The authors of this manual page are Angelos D. Keromytis
(angelos@cis.upenn.edu), Gleb Smirnoff <glebius@FreeBSD.org>, and
Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.org>
Copyright (c) 2004 Robert N. M. Watson
Copyright (c) 2001 Angelos D. Keromytis
Permission to use, copy, and modify this software with or without
fee is hereby granted, provided that this entire notice is included
in all source code copies of any software which is or includes a copy
or modification of this software.
THIS SOFTWARE IS BEING PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED WARRANTY. IN PARTICULAR, NONE OF THE AUTHORS MAKES ANY
REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY OF ANY KIND CONCERNING THE
MERCHANTABILITY OF THIS SOFTWARE OR ITS FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR
PURPOSE.
$FreeBSD: releng/11.0/share/man/man9/mbuf_tags.9 267936 2014-06-26 21:44:30Z bapt $
.Dd January 12, 2008 .Dt MBUF_TAGS 9 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm mbuf_tags .Nd a framework for generic packet attributes .Sh SYNOPSIS n sys/mbuf.h .Ft "struct m_tag *" .Fn m_tag_alloc "uint32_t cookie" "int type" "int len" "int wait" .Ft "struct m_tag *" .Fn m_tag_copy "struct m_tag *t" "int how" .Ft int .Fn m_tag_copy_chain "struct mbuf *to" "struct mbuf *from" "int how" .Ft void .Fn m_tag_delete "struct mbuf *m" "struct m_tag *t" .Ft void .Fn m_tag_delete_chain "struct mbuf *m" "struct m_tag *t" .Ft void .Fn m_tag_delete_nonpersistent "struct mbuf *m" .Ft "struct m_tag *" .Fn m_tag_find "struct mbuf *m" "int type" "struct m_tag *start" .Ft "struct m_tag *" .Fn m_tag_first "struct mbuf *m" .Ft void .Fn m_tag_free "struct m_tag *t" .Ft "struct m_tag *" .Fn m_tag_get "int type" "int len" "int wait" .Ft void .Fn m_tag_init "struct mbuf *m" .Ft struct m_tag * .Fn m_tag_locate "struct mbuf *m" "uint32_t cookie" "int type" "struct m_tag *t" .Ft "struct m_tag *" .Fn m_tag_next "struct mbuf *m" "struct m_tag *t" .Ft void .Fn m_tag_prepend "struct mbuf *m" "struct m_tag *t" .Ft void .Fn m_tag_unlink "struct mbuf *m" "struct m_tag *t" .Sh DESCRIPTION Mbuf tags allow additional meta-data to be associated with in-flight packets by providing a mechanism for the tagging of additional kernel memory onto packet header mbufs. Tags are maintained in chains off of the .Xr mbuf 9 header, and maintained using a series of API calls to allocate, search, and delete tags. Tags are identified using an ID and cookie that uniquely identify a class of data tagged onto the packet, and may contain an arbitrary amount of additional storage. Typical uses of mbuf tags include Mandatory Access Control (MAC) labels as described in .Xr mac 9 , IPsec policy information as described in .Xr ipsec 4 , and packet filter tags used by .Xr pf 4 .
p Tags will be maintained across a variety of operations, including the copying of packet headers using facilities such as .Fn M_COPY_PKTHDR and .Fn M_MOVE_PKTHDR . Any tags associated with an mbuf header will be automatically freed when the mbuf is freed, although some subsystems will wish to delete the tags prior to that time.
p Packet tags are used by different kernel APIs to keep track of operations done or scheduled to happen to packets. Each packet tag can be distinguished by its type and cookie. The cookie is used to identify a specific module or API. The packet tags are attached to mbuf packet headers.
p The first .Fn sizeof "struct m_tag" bytes of a tag contain a .Vt "struct m_tag" : d -literal struct m_tag { SLIST_ENTRY(m_tag) m_tag_link; /* List of packet tags */ uint16_t m_tag_id; /* Tag ID */ uint16_t m_tag_len; /* Length of data */ uint32_t m_tag_cookie; /* ABI/Module ID */ void (*m_tag_free)(struct m_tag *); }; .Ed
p The .Va m_tag_link field is used to link tags together (see .Xr queue 3 for more details). The .Va m_tag_id , m_tag_len and .Va m_tag_cookie fields are set to type, length, and cookie, respectively. .Va m_tag_free points to .Fn m_tag_free_default . Following this structure are .Va m_tag_len bytes of space that can be used to store tag-specific information. Addressing this data region may be tricky. A safe way is embedding .Vt "struct m_tag" into a private data structure, as follows: d -literal -offset indent struct foo { struct m_tag tag; ... }; struct foo *p = (struct foo *)m_tag_alloc(...); struct m_tag *mtag = &p->tag; .Ed
p Note that .Ox does not support cookies, it needs .Va m_tag_id to be globally unique. To keep compatibility with .Ox , a cookie .Dv MTAG_ABI_COMPAT is provided along with some compatibility functions. When writing an .Ox compatible code, one should be careful not to take already used tag type. Tag types are defined in n sys/mbuf.h . .Ss Packet Tag Manipulation Functions l -ohang -offset indent t Fn m_tag_alloc cookie type len wait Allocate a new tag of type .Fa type and cookie .Fa cookie with .Va len bytes of space following the tag header itself. The .Fa wait argument is passed directly to .Xr malloc 9 . If successful, .Fn m_tag_alloc returns a memory buffer of
q Va len No + Fn sizeof "struct m_tag" bytes. Otherwise, .Dv NULL is returned. A compatibility function .Fn m_tag_get is also provided. t Fn m_tag_copy tag how Allocate a copy of .Fa tag . The .Fa how argument is passed directly to .Fn m_tag_alloc . The return values are the same as in .Fn m_tag_alloc . t Fn m_tag_copy_chain tombuf frommbuf how Allocate and copy all tags from mbuf .Fa frommbuf to mbuf .Fa tombuf . Returns 1 on success, and 0 on failure. In the latter case, mbuf .Fa tombuf loses all its tags, even previously present. t Fn m_tag_delete mbuf tag Remove .Fa tag from .Fa mbuf Ns 's list and free it. t Fn m_tag_delete_chain mbuf tag Remove and free a packet tag chain, starting from .Fa tag . If .Fa tag is .Dv NULL , all tags are deleted. t Fn m_tag_delete_nonpersistent mbuf Traverse .Fa mbuf Ns 's tags and delete those which do not have the .Dv MTAG_PERSISTENT flag set. t Fn m_tag_first mbuf Return the first tag associated with .Fa mbuf . t Fn m_tag_free tag Free .Fa tag using its .Va m_tag_free method. The .Fn m_tag_free_default function is used by default. t Fn m_tag_init mbuf Initialize the tag storage for packet .Fa mbuf . t Fn m_tag_locate mbuf cookie type tag Search for a tag defined by .Fa type and .Fa cookie in .Fa mbuf , starting from position specified by .Fa tag . If the latter is .Dv NULL , then search through the whole list. Upon success, a pointer to the first found tag is returned. In either case, .Dv NULL is returned. A compatibility function .Fn m_tag_find is also provided. t Fn m_tag_next mbuf tag Return tag next to .Fa tag in .Fa mbuf . If absent, .Dv NULL is returned. t Fn m_tag_prepend mbuf tag Add the new tag .Fa tag at the head of the tag list for packet .Fa mbuf . t Fn m_tag_unlink mbuf tag Remove tag .Fa tag from the list of tags of packet .Fa mbuf . .El .Sh CODE REFERENCES The tag-manipulating code is contained in the file
a sys/kern/uipc_mbuf2.c . Inlined functions are defined in n sys/mbuf.h . .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr queue 3 , .Xr mbuf 9 .Sh HISTORY The packet tags first appeared in .Ox 2.9 and were written by .An Angelos D. Keromytis Aq Mt angelos@openbsd.org .