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if_tun(4)

NAME

     tun -- tunnel software network interface

SYNOPSIS

     device tun

DESCRIPTION

     The tun interface is a software loopback mechanism that can be loosely
     described as the network interface analog of the pty(4), that is, tun
     does for network interfaces what the pty(4) driver does for terminals.

     The tun driver, like the pty(4) driver, provides two interfaces: an
     interface like the usual facility it is simulating (a network interface
     in the case of tun, or a terminal for pty(4)), and a character-special
     device ``control'' interface.

     The network interfaces are named ``tun0'', ``tun1'', etc., one for each
     control device that has been opened.  These network interfaces persist
     until the if_tun.ko module is unloaded (if tun is built into your kernel,
     the network interfaces cannot be removed).

     The tun interface permits opens on the special control device /dev/tun.
     When this device is opened, tun will return a handle for the lowest
     unused tun device (use devname(3) to determine which).  Control devices
     (once successfully opened) persist until if_tun.ko is unloaded in the
     same way that network interfaces persist (see above).

     Each interface supports the usual network-interface ioctl(2)s, such as
     SIOCSIFADDR and SIOCSIFNETMASK, and thus can be used with ifconfig(8)
     like any other interface.	At boot time, they are POINTOPOINT interfaces,
     but this can be changed; see the description of the control device,
     below.  When the system chooses to transmit a packet on the network
     interface, the packet can be read from the control device (it appears as
     ``input'' there); writing a packet to the control device generates an
     input packet on the network interface, as if the (non-existent) hardware
     had just received it.

     The tunnel device (/dev/tunN) is exclusive-open (it cannot be opened if
     it is already open).  A read(2) call will return an error (EHOSTDOWN) if
     the interface is not ``ready'' (which means that the control device is
     open and the interface's address has been set).

     Once the interface is ready, read(2) will return a packet if one is
     available; if not, it will either block until one is or return
     EWOULDBLOCK, depending on whether non-blocking I/O has been enabled.  If
     the packet is longer than is allowed for in the buffer passed to read(2),
     the extra data will be silently dropped.

     If the TUNSLMODE ioctl has been set, packets read from the control device
     will be prepended with the destination address as presented to the net-
     work interface output routine, tunoutput().  The destination address is
     in struct sockaddr format.  The actual length of the prepended address is
     in the member sa_len.  If the TUNSIFHEAD ioctl has been set, packets will
     be prepended with a four byte address family in network byte order.
     TUNSLMODE and TUNSIFHEAD are mutually exclusive.  In any case, the packet
     data follows immediately.

     error is returned.

     The following ioctl(2) calls are supported (defined in <net/if_tun.h>):

     TUNSDEBUG	 The argument should be a pointer to an int; this sets the
		 internal debugging variable to that value.  What, if any-
		 thing, this variable controls is not documented here; see the
		 source code.

     TUNGDEBUG	 The argument should be a pointer to an int; this stores the
		 internal debugging variable's value into it.

     TUNSIFINFO  The argument should be a pointer to an struct tuninfo and
		 allows setting the MTU, the type, and the baudrate of the
		 tunnel device.  The struct tuninfo is declared in
		 <net/if_tun.h>.

		 The use of this ioctl is restricted to the super-user.

     TUNGIFINFO  The argument should be a pointer to an struct tuninfo, where
		 the current MTU, type, and baudrate will be stored.

     TUNSIFMODE  The argument should be a pointer to an int; its value must be
		 either IFF_POINTOPOINT or IFF_BROADCAST and should have
		 IFF_MULTICAST OR'd into the value if multicast support is
		 required.  The type of the corresponding ``tunN'' interface
		 is set to the supplied type.  If the value is outside the
		 above range, an EINVAL error is returned.  The interface must
		 be down at the time; if it is up, an EBUSY error is returned.

     TUNSLMODE	 The argument should be a pointer to an int; a non-zero value
		 turns off ``multi-af'' mode and turns on ``link-layer'' mode,
		 causing packets read from the tunnel device to be prepended
		 with the network destination address (see above).

     TUNSIFPID	 Will set the pid owning the tunnel device to the current
		 process's pid.

     TUNSIFHEAD  The argument should be a pointer to an int; a non-zero value
		 turns off ``link-layer'' mode, and enables ``multi-af'' mode,
		 where every packet is preceded with a four byte address fam-
		 ily.

     TUNGIFHEAD  The argument should be a pointer to an int; the ioctl sets
		 the value to one if the device is in ``multi-af'' mode, and
		 zero otherwise.

     FIONBIO	 Turn non-blocking I/O for reads off or on, according as the
		 argument int's value is or isn't zero.  (Writes are always
		 non-blocking.)

     FIOASYNC	 Turn asynchronous I/O for reads (i.e., generation of SIGIO
		 when data is available to be read) off or on, according as
		 the argument int's value is or isn't zero.

     FIONREAD	 If any packets are queued to be read, store the size of the
		 first one into the argument int; otherwise, store zero.


     On the last close of the data device, by default, the interface is
     brought down (as if with ifconfig tunN down).  All queued packets are
     thrown away.  If the interface is up when the data device is not open
     output packets are always thrown away rather than letting them pile up.

SEE ALSO

     ioctl(2), read(2), select(2), write(2), devname(3), inet(4), intro(4),
     pty(4), ifconfig(8)

AUTHORS

     This manual page was originally obtained from NetBSD.

FreeBSD 5.4			 June 5, 2001			   FreeBSD 5.4

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