rtsold(8)

NAME

rtsold, rtsol - router solicitation daemon

SYNOPSIS

rtsold [-dDfFm1] [-O script-name] interface ...
rtsold [-dDfFm1] [-O script-name] -a
rtsol [-dDF] [-O script-name] interface ...
rtsol [-dD] [-O script-name] -a

DESCRIPTION

rtsold is the daemon program to send ICMPv6 Router Solicita

tion messages
on the specified interfaces. If a node (re)attaches to a

link, rtsold
sends some Router Solicitations on the link destined to the

link-local
scope all-routers multicast address to discover new routers

and to get
non link-local addresses.

rtsold should be used on IPv6 hosts (non-router nodes) only.

If you invoke the program as rtsol, it will transmit probes

from the
specified interface, without becoming a daemon. In other

words, rtsol
behaves as ``rtsold -f1 interfaces''.

Specifically, rtsold sends at most 3 Router Solicitations on

an interface
after one of the following events:

o Just after invocation of rtsold daemon.
o The interface is up after a temporary interface failure.

rtsold

detects such failures by periodically probing to see if

the status of
the interface is active or not. Note that some network

cards and
drivers do not allow the extraction of link state. In

such cases,
rtsold cannot detect the change of the interface status.

o Every 60 seconds if the -m option is specified and the

rtsold daemon

cannot get the interface status. This feature does not

conform to
the IPv6 neighbor discovery specification, but is pro

vided for mobile
stations. The default interval for router advertise

ments, which is
on the order of 10 minutes, is slightly long for mobile

stations.
This feature is provided for such stations so that they

can find new
routers as soon as possible when they attach to another

link.

Once rtsold has sent a Router Solicitation, and has received

a valid
Router Advertisement, it refrains from sending additional

solicitations
on that interface, until the next time one of the above

events occurs.

When sending a Router Solicitation on an interface, rtsold

includes a
Source Link-layer address option if the interface has a

link-layer
address.

rtsold manages a per-interface parameter to detect if a sep

arate protocol
is needed for configuration parameters other than host's ad

dresses. At
the invocation time, the flag is FALSE, and becomes TRUE

when the daemon
receives a router advertisement with the OtherConfig flag

being set. A
script file can be specified to deal with the case (see be

low). When
rtsold start resending router solicitation messages by one

of the conditions events, the daemon resets the parameter because the

event may indicate a change on the attached link.

Upon receipt of signal SIGUSR1, rtsold will dump the current

internal
state into /var/run/rtsold.dump.

The options are as follows:

-a Autoprobe outgoing interface. rtsold will try to

find a non

loopback, non-point-to-point, IPv6-capable inter

face. If rtsold
finds multiple interfaces, rtsold will exit with er

ror.

-d Enable debugging.

-D Enable more debugging including the printing of in

ternal timer

information.

-f -f prevents rtsold from becoming a daemon (fore

ground mode).

Warning messages are generated to standard error in

stead of
syslog(3).

-F Configure sysctl(8) variable related to rtsold by

itself. With

out -F, rtsold will not alter and obey the current

sysctl(8) settings.

-m Enable mobility support. If this option is speci

fied, rtsold

sends probing packets to default routers that have

advertised
Router Advertisements when the node (re)attaches to

an interface.
Moreover, if the option is specified, rtsold period

ically sends
Router Solicitation on an interface that does not

support
SIOCGIFMEDIA ioctl.

-1 Perform only one probe. Transmit Router Solicita

tion packets

until at least one valid Router Advertisement packet

has arrived
on each interface, then exit.

-O script-name

Specifies a supplement script file to handle the

Other Configuration flag of the router advertisement. When the

flag changes
from FALSE to TRUE, rtsold will invoke script-name

with a single
argument of the receiving interface name, expecting

the script
will then start a protocol for the other configura

tion.
script-name must be the absolute path from root to

the script
file, be a regular file, and be created by the same

owner who
runs rtsold.

RETURN VALUES

The rtsold program exits 0 on success, and >0 on failures.

FILES

/var/run/rtsold.pid the pid of the currently running

rtsold.
/var/run/rtsold.dump dumps internal state on.

SEE ALSO

rtadvd(8), sysctl(8)

HISTORY

The rtsold command is based on the rtsol command, which

first appeared in
WIDE/KAME IPv6 protocol stack kit. rtsol is now integrated

into
rtsold(8).

BUGS

In some operating systems, when a PCMCIA network card is re

moved and
reinserted, the corresponding interface index is changed.

However,
rtsold assumes such changes will not occur, and always uses

the index
that it got at invocation. As a result, rtsold may not work

if you reinsert a network card. In such a case, rtsold should be

killed and
restarted.

The IPv6 autoconfiguration specification assumes a single

interface host.
You may see kernel error messages if you try to autoconfig

ure a host with
multiple interfaces. Also, it seems contradictory for

rtsold to accept
multiple interface arguments.

BSD May 17, 1998

BSD