Python raw IPv6 socket errors

Question

I am having some problems using raw IPv6 sockets in python. I connect via:

    if self._socket != None:
        # Close out old socket first
        self._socket.close()
    self._socket = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET6, socket.SOCK_RAW)
    self._socket.bind((self._interface,0))
    self._socket.sendall(data)

where self._interface is my local address; specifically "fe80::fa1e:dfff:fed6:221d". When trying this, I get the following error:

  File "raw.py", line 164, in connect
    self._socket.bind((self._interface,0))
  File "<string>", line 1, in bind
socket.error: [Errno 49] Can't assign requested address

If I use my ipv6 localhost address for self._interface ("::1") I can actually bind the address, but can not send anything:

    self._socket.sendall(data)
  File "<string>", line 1, in sendall
socket.error: [Errno 39] Destination address required

Why would a raw socket need a destination address? Has anyone worked with raw IPv6 sockets in python, and can help me understand why this is happening?

Answer 1

I don't understand your combination of bind and sendall. In my understanding, bind is for server sockets and sendall requires a connection. Did you mean connect instead of bind?

Anyway, the IPv6 equivalent of INADDR_ANY is, according to the man page, IN6ADDR_ANY_INIT. Python does not define a constant for it, but this is the same as '::' (all zero).

This worked for me (as root):

>>> import socket
>>> s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET6, socket.SOCK_RAW, socket.IPPROTO_RAW)
>>> s.bind(('::', 0))

EDIT: Oops, I first did not saw that you actually managed to bind the socket to an address. However your second problem is obvious: You must first connect to some address before you can send data. Or use sendto with an address. This is not different from IPv4.

Answer 2

This code provides a raw socket with L2 access. Unfortunately OSX does not support the socket.PF_PACKET...

soc = socket.socket(socket.PF_PACKET, socket.SOCK_RAW) #create the raw-socket
soc.bind(("lo0", 0))

soc.send(packet)