Table of Contents

ip-sysctl

Page based on Documentation/networking/ip-sysctl.txt.

Contents

/proc/sys/net/ipv4

IP Fragmentation

Regeneration interval (in seconds) of the hash secret (or lifetime for the hash secret) for IP fragments.

INET peer storage

=TCP variables

See also tcp_max_syn_backlog for additional tuning for TCP sockets.

Possible values are:


if tcp_adv_win_scale > 0
	bytes/2^tcp_adv_win_scale
else
 bytes-bytes/2^(-tcp_adv_win_scale)


How often TCP sends out keepalive messages when keepalive is enabled.


after probes started.


but rather increase it (probably, after increasing installed memory), if network conditions require more than default value.

Defaults are calculated at boot time from amount of available memory.


Note, that syncookies is fallback facility. It MUST NOT be used to help highly loaded servers to stand against legal connection rate. If you see synflood warnings in your logs, but investigation shows that they occur because of overload with legal connections, you should tune another parameters until this warning disappear. See: tcp_max_syn_backlog, tcp_synack_retries, tcp_abort_on_overflow.

syncookies seriously violate TCP protocol, do not allow to use TCP extensions, can result in serious degradation of some services (f.e. SMTP relaying), visible not by you, but your clients and relays, contacting you. While you see synflood warnings in logs not being really flooded, your server is seriously misconfigured.

CIPSOv4


IP Variables

| 32768-61000|

1024-4999 or less.


 Significant bits: IHGFEDCBA9876543210
 Default mask:     0000001100000011000 (6168)
 Bit definitions (see include/linux/icmp.h):
0 Echo Reply
3 Destination Unreachable *
4 Source Quench *
5 Redirect
8 Echo Request
B Time Exceeded *
C Parameter Problem *
D Timestamp Request
E Timestamp Reply
F Info Request
G Info Reply
H Address Mask Request
I Address Mask Reply
 * These are rate limited by default (see default mask above)

Note that if no primary address exists for the interface selected, then the primary address of the first non-loopback interface that has one will be used regardless of this setting.

conf/interface

changes special settings per interface (where "interface" is  the name of your network interface) **conf/all/**  is special, changes the settings for all interfaces.
 accept_redirects for the interface will be enabled if:
 - both conf/{all,interface}/accept_redirects are TRUE in the case forwarding for the interface is enabled
 or
 - at least one of conf/{all,interface}/accept_redirects is TRUE in the case forwarding for the interface is disabled
 accept_redirects for the interface will be disabled otherwise
 default TRUE (host)
  FALSE (router)

Currently, it is used to change the proxy_arp behavior: the proxy_arp feature is enabled for packets forwarded between two devices attached to different media.


Not Implemented Yet.

default TRUE (router) / FALSE (host)

conf/all/rp_filter must also be set to TRUE to do source validation on the interface. Default value is 0. Note that some distributions enable it in startup scripts.

arp_filter for the interface will be enabled if at least one of conf/{all,interface}/arp_filter is set to TRUE,it will be disabled otherwise

The max value from conf/{all,interface}/arp_announce is used. Increasing the restriction level gives more chance for receiving answer from the resolved target while decreasing the level announces more valid sender's information.

/proc/sys/net/ipv6/*

IPv6 has no global variables such as tcp_*. tcp_* settings under ipv4/ also apply to IPv6 [XXX?].

IPv6 Fragmentation

conf/default

Change the interface-specific default settings.

conf/all

Change all the interface-specific settings.

This also sets all interfaces' Host/Router setting 'forwarding' to the specified value. See below for details. This referred to as global forwarding.

conf/interface/

Change special settings per interface.

The functional behaviour for certain settings is different depending on whether local forwarding is enabled or not.

By default, Host behaviour is assumed. This means: - IsRouter flag is not set in Neighbour Advertisements.

  1. Router Solicitations are being sent when necessary.
  2. If accept_ra is TRUE (default), accept Router Advertisements (and do autoconfiguration).
  3. If accept_redirects is TRUE (default), accept Redirects.

If local forwarding is enabled, Router behaviour is assumed. This means exactly the reverse from the above: - IsRouter flag is set in Neighbour Advertisements.

  1. Router Solicitations are not sent.
  2. Router Advertisements are ignored.
  3. Redirects are ignored.

icmp

Limit the maximal rates for sending ICMPv6 packets.

/proc/sys/net/bridge