type IP_RECVERR and the level IPPROTO_IP. This is useful for reliable error handling on unconnected sockets. The received data portion of the error queue contains the error packet.

The IP_RECVERR control message contains a sock_extended_err structure:

ee_errno contains the errno number of the queued error. ee_origin is the origin code of where the error originated. The other fields are protocol-specific. The macro SO_EE_OFFENDER returns a pointer to the address of the network object where the error originated from given a pointer to the ancillary message. If this address is not known, the sa_family member of the sockaddr contains AF_UNSPEC and the other fields of the sockaddr are undefined.

IP uses the sock_extended_err structure as follows: ee_origin is set to SO_EE_ORIGIN_ICMP for errors received as an ICMP packet, or SO_EE_ORIGIN_LOCAL for locally generated errors. Unknown values should be ignored. ee_type and ee_code are set from the type and code fields of the ICMP header. ee_info contains the discovered MTU for EMSGSIZE errors. The message also contains the sockaddr_in of the node caused the error, which can be accessed with the SO_EE_OFFENDER macro. The sin_family field of the SO_EE_OFFENDER address is AF_UNSPEC when the source was unknown. When the error originated from the network, all IP options (IP_OPTIONS, IP_TTL, etc.) enabled on the socket and contained in the error packet are passed as control messages. The payload of the packet causing the error is returned as normal payload. Note that TCP has no error queue; MSG_ERRQUEUE is not permitted on SOCK_STREAM sockets. IP_RECVERR is valid for TCP, but all errors are returned by socket function return or SO_ERROR only.

For raw sockets, IP_RECVERR enables passing of all received ICMP errors to the application, otherwise errors are only reported on connected sockets

It sets or retrieves an integer boolean flag. IP_RECVERR defaults to off.

Pass all incoming IP options to the user in a IP_OPTIONS control message. The routing header and other options are already filled in for the local host. Not supported for SOCK_STREAM sockets.

This boolean option enables the IP_ORIGDSTADDR ancillary message in recvmsg(2), in which the kernel returns the original destination address of the datagram being received. The ancillary message contains a struct sockaddr_in.

If enabled, the IP_TOS ancillary message is passed with incoming packets. It contains a byte which specifies the Type of Service/Precedence field of the packet header. Expects a boolean integer flag.

When this flag is set, pass a IP_TTL control message with the time-to-live field of the received packet as a byte. Not supported for SOCK_STREAM sockets.

Identical to IP_RECVOPTS, but returns raw unprocessed options with timestamp and route record options not filled in for this hop.

Pass all to-be forwarded packets with the IP Router Alert option set to this socket. Valid only for raw sockets. This is useful, for instance, for user-space RSVP daemons. The tapped packets are not forwarded by the kernel; it is the user's responsibility to send them out again. Socket binding is ignored, such packets are only filtered by protocol. Expects an integer flag.

Set or receive the Type-Of-Service (TOS) field that is sent with every IP packet originating from this socket. It is used to prioritize packets on the network. TOS is a byte. There are some standard TOS flags defined: IPTOS_LOWDELAY to minimize delays for interactive traffic, IPTOS_THROUGHPUT to optimize throughput, IPTOS_RELIABILITY to optimize for reliability, IPTOS_MINCOST should be used for "filler data" where slow transmission doesn't matter. At most one of these TOS values can be specified. Other bits are invalid and shall be cleared. Linux sends IPTOS_LOWDELAY datagrams first by default, but the exact behavior depends on the configured queueing discipline. Some high-priority levels may require superuser privileges (the CAP_NET_ADMIN capability).

Setting this boolean option enables transparent proxying on this socket. This socket option allows the calling application to bind to a nonlocal IP address and operate both as a client and a server with the foreign address as the local endpoint. NOTE: this requires that routing be set up in a way that packets going to the foreign address are routed through the TProxy box (i.e., the system hosting the application that employs the IP_TRANSPARENT socket option). Enabling this socket option requires superuser privileges (the CAP_NET_ADMIN capability).

TProxy redirection with the iptables TPROXY target also requires that this option be set on the redirected socket.

Set or retrieve the current time-to-live field that is used in every packet sent from this socket.

Unblock previously blocked multicast source. Returns EADDRNOTAVAIL when given source is not being blocked.

Argument is an ip_mreq_source structure as described under IP_ADD_SOURCE_MEMBERSHIP.

[New with kernel 2.2.13; in earlier kernel versions this feature was controlled at compile time by the CONFIG_IP_ALWAYS_DEFRAG option; this option is not present in 2.4.x and later]

When this boolean flag is enabled (not equal 0), incoming fragments (parts of IP packets that arose when some host between origin and destination decided that the packets were too large and cut them into pieces) will be reassembled (defragmented) before being processed, even if they are about to be forwarded.

Only enable if running either a firewall that is the sole link to your network or a transparent proxy; never ever use it for a normal router or host. Otherwise, fragmented communication can be disturbed if the fragments travel over different links. Defragmentation also has a large memory and CPU time cost.

This is automagically turned on when masquerading or transparent proxying are configured.

Not documented.

Set the default time-to-live value of outgoing packets. This can be changed per socket with the IP_TTL option.

Enable dynamic socket address and masquerading entry rewriting on interface address change. This is useful for dialup interface with changing IP addresses. 0 means no rewriting, 1 turns it on and 2 enables verbose mode.

Enable IP forwarding with a boolean flag. IP forwarding can be also set on a per-interface basis.

This file contains two integers that define the default local port range allocated to sockets that are not explicitly bound to a port number—that is, the range used for ephemeral ports. An ephemeral port is allocated to a socket in the following circumstances:

Allocation of ephemeral ports starts with the first number in ip_local_port_range and ends with the second number. If the range of ephemeral ports is exhausted, then the relevant system call returns an error (but see BUGS).

Note that the port range in ip_local_port_range should not conflict with the ports used by masquerading (although the case is handled). Also, arbitrary choices may cause problems with some firewall packet filters that make assumptions about the local ports in use. The first number should be at least greater than 1024, or better, greater than 4096, to avoid clashes with well known ports and to minimize firewall problems.

If enabled, don't do Path MTU Discovery for TCP sockets by default. Path MTU discovery may fail if misconfigured firewalls (that drop all ICMP packets) or misconfigured interfaces (e.g., a point-to-point link where the both ends don't agree on the MTU) are on the path. It is better to fix the broken routers on the path than to turn off Path MTU Discovery globally, because not doing it incurs a high cost to the network.

If set, allows processes to bind(2) to nonlocal IP addresses, which can be quite useful, but may break some applications.

Time in seconds to keep an IPv6 fragment in memory.

Regeneration interval (in seconds) of the hash secret (or lifetime for the hash secret) for IPv6 fragments.

If the amount of queued IP fragments reaches ipfrag_high_thresh, the queue is pruned down to ipfrag_low_thresh. Contains an integer with the number of bytes.

See arp(7).