github.com/vishvananda/netlink@v1.3.0/README.md (about) 1 # netlink - netlink library for go # 2 3 ![Build Status](https://github.com/vishvananda/netlink/actions/workflows/main.yml/badge.svg) [![GoDoc](https://godoc.org/github.com/vishvananda/netlink?status.svg)](https://godoc.org/github.com/vishvananda/netlink) 4 5 The netlink package provides a simple netlink library for go. Netlink 6 is the interface a user-space program in linux uses to communicate with 7 the kernel. It can be used to add and remove interfaces, set ip addresses 8 and routes, and configure ipsec. Netlink communication requires elevated 9 privileges, so in most cases this code needs to be run as root. Since 10 low-level netlink messages are inscrutable at best, the library attempts 11 to provide an api that is loosely modeled on the CLI provided by iproute2. 12 Actions like `ip link add` will be accomplished via a similarly named 13 function like AddLink(). This library began its life as a fork of the 14 netlink functionality in 15 [docker/libcontainer](https://github.com/docker/libcontainer) but was 16 heavily rewritten to improve testability, performance, and to add new 17 functionality like ipsec xfrm handling. 18 19 ## Local Build and Test ## 20 21 You can use go get command: 22 23 go get github.com/vishvananda/netlink 24 25 Testing dependencies: 26 27 go get github.com/vishvananda/netns 28 29 Testing (requires root): 30 31 sudo -E go test github.com/vishvananda/netlink 32 33 ## Examples ## 34 35 Add a new bridge and add eth1 into it: 36 37 ```go 38 package main 39 40 import ( 41 "fmt" 42 "github.com/vishvananda/netlink" 43 ) 44 45 func main() { 46 la := netlink.NewLinkAttrs() 47 la.Name = "foo" 48 mybridge := &netlink.Bridge{LinkAttrs: la} 49 err := netlink.LinkAdd(mybridge) 50 if err != nil { 51 fmt.Printf("could not add %s: %v\n", la.Name, err) 52 } 53 eth1, _ := netlink.LinkByName("eth1") 54 netlink.LinkSetMaster(eth1, mybridge) 55 } 56 57 ``` 58 Note `NewLinkAttrs` constructor, it sets default values in structure. For now 59 it sets only `TxQLen` to `-1`, so kernel will set default by itself. If you're 60 using simple initialization(`LinkAttrs{Name: "foo"}`) `TxQLen` will be set to 61 `0` unless you specify it like `LinkAttrs{Name: "foo", TxQLen: 1000}`. 62 63 Add a new ip address to loopback: 64 65 ```go 66 package main 67 68 import ( 69 "github.com/vishvananda/netlink" 70 ) 71 72 func main() { 73 lo, _ := netlink.LinkByName("lo") 74 addr, _ := netlink.ParseAddr("169.254.169.254/32") 75 netlink.AddrAdd(lo, addr) 76 } 77 78 ``` 79 80 ## Future Work ## 81 82 Many pieces of netlink are not yet fully supported in the high-level 83 interface. Aspects of virtually all of the high-level objects don't exist. 84 Many of the underlying primitives are there, so its a matter of putting 85 the right fields into the high-level objects and making sure that they 86 are serialized and deserialized correctly in the Add and List methods. 87 88 There are also a few pieces of low level netlink functionality that still 89 need to be implemented. Routing rules are not in place and some of the 90 more advanced link types. Hopefully there is decent structure and testing 91 in place to make these fairly straightforward to add. 92