Confusing ifreq behavior: guru needed

B. James Phillippe (bryan@terran.org)
Mon, 12 Oct 1998 14:27:31 -0700 (PDT)


Hello,

I'll be concise: I am writing some user-space code that needs to
obtain the IPv4 protocol address and hardware address from an interface
(arbitrary). I am using the ioctl() method with SIOCGIFHWADDR and
SIOCGIFADDR, operating on struct ifreq (contains struct sockaddr). The
hardware address part works like I expect. But the IP address doesn't;
it's stored in sa_data, offset two bytes. I don't understand why. Here is
a code pseudo-fragment:

Obtaining hardware address (works as I expected):

int s = socket( AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, 0 );
struct ifreq req;

strcpy( req.ifr_name, "some-device" );
ioctl( s, SIOCGIFHWADDR, &req );

close( s );
memcpy( "place-to-store-hwaddr", req.ifr_hwaddr.sa_data, 6 );
/* the "6" is for an ethernet address */

Obtaining the protocol address (it is offset?):

int s = socket( AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, 0 );
struct ifreq req;

strcpy( req.ifr_name, "same-device" );
ioctl( s, SIOCGIFADDR, &req );

close( s );
32-bit-holder = *((u_int32_t*)(req.ifr_addr.sa_data+2));

Note the "+2". I found this by trial and error. If anyone can explain
this to me (or if I'm doing something wrong) I would be very greatful.

thanks,
-bp

--
B. James Phillippe	. bryan@terran.org
UNIX Software Engineer	. http://www.terran.org/~bryan
Member since 1.1.59	. finger:bryan@earth.terran.org
MOTM: Waiting for the DSL to go in :)

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