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Reading/writing Linux's TUN/TAP device using Python.
import fcntl
import os
import struct
import subprocess
# Some constants used to ioctl the device file. I got them by a simple C
# program.
TUNSETIFF = 0x400454ca
IFF_TUN = 0x0001
IFF_TAP = 0x0002
IFF_NO_PI = 0x1000
# Open TUN device file.
tun = open('/dev/net/tun', 'r+b')
# Tall it we want a TUN device named tun0.
ifr = struct.pack('16sH', 'tun0', IFF_TUN | IFF_NO_PI)
fcntl.ioctl(tun, TUNSETIFF, ifr)
# Optionally, we want it be accessed by the normal user.
fcntl.ioctl(tun, TUNSETOWNER, 1000)
# Bring it up and assign addresses.
subprocess.check_call('ifconfig tun0 pointopoint up',
while True:
# Read an IP packet been sent to this TUN device.
packet = list(, 2048))
# Modify it to an ICMP Echo Reply packet.
# Note that I have not checked content of the packet, but treat all packets
# been sent to our TUN device as an ICMP Echo Request.
# Swap source and destination address.
packet[12:16], packet[16:20] = packet[16:20], packet[12:16]
# Under Linux, the code below is not necessary to make the TUN device to
# work. I don't know why yet, but if you run tcpdump, you can see the
# difference.
if True:
# Change ICMP type code to Echo Reply (0).
packet[20] = chr(0)
# Clear original ICMP Checksum field.
packet[22:24] = chr(0), chr(0)
# Calculate new checksum.
checksum = 0
# for every 16-bit of the ICMP payload:
for i in range(20, len(packet), 2):
half_word = (ord(packet[i]) << 8) + ord(packet[i+1])
checksum += half_word
# Get one's complement of the checksum.
checksum = ~(checksum + 4) & 0xffff
# Put the new checksum back into the packet.
packet[22] = chr(checksum >> 8)
packet[23] = chr(checksum & ((1 << 8) -1))
# Write the reply packet into TUN device.
os.write(tun.fileno(), ''.join(packet))
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