Provided by: iproute2_6.1.0-1ubuntu6_amd64 bug

NAME

       u32 - universal 32bit traffic control filter

SYNOPSIS

       tc  filter  ...  [ handle HANDLE ] u32 OPTION_LIST [ offset OFFSET ] [ hashkey HASHKEY ] [
               classid CLASSID ] [ divisor uint_value ] [ order u32_value  ]  [  ht  HANDLE  ]  [
               sample  SELECTOR  [  divisor  uint_value  ]  ]  [ link HANDLE ] [ indev ifname ] [
               skip_hw | skip_sw ] [ help ]

       HANDLE := { u12_hex_htid:[u8_hex_hash:[u12_hex_nodeid] | 0xu32_hex_value }

       OPTION_LIST := [ OPTION_LIST ] OPTION

       HASHKEY := [ mask u32_hex_value ] [ at 4*int_value ]

       CLASSID := { root | none | [u16_major]:u16_minor | u32_hex_value }

       OFFSET := [ plus int_value ] [ at 2*int_value ] [ mask u16_hex_value ] [ shift int_value ]
               [ eat ]

       OPTION := { match SELECTOR | action ACTION }

       SELECTOR  := { u32 VAL_MASK_32 | u16 VAL_MASK_16 | u8 VAL_MASK_8 | ip IP | ip6 IP6 | { tcp
               | udp } TCPUDP | icmp ICMP | mark VAL_MASK_32 | ether ETHER }

       IP := { { src | dst } { default | any | all | ip_address [ / { prefixlen | netmask }  ]  }
               AT  | { dsfield | ihl | protocol | precedence | icmp_type | icmp_code } VAL_MASK_8
               | { sport | dport } VAL_MASK_16 | nofrag | firstfrag | df | mf }

       IP6 := { { src | dst } { default | any | all | ip6_address [/prefixlen ] } AT  |  priority
               VAL_MASK_8  |  {  protocol  |  icmp_type  |  icmp_code  }  VAL_MASK_8  | flowlabel
               VAL_MASK_32 | { sport | dport } VAL_MASK_16 }

       TCPUDP := { src | dst } VAL_MASK_16

       ICMP := { type VAL_MASK_8 | code VAL_MASK_8 }

       ETHER := { src | dst } ether_address AT

       VAL_MASK_32 := u32_value u32_hex_mask [ AT ]

       VAL_MASK_16 := u16_value u16_hex_mask [ AT ]

       VAL_MASK_8 := u8_value u8_hex_mask [ AT ]

       AT := [ at [ nexthdr+ ] int_value ]

DESCRIPTION

       The Universal/Ugly 32bit filter allows one to match arbitrary bitfields in the packet. Due
       to  breaking everything down to values, masks and offsets, It is equally powerful and hard
       to use. Luckily many abstracting directives are present which allow defining  rules  on  a
       higher level and therefore free the user from having to fiddle with bits and masks in many
       cases.

       There are two general modes of invocation: The first mode creates a new filter to delegate
       packets  to  different  destinations.  Apart from the obvious ones, namely classifying the
       packet by specifying a CLASSID or calling an action, one may link one  filter  to  another
       one (or even a list of them), effectively organizing filters into a tree-like hierarchy.

       Typically  filter  delegation  is done by means of a hash table, which leads to the second
       mode of invocation: it merely serves to set up these hash tables.  Filters  can  select  a
       hash  table and provide a key selector from which a hash is to be computed and used as key
       to lookup the table's bucket which contains filters for further processing. This is useful
       if  a  high  number of filters is in use, as the overhead of performing the hash operation
       and table lookup becomes negligible in that case.  Using  hashtables  with  u32  basically
       involves the following pattern:

       (1) Creating  a  new  hash  table,  specifying  it's  size using the divisor parameter and
           ideally a handle by which the table can be identified. If the latter is not given, the
           kernel chooses one on it's own, which has to be guessed later.

       (2) Creating  filters  which link to the created table in (1) using the link parameter and
           defining the packet data which the kernel will use to calculate the hashkey.

       (3) Adding filters to buckets in the hash table from (1).  In order  to  avoid  having  to
           know how exactly the kernel creates the hash key, there is the sample parameter, which
           gives sample data to hash and thereby define the table bucket  the  filter  should  be
           added to.

       In  fact,  even  if not explicitly requested u32 creates a hash table for every priority a
       filter is being added with. The table's size is 1 though, so it is in fact merely a linked
       list.

VALUES

       Options  and selectors require values to be specified in a specific format, which is often
       non-intuitive. Therefore the terminals in SYNOPSIS have been given  descriptive  names  to
       indicate  the  required format and/or maximum allowed numeric value: Prefixes u32, u16 and
       u8 indicate four, two and single byte unsigned values. E.g.  u16  indicates  a  two  byte-
       sized  value  in range between 0 and 65535 (0xFFFF) inclusive. A prefix of int indicates a
       four byte signed value. A middle part of _hex_ indicates  that  the  value  is  parsed  in
       hexadecimal  format.  Otherwise,  the  value's base is automatically detected, i.e. values
       prefixed with 0x are considered hexadecimal,  a  leading  0  indicates  octal  format  and
       decimal  format  otherwise.  There  are  some  values  with  special  formatting  as well:
       ip_address and netmask are in dotted-quad formatting  as  usual  for  IPv4  addresses.  An
       ip6_address is specified in common, colon-separated hexadecimal format. Finally, prefixlen
       is an unsigned, decimal integer value in range from 0 to the address width in bits (32 for
       IPv4 and 128 for IPv6).

       Sometimes values need to be dividable by a certain number. In that case a name of the form
       N*val was chosen, indicating that val must be dividable by N.  Or the  other  way  around:
       the resulting value must be a multiple of N.

OPTIONS

       U32 recognizes the following options:

       handle HANDLE
              The  handle is used to reference a filter and therefore must be unique. It consists
              of a hash table identifier htid  and  optional  hash  (which  identifies  the  hash
              table's  bucket)  and nodeid.  All these values are parsed as unsigned, hexadecimal
              numbers with length 12bits ( htid and nodeid) or 8bits ( hash).  Alternatively  one
              may specify a single, 32bit long hex number which contains the three fields bits in
              concatenated form. Other than the fields themselves, it has to be prefixed by 0x.

       offset OFFSET
              Set an offset which defines where matches of subsequent  filters  are  applied  to.
              Therefore this option is useful only when combined with link or a combination of ht
              and sample.  The offset may be given explicitly  by  using  the  plus  keyword,  or
              extracted  from the packet data with at.  It is possible to mangle the latter using
              mask and/or shift keywords. By default, this offset is recorded but not  implicitly
              applied.  It  is  used only to substitute the nexthdr+ statement. Using the keyword
              eat though inverses this behaviour: the offset is applied always, and nexthdr+ will
              fall back to zero.

       hashkey HASHKEY
              Specify  what  packet  data  to  use to calculate a hash key for bucket lookup. The
              kernel adjusts the value according to the hash table's size. For this to work,  the
              option link must be given.

       classid CLASSID
              Classify  matching  packets  into the given CLASSID, which consists of either 16bit
              major and minor numbers or a single 32bit value combining both.

       divisor u32_value
              Specify a modulo value. Used when creating hash tables to define their size or  for
              declaring  a  sample to calculate hash table keys from. Must be a power of two with
              exponent not exceeding eight.

       order u32_value
              A value to order filters by, ascending. Conflicts with handle which serves the same
              purpose.

       sample SELECTOR
              Used  together  with  ht to specify which bucket to add this filter to. This allows
              one to avoid  having  to  know  how  exactly  the  kernel  calculates  hashes.  The
              additional  divisor  defaults to 256, so must be given for hash tables of different
              size.

       link HANDLE
              Delegate matching packets to filters in a hash  table.   HANDLE  is  used  to  only
              specify  the  hash  table,  so  only  htid may be given, hash and nodeid have to be
              omitted. By default, bucket number 0 will be used and  can  be  overridden  by  the
              hashkey option.

       indev ifname
              Filter  on the incoming interface of the packet. Obviously works only for forwarded
              traffic.

       skip_sw
              Do not process filter by software. If hardware has  no  offload  support  for  this
              filter, or TC offload is not enabled for the interface, operation will fail.

       skip_hw
              Do not process filter by hardware.

       help   Print a brief help text about possible options.

SELECTORS

       Basically the only real selector is u32 .  All others merely provide a higher level syntax
       and are internally translated into u32 .

       u32 VAL_MASK_32
       u16 VAL_MASK_16
       u8 VAL_MASK_8
              Match packet data to a given value. The selector name defines the sample length  to
              extract  (32bits  for u32, 16bits for u16 and 8bits for u8).  Before comparing, the
              sample is binary AND'ed with the given mask. This way  uninteresting  bits  can  be
              cleared  before  comparison.  The  position  of the sample is defined by the offset
              specified in AT.

       ip IP
       ip6 IP6
              Assume packet starts with an IPv4 ( ip) or IPv6 ( ip6) header.  IP/IP6 then  allows
              one to match various header fields:

              src ADDR
              dst ADDR
                     Compare Source or Destination Address fields against the value of ADDR.  The
                     reserved words default, any and all effectively match any address. Otherwise
                     an IP address of the particular protocol is expected, optionally suffixed by
                     a prefix length to match whole subnets. In case of IPv4 a netmask  may  also
                     be given.

              dsfield VAL_MASK_8
                     IPv4  only.  Match  the packet header's DSCP/ECN field. Synonyms to this are
                     tos and precedence.

              ihl VAL_MASK_8
                     IPv4 only. Match the Internet Header Length field.  Note  that  the  value's
                     unit  is 32bits, so to match a packet with 24byte header length u8_value has
                     to be 6.

              protocol VAL_MASK_8
                     Match the Protocol (IPv4) or Next Header (IPv6) field value, e.g. 6 for TCP.

              icmp_type VAL_MASK_8
              icmp_code VAL_MASK_8
                     Assume a next-header protocol of icmp or ipv6-icmp and match  Type  or  Code
                     field values. This is dangerous, as the code assumes minimal header size for
                     IPv4 and lack of extension headers for IPv6.

              sport VAL_MASK_16
              dport VAL_MASK_16
                     Match layer four source or destination ports. This is dangerous as well,  as
                     it  assumes  a suitable layer four protocol is present (which has Source and
                     Destination Port fields right at the start of the header and 16bit in size).
                     Also  minimal  header  size  for  IPv4 and lack of IPv6 extension headers is
                     assumed.

              nofrag
              firstfrag
              df
              mf     IPv4 only, check certain flags and fragment  offset  values.  Match  if  the
                     packet is not a fragment (nofrag), the first fragment of a fragmented packet
                     (firstfrag), if Don't Fragment (df) or More Fragments (mf) bits are set.

              priority VAL_MASK_8
                     IPv6 only. Match the header's  Traffic  Class  field,  which  has  the  same
                     purpose and semantics of IPv4's ToS field since RFC 3168: upper six bits are
                     DSCP, the lower two ECN.

              flowlabel VAL_MASK_32
                     IPv6 only. Match the Flow Label field's value. Note that Flow  Label  itself
                     is  only  20bytes  long,  which  are  the  least  significant ones here. The
                     remaining upper 12bytes match Version and Traffic Class fields.

       tcp TCPUDP
       udp TCPUDP
              Match fields of next header of protocol TCP or UDP. The possible values for  TCPDUP
              are:

              src VAL_MASK_16
                     Match on Source Port field value.

              dst VALMASK_16
                     Match on Destination Port field value.

       icmp ICMP
              Match fields of next header of protocol ICMP. The possible values for ICMP are:

              type VAL_MASK_8
                     Match on ICMP Type field.

              code VAL_MASK_8
                     Match on ICMP Code field.

       mark VAL_MASK_32
              Match on netfilter fwmark value.

       ether ETHER
              Match on ethernet header fields. Possible values for ETHER are:

              src ether_address AT
              dst ether_address AT
                     Match  on  source  or  destination  ethernet  address. This is dangerous: It
                     assumes an ethernet header is present at the start of the packet. This  will
                     probably  lead to unexpected things if used with layer three interfaces like
                     e.g. tun or ppp.

EXAMPLES

              tc filter add dev eth0 parent 999:0 prio 99 protocol ip u32 \
                      match ip src 192.168.8.0/24 classid 1:1

       This attaches a filter to the qdisc identified by  999:0.   It's  priority  is  99,  which
       affects  in  which  order  multiple filters attached to the same parent are consulted (the
       lower the earlier). The filter handles packets of protocol type ip, and matches if the  IP
       header's  source  address  is  within  the  192.168.8.0/24  subnet.  Matching  packets are
       classified into class 1.1.  The effect of  this  command  might  be  surprising  at  first
       glance:

              filter parent 1: protocol ip pref 99 u32
              filter parent 1: protocol ip pref 99 u32 \
                      fh 800: ht divisor 1
              filter parent 1: protocol ip pref 99 u32 \
                      fh 800::800 order 2048 key ht 800 bkt 0 flowid 1:1 \
                      match c0a80800/ffffff00 at 12

       So  parent  1: is assigned a new u32 filter, which contains a hash table of size 1 (as the
       divisor indicates). The table ID is 800.  The third line  then  shows  the  actual  filter
       which was added above: it sits in table 800 and bucket 0, classifies packets into class ID
       1:1 and matches the upper three bytes of the four byte value at offset 12 to be  0xc0a808,
       which is 192, 168 and 8.

       Now for something more complicated, namely creating a custom hash table:

              tc filter add dev eth0 prio 99 handle 1: u32 divisor 256

       This creates a table of size 256 with handle 1: in priority 99.  The effect is as follows:

              filter parent 1: protocol all pref 99 u32
              filter parent 1: protocol all pref 99 u32 fh 1: ht divisor 256
              filter parent 1: protocol all pref 99 u32 fh 800: ht divisor 1

       So  along  with the requested hash table (handle 1:), the kernel has created his own table
       of size 1 to hold other filters of the same priority.

       The next step is to create a filter which links to the created hash table:

              tc filter add dev eth0 parent 1: prio 1 u32 \
                      link 1: hashkey mask 0x0000ff00 at 12 \
                      match ip src 192.168.0.0/16

       The filter is given a lower priority than the hash table itself so u32 consults it  before
       manually traversing the hash table. The options link and hashkey determine which table and
       bucket to redirect to. In this case the hash key should be constructed out of  the  second
       byte  at  offset  12, which corresponds to an IP packet's third byte of the source address
       field. Along with the match statement, this effectively maps all class  C  networks  below
       192.168.0.0/16 to different buckets of the hash table.

       Filters for certain subnets can be created like so:

              tc filter add dev eth0 parent 1: prio 99 u32 \
                      ht 1: sample u32 0x00000800 0x0000ff00 at 12 \
                      match ip src 192.168.8.0/24 classid 1:1

       The  bucket is defined using the sample option: In this case, the second byte at offset 12
       must be 0x08, exactly. In this case, the resulting bucket ID is obviously 8, but  as  soon
       as sample selects an amount of data which could exceed the divisor, one would have to know
       the kernel-internal algorithm to  deduce  the  destination  bucket.  This  filter's  match
       statement  is  redundant in this case, as the entropy for the hash key does not exceed the
       table size and therefore no collisions can occur.  Otherwise  it's  necessary  to  prevent
       matching unwanted packets.

       Matching  upper  layer fields is problematic since IPv4 header length is variable and IPv6
       supports extension headers which affect upper layer header offset. To overcome this, there
       is  the  possibility  to specify nexthdr+ when giving an offset, and to make things easier
       there are the tcp and udp matches which use nexthdr+ implicitly. This  offset  has  to  be
       calculated  in  beforehand  though,  and  the only way to achieve that is by doing it in a
       separate filter which then links to the filter which wants to use it. Here is  an  example
       of doing so:

              tc filter add dev eth0 parent 1:0 protocol ip handle 1: \
                      u32 divisor 1
              tc filter add dev eth0 parent 1:0 protocol ip \
                      u32 ht 1: \
                      match tcp src 22 FFFF \
                      classid 1:2
              tc filter add dev eth0 parent 1:0 protocol ip \
                      u32 ht 800: \
                      match ip protocol 6 FF \
                      match u16 0 1fff at 6 \
                      offset at 0 mask 0f00 shift 6 \
                      link 1:

       This  is  what  is  being  done:  In  the first call, a single element sized hash table is
       created so there is a place to hold the linked to  filter  and  a  known  handle  (1:)  to
       reference  to  it.  The second call then adds the actual filter, which pushes packets with
       TCP source port 22 into class 1:2.  Using ht, it is moved into the hash table  created  by
       the  first  call.  The third call then does the actual magic: It matches IPv4 packets with
       next layer protocol 6 (TCP), only if it's the first fragment (usually TCP sets DF bit, but
       if  it  doesn't and the packet is fragmented, only the first one contains the TCP header),
       and then sets the offset  based  on  the  IP  header's  IHL  field  (right-shifting  by  6
       eliminates  the  offset  of  the  field  and at the same time converts the value into byte
       unit). Finally, using link, the hash table from first call is referenced which  holds  the
       filter from second call.

SEE ALSO

       tc(8),
       cls_u32.txt at http://linux-tc-notes.sourceforge.net/