Saturday 1 February 2014

How to use netlink socket to communicate with a kernel module?

I am trying to write a linux kernel module that communicates with user process using netlink. I am using netlink because the user program I want to communicate to communicates only using sockets and I cant change that to add ioctl() or anything.
Problem is that I cant figure out how to do that. I have googled but all examples I found are for old likethis one and no longer valid for current kernel versions. I have also looked at this SO question but the sample here uses libnl for socket operations but I want to stick to standard socket functions (defined by sys/socket.h). So can some one plz guide me here to some tutorial or guide or some thing that can help me understand the interface and usage of netlink. I would highly appreciate a working example, nothing fancy, just a very basic example of how to establish a connection from a socket in user program to a socket in kernel and then send data from user process to kernel and receive back from kernel.
Also please do not tell me to look at kernel code. I am already doing it but it will take a lot of time and I dont have lot of it left.
Update: After lot of trial and error I have following code which sends message from user program to kernel but the message from kernel to user program i.e using netlink_unicast() is not working. Its not only not working, the call hangs the systems and then I have to restart the machine. Can same one plz take a look and tell me what wrong I am doing. The netlink_unicast() call is commented in the following code. It should be uncommented for kernel to user program message.

User Program

#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <linux/netlink.h>
#define NETLINK_USER 31
#define MAX_PAYLOAD 1024 /* maximum payload size*/
struct sockaddr_nl src_addr, dest_addr;
struct nlmsghdr *nlh = NULL;
struct iovec iov;
int sock_fd;
struct msghdr msg;
void main()
{
sock_fd=socket(PF_NETLINK, SOCK_RAW, NETLINK_USER);  
if(sock_fd<0)
return -1;

memset(&src_addr, 0, sizeof(src_addr));
src_addr.nl_family = AF_NETLINK;
src_addr.nl_pid = getpid(); /* self pid */
/* interested in group 1<<0 */
bind(sock_fd, (struct sockaddr*)&src_addr,
sizeof(src_addr));

memset(&dest_addr, 0, sizeof(dest_addr));
memset(&dest_addr, 0, sizeof(dest_addr));
dest_addr.nl_family = AF_NETLINK;
dest_addr.nl_pid = 0; /* For Linux Kernel */
dest_addr.nl_groups = 0; /* unicast */

nlh = (struct nlmsghdr *)malloc(
NLMSG_SPACE(MAX_PAYLOAD));
memset(nlh, 0, NLMSG_SPACE(MAX_PAYLOAD));
nlh->nlmsg_len = NLMSG_SPACE(MAX_PAYLOAD);
nlh->nlmsg_pid = getpid();
nlh->nlmsg_flags = 0;

strcpy(NLMSG_DATA(nlh), "Hello");

iov.iov_base = (void *)nlh;
iov.iov_len = nlh->nlmsg_len;
msg.msg_name = (void *)&dest_addr;
msg.msg_namelen = sizeof(dest_addr);
msg.msg_iov = &iov;
msg.msg_iovlen = 1;

printf("Sending message to kernel\n");
sendmsg(sock_fd,&msg,0);
printf("Waiting for message from kernel\n");

/* Read message from kernel */
recvmsg(sock_fd, &msg, 0);
printf(" Received message payload: %s\n",
NLMSG_DATA(nlh));
close(sock_fd);
}

Kernel Code

#include <linux/module.h>
#include <linux/kernel.h>
#include <linux/init.h>
#include <net/sock.h>
#include <linux/socket.h>
#include <linux/net.h>
#include <asm/types.h>
#include <linux/netlink.h>
#include <linux/skbuff.h>
#define NETLINK_USER 31
struct sock *nl_sk = NULL;
static void hello_nl_recv_msg(struct sk_buff *skb)
{
    struct nlmsghdr *nlh;  
int pid;

printk(KERN_INFO "Entering: %s\n", __FUNCTION__);

nlh=(struct nlmsghdr*)skb->data;
printk(KERN_INFO "Netlink received msg payload: %s\n",
(char*)NLMSG_DATA(nlh));
pid = nlh->nlmsg_pid; /*pid of sending process */
NETLINK_CB(skb).dst_group = 0; /* not in mcast group */
NETLINK_CB(skb).pid = 0; /* from kernel */
//NETLINK_CB(skb).groups = 0; /* not in mcast group */
//NETLINK_CB(skb).dst_pid = pid;
printk("About to send msg bak:\n");
//netlink_unicast(nl_sk,skb,pid,MSG_DONTWAIT);
}
static int __init hello_init(void)
{
    printk("Entering: %s\n",__FUNCTION__);  
nl_sk=netlink_kernel_create(&init_net, NETLINK_USER, 0,
hello_nl_recv_msg, NULL, THIS_MODULE);
if(!nl_sk)
{
printk(KERN_ALERT "Error creating socket.\n");
return -10;
}
return 0;
}
static void __exit hello_exit(void)
{
    printk(KERN_INFO "exiting hello module\n");  
netlink_kernel_release(nl_sk);
}
module_init(hello_init);
module_exit(hello_exit);

After reading kernel source I finally managed to make netlink sockets work for me. Below is an example of Netlink socket basics i.e opening a netlink socket, reading and writing to it and closing it.

Kernel Module

#include <linux/module.h>
#include <net/sock.h>
#include <linux/netlink.h>
#include <linux/skbuff.h>

#define NETLINK_USER 31

struct sock *nl_sk = NULL;

static void hello_nl_recv_msg(struct sk_buff *skb)
{

struct nlmsghdr *nlh;
int pid;
struct sk_buff *skb_out;
int msg_size;
char *msg = "Hello from kernel";
int res;

printk(KERN_INFO "Entering: %s\n", __FUNCTION__);

msg_size = strlen(msg);

nlh = (struct nlmsghdr *)skb->data;
printk(KERN_INFO "Netlink received msg payload:
%s\n", (char *)nlmsg_data(nlh));
pid = nlh->nlmsg_pid; /*pid of sending process */

skb_out = nlmsg_new(msg_size, 0);

if (!skb_out)
{

printk(KERN_ERR "Failed to allocate new skb\n");
return;

}
nlh = nlmsg_put(skb_out, 0, 0, NLMSG_DONE, msg_size, 0);
NETLINK_CB(skb_out).dst_group = 0; /* not in mcast group */
strncpy(nlmsg_data(nlh), msg, msg_size);

res = nlmsg_unicast(nl_sk, skb_out, pid);

if (res < 0)
printk(KERN_INFO "Error while sending bak to user\n");
}

static int __init hello_init(void)
{

printk("Entering: %s\n", __FUNCTION__);
nl_sk = netlink_kernel_create(&init_net, NETLINK_USER, 0, hello_nl_recv_msg,
NULL, THIS_MODULE);
if (!nl_sk)
{

printk(KERN_ALERT "Error creating socket.\n");
return -10;

}

return 0;
}

static void __exit hello_exit(void)
{

printk(KERN_INFO "exiting hello module\n");
netlink_kernel_release(nl_sk);
}

module_init(hello_init); module_exit(hello_exit);

MODULE_LICENSE("GPL");

User Program

#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <linux/netlink.h>

#define NETLINK_USER 31

#define MAX_PAYLOAD 1024 /* maximum payload size*/
struct sockaddr_nl src_addr, dest_addr;
struct nlmsghdr *nlh = NULL;
struct iovec iov;
int sock_fd;
struct msghdr msg;

void main()
{
sock_fd = socket(PF_NETLINK, SOCK_RAW, NETLINK_USER);
if (sock_fd < 0)
return -1;

memset(&src_addr, 0, sizeof(src_addr));
src_addr.nl_family = AF_NETLINK;
src_addr.nl_pid = getpid(); /* self pid */

bind(sock_fd, (struct sockaddr *)&src_addr, sizeof(src_addr));

memset(&dest_addr, 0, sizeof(dest_addr));
memset(&dest_addr, 0, sizeof(dest_addr));
dest_addr.nl_family = AF_NETLINK;
dest_addr.nl_pid = 0; /* For Linux Kernel */
dest_addr.nl_groups = 0; /* unicast */

nlh = (struct nlmsghdr *)malloc(NLMSG_SPACE(MAX_PAYLOAD));
memset(nlh, 0, NLMSG_SPACE(MAX_PAYLOAD));
nlh->nlmsg_len = NLMSG_SPACE(MAX_PAYLOAD);
nlh->nlmsg_pid = getpid();
nlh->nlmsg_flags = 0;

strcpy(NLMSG_DATA(nlh), "Hello");

iov.iov_base = (void *)nlh;
iov.iov_len = nlh->nlmsg_len;
msg.msg_name = (void *)&dest_addr;
msg.msg_namelen = sizeof(dest_addr);
msg.msg_iov = &iov;
msg.msg_iovlen = 1;

printf("Sending message to kernel\n");
sendmsg(sock_fd, &msg, 0);
printf("Waiting for message from kernel\n");

/* Read message from kernel */
recvmsg(sock_fd, &msg, 0);
printf("Received message payload: %s\n", NLMSG_DATA(nlh));
close(sock_fd); 
} 

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