pyroute2

Pyroute2 is a pure Python netlink library. It requires only Python stdlib, no 3rd party libraries. The library was started as an RTNL protocol implementation, so the name is pyroute2, but now it supports many netlink protocols. Some supported netlink families and protocols:

rtnl, network settings --- addresses, routes, traffic controls
nfnetlink --- netfilter API: ipset, nftables, ...
ipq --- simplest userspace packet filtering, iptables QUEUE target
devlink --- manage and monitor devlink-enabled hardware
generic --- generic netlink families
- nl80211 --- wireless functions API (basic support)
- taskstats --- extended process statistics
- acpi_events --- ACPI events monitoring
- thermal_events --- thermal events monitoring
- VFS_DQUOT --- disk quota events monitoring

the simplest usecase

The socket objects, provided by the library, are actual socket objects with a little bit extended API. The additional functionality aims to:

Help to open/bind netlink sockets
Discover generic netlink protocols and multicast groups
Construct, encode and decode netlink messages

Maybe the simplest usecase is to monitor events. Disk quota events::

from pyroute2 import DQuotSocket
# DQuotSocket automatically performs discovery and binding,
# since it has no other functionality beside of the monitoring
with DQuotSocket() as ds:
    for message in ds.get():
        print(message)

Or IPRoute::

from pyroute2 import IPRoute
with IPRoute() as ipr:
    # With IPRoute objects you have to call bind() manually
    ipr.bind()
    for message in ipr.get():
        print(message)

rtnetlink sample

More samples you can read in the project documentation.

Low-level IPRoute utility --- Linux network configuration. The IPRoute class is a 1-to-1 RTNL mapping. There are no implicit interface lookups and so on.

Some examples::

from socket import AF_INET
from pyroute2 import IPRoute

# get access to the netlink socket
ip = IPRoute()

# no monitoring here -- thus no bind()

# print interfaces
print(ip.get_links())

# create VETH pair and move v0p1 to netns 'test'
ip.link_create(ifname='v0p0', peer='v0p1', kind='veth')
idx = ip.link_lookup(ifname='v0p1')[0]
ip.link('set',
        index=idx,
        net_ns_fd='test')

# bring v0p0 up and add an address
idx = ip.link_lookup(ifname='v0p0')[0]
ip.link('set',
        index=idx,
        state='up')
ip.addr('add',
        index=idx,
        address='10.0.0.1',
        broadcast='10.0.0.255',
        prefixlen=24)

# create a route with metrics
ip.route('add',
         dst='172.16.0.0/24',
         gateway='10.0.0.10',
         metrics={'mtu': 1400,
                  'hoplimit': 16})

# create MPLS lwtunnel
# $ sudo modprobe mpls_iptunnel
ip.route('add',
         dst='172.16.0.0/24',
         oif=idx,
         encap={'type': 'mpls',
                'labels': '200/300'})

# create MPLS route: push label
# $ sudo modprobe mpls_router
# $ sudo sysctl net.mpls.platform_labels=1024
ip.route('add',
         family=AF_MPLS,
         oif=idx,
         dst=0x200,
         newdst=[0x200, 0x300])

# release Netlink socket
ip.close()

High-level transactional interface, IPDB, a network settings DB::

from pyroute2 import IPDB
#
# The `with` statement automatically calls `IPDB.release()`
# in the case of an exception.
with IPDB() as ip:
    #
    # Create bridge and add ports and addresses.
    #
    # Transaction will be started by `with` statement
    # and will be committed at the end of the block
    with ip.create(kind='bridge', ifname='rhev') as i:
        i.add_port('em1')
        i.add_port('em2')
        i.add_ip('10.0.0.2/24')
    # --> <-- Here the system state is as described in
    #         the transaction, if no error occurs. If
    #         there is an error, all the changes will be
    #         rolled back.

The IPDB arch allows to use it transparently with network namespaces::

from pyroute2 import IPDB
from pyroute2 import NetNS

# Create IPDB to work with the 'test' ip netns.
#
# Pls notice, that IPDB itself will work in the
# main netns, only the netlink transport is
# working in the namespace `test`.
ip = IPDB(nl=NetNS('test'))

# Wait until someone will set up ipaddr 127.0.0.1
# in the netns on the loopback device
ip.interfaces.lo.wait_ip('127.0.0.1')

# The IPDB object must be released before exit to
# sync all the possible changes that are in progress.
ip.release()

The project contains several modules for different types of netlink messages, not only RTNL.

network namespace samples

Network namespace manipulation::

from pyroute2 import netns
# create netns
netns.create('test')
# list
print(netns.listnetns())
# remove netns
netns.remove('test')

Create veth interfaces pair and move to netns::

from pyroute2 import IPDB

ip = IPDB()
# create interface pair
ip.create(ifname='v0p0', kind='veth', peer='v0p1').commit()
# move peer to netns
with ip.interfaces.v0p1 as veth:
    veth.net_ns_fd = 'test'
# don't forget to release before exit
ip.release()

List interfaces in some netns::

from pyroute2 import NetNS
from pprint import pprint

ns = NetNS('test')
pprint(ns.get_links())
ns.close()

More details and samples see in the documentation.

installation

make install or pip install pyroute2

requires

Python >= 2.7

The pyroute2 testing framework requires flake8, coverage, nosetests.