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node-iproute

Show and manipulate network devices, addresses, routing, policy routing, tunnels, IP forwarding, address labels and other iproute objects.

Wrapper around native iproute suite to allow its functionality to be used in Node.js space.

donate docs tests npm

Installation

$ npm install iproute --save

Supported Functionality

Command Description Operations
batch Batch mode. fromFile, fromStdin
link Network devices configuration. add, del, show, set, change
address Protocol address management. add, change, replace, del, flush, save, restore, showdump, show
route Routing table management. show, flush, save, restore, get, add, del, change, append, replace
rule Routing policy database (RPDB) management. add, del, save, restore, flush, show, list
monitor State monitoring. on, close
addrlabel Protocol address label management. add, del, list, flush
neighbour Neighbour/ARP tables management. add, del, change, replace, flush, show, get
ntable Neighbour table configuration. change, show
tunnel Tunnel configuration. add, change, del, show, prl, 6rd
tuntap TunTap tunnel configuration. add, del, show, list, lst
maddress Multicast addresses management. add, del, show
mroute Multicast routing cache management. show
utils Custom utility library that complements iproute suite. -
utils.ipForwarding Manipulates IP forwarding. enable, disable, status, v{4|6}.enable, v{4|6}.disable, v{4|6}.status
utils.routingTables Manipulates routing tables. show, add, del, clear

Docs

The documentation is divided across several files:

Link Description
Public API site Provides a comprehensive index of the library interfaces, constants, enums, and classes.
README.md This document.
EXAMPLES.md Code samples showcasing how to use the library.
TODO.md A checklist of several items to add or improve upon.

Motivation

Given the current Node.js version (v20.5.1), the network-related functionality provided by the built-in modules is somewhat limited. These modules mainly offer read-only information through the os.networkInterfaces() method. This design ensures consistency across the various operating systems that Node.js supports. However, it restricts us from performing common networking operations, such as adding, editing, or deleting links, addresses, or routes.

This module bridges this gap for the Unix/Linux platform by introducing methods that wrap the iproute user-space suite.

With this module, you can:

  • Interact seamlessly with iproute commands, without the need to directly execute commands or verify option validations.
  • Access numerous utilities to modify routing tables and manage forwarding capabilities.
  • Eliminate the redundancy of boilerplate code, as the module handles these shared operations across all commands for you.
  • Use the provided interfaces and types to help you to discover the IP command options.
  • Use the Typedoc documentation to navigate between options, its descriptions and its types.

Requirements

Having iproute available in the system

The primary requirement is the presence of the iproute utility on the system.

On Debian-based OSes, if it's not already installed, you can do it by issuing:

sudo apt-get install iproute     # Or `iproute2`

Regarding the iproute version, the -json option is used for display operations and was introduced in v4.10.0.
Ensure that your system has at least this version installed.

Note: JSON support for the ip neighbour get command was added at a later version, if you need this specific command check the output in case it is not supported in your version.

Permission Level

Another requirement concerns permission levels. For the successful execution of write methods such as add(), set(), and delete() the application using the module must have the appropriate sudo privileges.

One approach to achieve this is by adding a custom user to the system:

sudo adduser --system --no-create-home iproute

then add its permissions in the /etc/sudoers file:

iproute ALL=NOPASSWD: /sbin/ip, /sbin/sysctl

You can determine the command paths by issuing which ip and which sysctl.

Note: Modifying the /etc/sudoers file directly can be dangerous. It's generally recommended to use the visudo command when editing this file to prevent syntax errors, which could lock you out of sudo capabilities.

And lastly execute the commands with the sudo: true global option:

link.show({}, {
  sudo: true
});

ipForwarding.v4.enable({
  sudo: true
});

Usage

As a general guideline, the module identifiers and options match those provided by iproute. This means you can easily use the module with a basic understanding of iproute.

For autocompletion, you can rely on the type definitions supplied within the library or refer to the interface documentation at the API documentation.

How to Import

If you are using Javascript, you can import using the regular CommonJS require as follows:

const { link } = require('iproute').default;
const { link } = require('iproute');
const iproute  = require('iproute');

If you are using Typescript, you can use the aforementioned require calls, or just Ecmascript modules import:

import { link } from 'iproute';
import iproute, { link } from 'iproute';
import * as iproute from 'iproute';

How to Use

All methods return Promises, so you can use them directly with .then().catch() or you can use async/await. Both of these calls are valid:

const { utils } = require('iproute');

// Using Promises.
utils
  .ipForwarding
  .enable({ sudo: true })
  .then(() => {
    // Do something;
  })
  .catch(() => {
    // Do something;
  });

// Using async/await.
await utils.ipForwarding.enable({ sudo: true });

Some Important Notes

  • All show operations use the native iproute -json flag, which prevents many errors if parsed manually but also means the output interfaces are different that the ones provided by this library 1.x.x version.

  • In 2.x.x you must have to call ip route flush table cache by yourself after modifying the rules or the routing tables. This is by design to match the native iproute behavior, so one can do several operations before making the changes active.

    You can do it by using the following code:

    import { route } from 'iproute';

await route.flush({
  table: RouteRoutingTables.Cache   // 'cache'
});

  • Need help to complete the interfaces:

A PR is more than welcome.

Issues

The source code can be accessed on GitHub.
If you encounter any bugs or need a new feature, please report them on the issue tracker.

Contributing

If you want to contribute just follow the project organization and code style and submit a PR.
If you want to be an official maintainer or contributor just say so, this library is bigger that it seems and there are a lot of features to add or to improve.

For potential features to contribute to, please refer to the TODO.md in the project root directory. This can be specially helpful if you're unsure of what to contribute or if the issues board is empty.

Tests

tldr;

You can run npm test, which is safe to execute as explained below, since it doesn't really execute any commands.

Detailed Explanation

Since manipulating the interfaces, routes and routing tables can let your box without access to the Internet, to ease the library development the tests are divided in three npm scripts:

  • test:safe, which are safe to execute even in your regular computer and don't really run any iproute commands,
  • test:exec, which do execute real commands and can leave the box in an unexpected state if they fail, in which case a simple reboot should be enough to restore the default interfaces, addresses and route information.
  • test:all, which as implies executes both the test:safe and the test:exec tests.
  • test:github-actions, which are all except exec/utils since Github Actions doesn't allow to modify rt_tables nor the sysctl variables (if you find a way, a PR is more than welcome!).

For that reason, the default set of tests that are called by npm test are the safe ones.

If you want to execute all the tests, you can set up a virtual machine and execute npm run test:all there.

License

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2014-2024 Diosney Sarmiento

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.