how to bind raw socket to specific interface

Question

My application is running on CentOS 5.5. I'm using raw socket to send data:

sd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_RAW, IPPROTO_RAW);
if (sd < 0) {
  // Error
}
const int opt_on = 1;
rc = setsockopt(m_SocketDescriptor, IPPROTO_IP, IP_HDRINCL, &opt_on, sizeof(opt_on));
if (rc < 0) {
  close(sd);
  // Error
}
struct sockaddr_in sin;
memset(&sin, 0, sizeof(sin));
sin.sin_family = AF_INET;
sin.sin_addr.s_addr = my_ip_address;

if (sendto(m_SocketDescriptor, DataBuffer, (size_t)TotalSize, 0, (struct sockaddr *)&sin, sizeof(struct sockaddr)) < 0)  {
  close(sd);
  // Error
}

How can I bind this socket to specific network interface (say eth1)?

Answer 1

const char *opt;
opt = "eth0";
const len = strnlen(opt, IFNAMSIZ);
if (len == IFNAMSIZ) {
    fprintf(stderr, "Too long iface name");
    return 1;
}
setsockopt(sd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_BINDTODEVICE, opt, len);

First line: set up your variable

Second line: tell the program which interface to bind to

Lines 3-5: get length of interface name and check if it's size not too big.

Six line: set the socket options for socket sd , binding to the device opt .

setsockopt prototype:

int setsockopt(int s, int level, int optname, const void *optval, socklen_t optlen);

Also, make sure you include the if.h , socket.h and string.h header files

Answer 2

As mentioned earlier, the correct thing to do is use the struct ifreq to specify the interface name. Here is my code sample.

#define SERVERPORT 5555
...
struct ifreq ifr;


/* Create the socket */
sd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);
if (sd < 0) 
{
    printf("Error in socket() creation - %s", strerror(errno));
}

/* Bind to eth1 interface only - this is a private VLAN */
memset(&ifr, 0, sizeof(ifr));
snprintf(ifr.ifr_name, sizeof(ifr.ifr_name), "eth1");
if ((rc = setsockopt(sd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_BINDTODEVICE, (void *)&ifr, sizeof(ifr))) < 0)
{
    perror("Server-setsockopt() error for SO_BINDTODEVICE");
    printf("%s\n", strerror(errno));
    close(sd);
    exit(-1);
}

/* bind to an address */
memset(&serveraddr, 0x00, sizeof(struct sockaddr_in));
serveraddr.sin_family = AF_INET;
serveraddr.sin_port = htons(SERVERPORT);
serveraddr.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr("9.1.2.3");

int rc = bind(sd, (struct sockaddr *)&serveraddr, sizeof(serveraddr));

I would also like to add that from a security perspective, while it is good to bind the socket to an interface, it does not make sense to use INADDR_ANY as the listening IP address. Doing so would make the port appear open in netstat on all network interfaces.

Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address    Foreign Address    State     User Inode      PID/Program name
tcp   0      0      0.0.0.0:5555     0.0.0.0:*          LISTEN    0    210898     26996/myserver  

Instead, I specified an IP address specific to the interface being used (a private VLAN). This fixed the netstat output too:

Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address    Foreign Address    State     User Inode      PID/Program name
tcp   0      0      9.1.2.3:5555     0.0.0.0:*          LISTEN    0    210898     26996/myserver  

Answer 3

Bind socket to specific interface IP address

int bind_using_iface_ip(int fd, char *ipaddr, uint16_t port)
{
    struct sockaddr_in localaddr = {0};
    localaddr.sin_family    = AF_INET;
    localaddr.sin_port  = htons(port);
    localaddr.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr(ipaddr);
    return bind(fd, (struct sockaddr*) &localaddr, sizeof(struct sockaddr_in));
}

Bind socket to specific interface name

int bind_using_iface_name(int fd, char *iface_name)
{
    return setsockopt(fd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_BINDTODEVICE, iface_name, strlen(iface_name))
}

In bind_using_iface_ip , to bind to any port 0 should be passed. And also if the fd is raw socket then need to pass port as 0 . This bind mechanism is common for all kind of sockets like raw, dgram and stream.