Pyroute2

Pyroute2 is a pure Python networking framework. The core 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 several protocols, including non-netlink. Here are some supported netlink families and protocols:

  • dhcp --- dynamic host configuration protocol for IPv4

  • 9p2000 --- Plan9 file system protocol

Netlink:

  • rtnl, network settings --- addresses, routes, traffic controls

  • nfnetlink --- netfilter API

  • ipq --- simplest userspace packet filtering, iptables QUEUE target

  • devlink --- manage and monitor devlink-enabled hardware

  • generic --- generic netlink families

  • uevent --- same uevent messages as in udev

Netfilter API:

  • ipset --- IP sets

  • nftables --- packet filtering

  • nfct --- connection tracking

Generic netlink:

  • ethtool --- low-level network interface setup

  • wireguard --- VPN setup

  • 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

On the low level the library provides socket objects with an 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 and PF_ROUTE messages

Supported systems

Pyroute2 runs natively on Linux and emulates some limited subset of RTNL netlink API on BSD systems on top of PF_ROUTE notifications and standard system tools.

Other platforms are not supported.

IPRoute -- synchronous RTNL API

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

Get notifications about network settings changes:

from pyroute2 import IPRoute

with IPRoute() as ipr:
    ipr.bind()  # <--- start listening for RTNL broadcasts
    for message in ipr.get():  # receive the broadcasts
        print(message)

More examples:

from socket import AF_INET
from pyroute2 import IPRoute

# get access to the netlink socket
ipr = IPRoute()
# no monitoring here -- thus no bind()

# print interfaces
for link in ipr.get_links():
    print(link)

# create VETH pair and move v0p1 to netns 'test'
ipr.link('add', ifname='v0p0', peer='v0p1', kind='veth')
# wait for the devices:
peer, veth = ipr.poll(
    ipr.link, 'dump', timeout=5, ifname=lambda x: x in ('v0p0', 'v0p1')
)
ipr.link('set', index=peer['index'], net_ns_fd='test')

# bring v0p0 up and add an address
ipr.link('set', index=veth['index'], state='up')
ipr.addr('add', index=veth['index'], address='10.0.0.1', prefixlen=24)

# release Netlink socket
ip.close()

AsyncIPRoute -- asynchronous RTNL API

While IPRoute provides a synchronous RTNL API, it is actually build around the asyncio-based core.

The same example as above can look like that:

import asyncio

from pyroute2 import AsyncIPRoute

async def main():
    # get access to the netlink socket
    ipr = AsyncIPRoute()

    # print interfaces
    async for link in await ipr.get_links():
        print(link)

    # create VETH pair and move v0p1 to netns 'test'
    await ipr.link('add', ifname='v0p0', peer='v0p1', kind='veth')

    # wait for the devices:
    peer, veth = await ipr.poll(
        ipr.link, 'dump', timeout=5, ifname=lambda x: x in ('v0p0', 'v0p1')
    )
    await ipr.link('set', index=peer['index'], net_ns_fd='test')
    ...
    ipr.close()

 asyncio.run(main())

Please notice that .close() is synchronous in any case.

Network namespace management

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 IPRoute

with IPRoute() as ipr:

    # create interface pair
    ipr.link('add', ifname='v0p0', kind='veth',  peer='v0p1')

    # wait for the peer
    (peer,) = ipr.poll(ipr.link, 'dump', timeout=5, ifname='v0p1')

    # move the peer to the 'test' netns:
    ipr.link('set', index=peer['index'], net_ns_fd='test')

List interfaces in some netns:

from pyroute2 import IPRoute

with IPRoute(netns='test') as ipr:
    for link in ipr.get_links():
        print(link)

More details and samples see in the documentation.

NDB -- high level RTNL API

Key features:

  • Data integrity

  • Transactions with commit/rollback changes

  • State synchronization

  • Multiple sources, including netns and remote systems

A "Hello world" example:

from pyroute2 import NDB

with NDB() as ndb:
    with ndb.interfaces['eth0'] as eth0:
        # set one parameter
        eth0.set(state='down')
        eth0.commit()  # make sure that the interface is down
        # or multiple parameters at once
        eth0.set(ifname='hello_world!', state='up')
        eth0.commit()  # rename, bring up and wait for success
    # --> <-- here you can be sure that the interface is up & renamed

Installation

Using pypi:

pip install pyroute2

Using git:

pip install git+https://github.com/svinota/pyroute2.git

Using source, requires make and nox

git clone https://github.com/svinota/pyroute2.git
cd pyroute2
make install

Requirements

Python >= 3.9