lldpd: implementation of IEEE 802.1ab (LLDP)
============================================

[![Build Status](https://secure.travis-ci.org/vincentbernat/lldpd.png?branch=master)](http://travis-ci.org/vincentbernat/lldpd)

  http://vincentbernat.github.com/lldpd/

Features
--------

LLDP (Link Layer Discovery Protocol) is an industry standard protocol
designed to supplant proprietary Link-Layer protocols such as
Extreme's EDP (Extreme Discovery Protocol) and CDP (Cisco Discovery
Protocol). The goal of LLDP is to provide an inter-vendor compatible
mechanism to deliver Link-Layer notifications to adjacent network
devices.

lldpd implements both reception and sending. It also implements an
SNMP subagent for net-snmp to get local and remote LLDP
information. The LLDP-MIB is partially implemented but the most useful
tables are here. lldpd also partially implements LLDP-MED.

lldpd supports bridge, vlan and bonding.

The following OS are supported:

 * FreeBSD
 * GNU/Linux
 * Mac OS X
 * NetBSD
 * OpenBSD
 * Solaris

Installation
------------

For general instructions
[see the website](http://vincentbernat.github.io/lldpd/installation.html).

To compile lldpd from sources, use the following:

    ./configure
    make
    sudo make install

lldpd uses privilege separation to increase its security. Two
processes, one running as root and doing minimal stuff and the other
running as an unprivileged user into a chroot doing most of the stuff,
are cooperating. You need to create a user called `_lldpd` in a group
`_lldpd` (this can be change with `./configure`). You also need to
create an empty directory `/usr/local/var/run/lldpd` (it needs to be
owned by root, not `_lldpd`!). If you get fuzzy timestamps from
syslog, copy `/etc/locatime` into the chroot.

`lldpcli` lets one query information collected through the command
line. If you don't want to run it as root, just install it setuid or
setgid `_lldpd`.

Installation (Mac OS X)
-----------------------

The same procedure as above applies for Mac OS X. However, there are
simpler alternatives:

 1. Use [Homebrew](http://mxcl.github.io/homebrew/):

        brew install lldpd
        # Or, for the latest version:
        brew install https://raw.github.com/vincentbernat/lldpd/master/osx/lldpd.rb

 2. Build an OSX installer package which should work on the same
    version of OS X (it is important to use a separate build
    directory):
 
        mkdir build && cd build
        ../configure --prefix=/usr --localstatedir=/var --sysconfdir=/private/etc --with-embedded-libevent
        make -C osx pkg ARCHS="i386 x86_64"

    If you want to compile for an older version of Mac OS X, you need
    to find the right SDK and issues commands like those:

        SDK=/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.6.sdk
        mkdir build && cd build
        ../configure --prefix=/usr --localstatedir=/var --sysconfdir=/private/etc --with-embedded-libevent \
           CFLAGS="-mmacosx-version-min=10.6 -isysroot $SDK" \
           LDFLAGS="-mmacosx-version-min=10.6 -isysroot $SDK"
        make -C osx pkg ARCHS="i386 x86_64"

If you don't follow the above procedures, you will have to create the
user/group `_lldpd`. Have a look at how this is done in
`osx/scripts/postinstall`.

Installation (Android)
----------------------

You need to download [Android NDK][]. Once unpacked, you can generate
a toolchain using the following command:

    ./build/tools/make-standalone-toolchain.sh \
        --platform=android-9 \
        --arch=arm \
        --install-dir=../android-toolchain
    export TOOLCHAIN=$PWD/../android-toolchain

Then, you can build `lldpd` with the following commands:

    mkdir build && cd build
    export PATH=$PATH:$TOOLCHAIN/bin
    ../configure \
        --host=arm-linux-androideabi \
        --with-sysroot=$TOOLCHAIN/sysroot

[Android NDK]: http://developer.android.com/tools/sdk/ndk/index.html

Usage
-----

lldpd also implements CDP (Cisco Discovery Protocol), FDP (Foundry
Discovery Protocol), SONMP (Nortel Discovery Protocol) and EDP
(Extreme Discovery Protocol). However, recent versions of IOS should
support LLDP and most Extreme stuff support LLDP. When a EDP, CDP or
SONMP frame is received on a given interface, lldpd starts sending
EDP, CDP, FDP or SONMP frame on this interface. Informations collected
through EDP/CDP/FDP/SONMP are integrated with other informations and
can be queried with `lldpcli` or through SNMP.

For bonding, you need 2.6.24 (in previous version, PACKET_ORIGDEV
affected only non multicast packets). See:

 * http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=80feaacb8a6400a9540a961b6743c69a5896b937
 * http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=8032b46489e50ef8f3992159abd0349b5b8e476c

Otherwise, a packet received on a bond will be affected to all
interfaces of the bond.

On 2.6.27, we are able to receive packets on real interface for bonded
devices. This allows one to get neighbor information on active/backup
bonds. Without the 2.6.27, lldpd won't receive any information on
inactive slaves. Here are the patchs (thanks to Joe Eykholt):

 * http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=0d7a3681232f545c6a59f77e60f7667673ef0e93
 * http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=cc9bd5cebc0825e0fabc0186ab85806a0891104f
 * http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=f982307f22db96201e41540295f24e8dcc10c78f

On FreeBSD, only a recent 9 kernel (9.1 or more recent) will allow to
send LLDP frames on enslaved devices. See this bug report for more
information:

 * http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=138620

Some devices (notably Cisco IOS) send frames on tagged with the native
VLAN while they should send them untagged. If your network card does
not support accelerated VLAN, you will receive those frames as long as
the corresponding interface exists (see below). However, if your
network card handles VLAN encapsulation/decapsulation (check with
`ethtool -k`), you need a recent kernel to be able to receive those
frames without listening on all available VLAN. Starting from Linux
2.6.27, lldpd is able to capture VLAN frames when VLAN acceleration is
supported by the network card. Here is the patch:

 * http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=bc1d0411b804ad190cdadabac48a10067f17b9e6

On some other versions, frames are sent on VLAN 1. If this is not the
native VLAN and if your network card support accelerated VLAN, you
need to subscribe to this VLAN as well. The Linux kernel does not
provide any interface for this. The easiest way is to create the VLAN
for each port:

    ip link add link eth0 name eth0.1 type vlan id 1
    ip link set up dev eth0.1

You can check both cases using tcpdump:

    tcpdump -epni eth0 ether host 01:80:c2:00:00:0e
    tcpdump -eni eth0 ether host 01:80:c2:00:00:0e

If the first command does not display received LLDP packets but the
second one does, LLDP packets are likely encapsulated into a VLAN:

    10:54:06.431154 f0:29:29:1d:7c:01 > 01:80:c2:00:00:0e, ethertype 802.1Q (0x8100), length 363: vlan 1, p 7, ethertype LLDP, LLDP, name SW-APP-D07.VTY, length 345

In this case, just create VLAN 1 will fix the situation. There are
other solutions:

 1. Disable VLAN acceleration on the receive side (`ethtool -K eth0
    rxvlan off`) but this may or may not work. Check if there are
    similar properties that could apply with `ethtool -k eth0`.
 2. Put the interface in promiscuous mode with `ip link set
    promisc on dev eth0`.

The last solution can be done directly by `lldpd` (on Linux only) by
using the option `configure system interface promiscuous`.

On modern networks, the performance impact should be nonexistent.

More information:
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_Layer_Discovery_Protocol
 * http://standards.ieee.org/getieee802/download/802.1AB-2005.pdf
 * http://wiki.wireshark.org/LinkLayerDiscoveryProtocol

Development
-----------

During development, you may want to execute lldpd at its current
location inside of doing `make install`. The correct way to do this is
to issue the following command:

    sudo libtool execute src/daemon/lldpd -L $PWD/src/client/lldpcli -d

You can append any further arguments. If lldpd is unable to find
`lldpcli` it will start in an unconfigured mode and won't send or
accept LLDP frames.

Embedding
---------

To embed lldpd into an existing system, there are two point of entries:

 1. If your system does not use standard Linux interface, you can
    support additional interfaces by implementing the appropriate
    `struct lldpd_ops`. You can look at
    `src/daemon/interfaces-linux.c` for examples. Also, have a look at
    `interfaces_update()` which is responsible for discovering and
    registering interfaces.

 2. `lldpcli` provides a convenient way to query `lldpd`. It also
    comes with various outputs, including XML which allows one to
    parse its output for integration and automation purpose. Another
    way is to use SNMP support. A third way is to write your own
    controller using `liblldpctl.so`. Its API is described in
    `src/lib/lldpctl.h`. The custom binary protocol between
    `liblldpctl.so` and `lldpd` is not stable. Therefore, the library
    should always be shipped with `lldpd`. On the other hand, programs
    using `liblldpctl.so` can rely on the classic ABI rules.

Troubleshooting
---------------

You can use `tcpdump` to look after the packets received and send by
`lldpd`. To look after LLDPU, use:

    tcpdump -s0 -vv -pni eth0 ether dst 01:80:c2:00:00:0e

License
-------

lldpd is distributed under the ISC license:

 > Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any
 > purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
 > copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
 >
 > THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
 > WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
 > MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
 > ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
 > WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
 > ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
 > OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

Also, `lldpcli` will be linked to GNU Readline (which is GPL licensed)
if available. To avoid this, use `--without-readline` as a configure
option.
