Getting gateway to use for a given ip in ANSI C - c

Question

I have looked around like crazy but don't get a real answer. I got one example, but that depended on the individuals own library so not much good.
At first I wanted to get the default gateway of an interface, but since different IP's could be routed differently I quickly understood that what I want it get the gateway to use for a given destination IP by using an AF_ROUTE socket and the rtm_type RTM_GET.
Does anyone have an example where I actually end up with a string containing the gateways IP (or mac address)? The gateway entry seem to be in hex but also encoded in /proc/net/route, where I guess the AF_ROUTE socket get's it info from (but via the kernel I guess).
Thanx in advance
and p.s.
I just started using stack overflow and I must say, all of you guys are great! Fast replies and good ones! You are my new best friends ;)

Answer 1

This is OS specific, there's no unified(or ANSI C) API for this.
Assuming Linux, the best way is to just parse /proc/net/route , look for the entry where Destination is 00000000 , the default gateway is in the Gateway column , where you can read the hex representation of the gateway IP address (in big endian , I believe)
If you want to do this via more specific API calls, you'll have to go through quite some hoops, here's an example program:
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <net/if.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <sys/ioctl.h>
#include <linux/netlink.h>
#include <linux/rtnetlink.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <arpa/inet.h>
#define BUFSIZE 8192
char gateway[255];
struct route_info {
struct in_addr dstAddr;
struct in_addr srcAddr;
struct in_addr gateWay;
char ifName[IF_NAMESIZE];
};
int readNlSock(int sockFd, char *bufPtr, int seqNum, int pId)
{
struct nlmsghdr *nlHdr;
int readLen = 0, msgLen = 0;
do {
/* Recieve response from the kernel */
if ((readLen = recv(sockFd, bufPtr, BUFSIZE - msgLen, 0)) < 0) {
perror("SOCK READ: ");
return -1;
}
nlHdr = (struct nlmsghdr *) bufPtr;
/* Check if the header is valid */
if ((NLMSG_OK(nlHdr, readLen) == 0)
|| (nlHdr->nlmsg_type == NLMSG_ERROR)) {
perror("Error in recieved packet");
return -1;
}
/* Check if the its the last message */
if (nlHdr->nlmsg_type == NLMSG_DONE) {
break;
} else {
/* Else move the pointer to buffer appropriately */
bufPtr += readLen;
msgLen += readLen;
}
/* Check if its a multi part message */
if ((nlHdr->nlmsg_flags & NLM_F_MULTI) == 0) {
/* return if its not */
break;
}
} while ((nlHdr->nlmsg_seq != seqNum) || (nlHdr->nlmsg_pid != pId));
return msgLen;
}
/* For printing the routes. */
void printRoute(struct route_info *rtInfo)
{
char tempBuf[512];
/* Print Destination address */
if (rtInfo->dstAddr.s_addr != 0)
strcpy(tempBuf, inet_ntoa(rtInfo->dstAddr));
else
sprintf(tempBuf, "*.*.*.*\t");
fprintf(stdout, "%s\t", tempBuf);
/* Print Gateway address */
if (rtInfo->gateWay.s_addr != 0)
strcpy(tempBuf, (char *) inet_ntoa(rtInfo->gateWay));
else
sprintf(tempBuf, "*.*.*.*\t");
fprintf(stdout, "%s\t", tempBuf);
/* Print Interface Name*/
fprintf(stdout, "%s\t", rtInfo->ifName);
/* Print Source address */
if (rtInfo->srcAddr.s_addr != 0)
strcpy(tempBuf, inet_ntoa(rtInfo->srcAddr));
else
sprintf(tempBuf, "*.*.*.*\t");
fprintf(stdout, "%s\n", tempBuf);
}
void printGateway()
{
printf("%s\n", gateway);
}
/* For parsing the route info returned */
void parseRoutes(struct nlmsghdr *nlHdr, struct route_info *rtInfo)
{
struct rtmsg *rtMsg;
struct rtattr *rtAttr;
int rtLen;
rtMsg = (struct rtmsg *) NLMSG_DATA(nlHdr);
/* If the route is not for AF_INET or does not belong to main routing table
then return. */
if ((rtMsg->rtm_family != AF_INET) || (rtMsg->rtm_table != RT_TABLE_MAIN))
return;
/* get the rtattr field */
rtAttr = (struct rtattr *) RTM_RTA(rtMsg);
rtLen = RTM_PAYLOAD(nlHdr);
for (; RTA_OK(rtAttr, rtLen); rtAttr = RTA_NEXT(rtAttr, rtLen)) {
switch (rtAttr->rta_type) {
case RTA_OIF:
if_indextoname(*(int *) RTA_DATA(rtAttr), rtInfo->ifName);
break;
case RTA_GATEWAY:
rtInfo->gateWay.s_addr= *(u_int *) RTA_DATA(rtAttr);
break;
case RTA_PREFSRC:
rtInfo->srcAddr.s_addr= *(u_int *) RTA_DATA(rtAttr);
break;
case RTA_DST:
rtInfo->dstAddr .s_addr= *(u_int *) RTA_DATA(rtAttr);
break;
}
}
//printf("%s\n", inet_ntoa(rtInfo->dstAddr));
if (rtInfo->dstAddr.s_addr == 0)
sprintf(gateway, (char *) inet_ntoa(rtInfo->gateWay));
//printRoute(rtInfo);
return;
}
int main()
{
struct nlmsghdr *nlMsg;
struct rtmsg *rtMsg;
struct route_info *rtInfo;
char msgBuf[BUFSIZE];
int sock, len, msgSeq = 0;
/* Create Socket */
if ((sock = socket(PF_NETLINK, SOCK_DGRAM, NETLINK_ROUTE)) < 0)
perror("Socket Creation: ");
memset(msgBuf, 0, BUFSIZE);
/* point the header and the msg structure pointers into the buffer */
nlMsg = (struct nlmsghdr *) msgBuf;
rtMsg = (struct rtmsg *) NLMSG_DATA(nlMsg);
/* Fill in the nlmsg header*/
nlMsg->nlmsg_len = NLMSG_LENGTH(sizeof(struct rtmsg)); // Length of message.
nlMsg->nlmsg_type = RTM_GETROUTE; // Get the routes from kernel routing table .
nlMsg->nlmsg_flags = NLM_F_DUMP | NLM_F_REQUEST; // The message is a request for dump.
nlMsg->nlmsg_seq = msgSeq++; // Sequence of the message packet.
nlMsg->nlmsg_pid = getpid(); // PID of process sending the request.
/* Send the request */
if (send(sock, nlMsg, nlMsg->nlmsg_len, 0) < 0) {
printf("Write To Socket Failed...\n");
return -1;
}
/* Read the response */
if ((len = readNlSock(sock, msgBuf, msgSeq, getpid())) < 0) {
printf("Read From Socket Failed...\n");
return -1;
}
/* Parse and print the response */
rtInfo = (struct route_info *) malloc(sizeof(struct route_info));
//fprintf(stdout, "Destination\tGateway\tInterface\tSource\n");
for (; NLMSG_OK(nlMsg, len); nlMsg = NLMSG_NEXT(nlMsg, len)) {
memset(rtInfo, 0, sizeof(struct route_info));
parseRoutes(nlMsg, rtInfo);
}
free(rtInfo);
close(sock);
printGateway();
return 0;
}

Answer 2

Maybe this is very old question but I had same problem and I can't find better result. Finally I solved my problem with these code that it has a few changes. So I decide to share it.
char* GetGatewayForInterface(const char* interface)
{
char* gateway = NULL;
char cmd [1000] = {0x0};
sprintf(cmd,"route -n | grep %s | grep 'UG[ \t]' | awk '{print $2}'", interface);
FILE* fp = popen(cmd, "r");
char line[256]={0x0};
if(fgets(line, sizeof(line), fp) != NULL)
gateway = string(line);
pclose(fp);
}

Answer 3

I decided to go the "quick-and-dirty" way to start with and read out the ip from /proc/net/route using netstat -rm.
I thought I'd share my function... Note however that there is some error in it and prehaps you could help me find it and I'll edit this to be without faults. The function take a iface name like eth0 and returns the ip of the gateway used by that iface.
char* GetGatewayForInterface(const char* interface) {
char* gateway = NULL;
FILE* fp = popen("netstat -rn", "r");
char line[256]={0x0};
while(fgets(line, sizeof(line), fp) != NULL)
{
/*
* Get destination.
*/
char* destination;
destination = strndup(line, 15);
/*
* Extract iface to compare with the requested one
* todo: fix for iface names longer than eth0, eth1 etc
*/
char* iface;
iface = strndup(line + 73, 4);
// Find line with the gateway
if(strcmp("0.0.0.0 ", destination) == 0 && strcmp(iface, interface) == 0) {
// Extract gateway
gateway = strndup(line + 16, 15);
}
free(destination);
free(iface);
}
pclose(fp);
return gateway;
}
The problem with this function is that when I leave pclose in there it causes a memory corruption chrash. But it works if I remove the pclose call (but that would not be a good solution beacuse the stream would remain open.. hehe). So if anyone can spot the error I'll edit the function with the correct version. I'm no C guru and gets a bit confused about all the memory fiddling ;)