Advanced IPv6 Socket Manipulation for Python

Description:

This rather simplistic extension module is intended to allow for more advanced
manipulation of IPv6 sockets in Python.  In particular, Python did not have an
easy means to interact with and obtain the flow label of a particular IPv6
socket.  This extension currently allows for flow labels to be enabled on a
socket and a random flow label can be requested from the kernel.  In the future,
additional options may be added to facilitate additional flow label actions.

A collection of tools are also included which can be used to generate test
traffic under strict patterns, similar to how many telemetry systems operate.
See the documentation under tools for more details.

Installation:

This package is installed using distutils.  The most common approach is to run:

  python setup.py install
    or
  python3 setup.py install

Usage:

  import ipv6

You can then pass an IPv6 socket to the function get_flow_label() to
apply a random flow label assigned by the kernel.  The first parameter
is the socket object or the integer file descriptor.  The remaining
parameters are optional depending on the state of your socket.  Here is
an example:

  sockaddr = ipv6.get_flow_label(sock,*sockaddr)

See https://docs.python.org/2/library/socket.html for info on sockaddr

The get_flow_label call returns a new sockaddr structure with the flowinfo
field set to newly created flow label assigned by the kernel.  You can then
send data as normal.

License:

This code is released under the NASA Open Source Agreement version 1.3

Simple Example:

# Send a single UDP packet
import socket
import ipv6
host = "::1"
port = 3300
data = "NASA"
resolve = socket.getaddrinfo(host, port, socket.AF_INET6, socket.SOCK_DGRAM)
(family, socktype, proto, _, sockaddr) = resolve[0]
sock = socket.socket(family, socktype, proto)
sockaddr = ipv6.get_flow_label(sock,*sockaddr)
print "Flow Label:",hex(sockaddr[2])
sock.sendto(data,sockaddr)