NAME    [Toc]    [Back]

     ppsratecheck - function to help implement rate-limited actions

SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]

     #include <sys/time.h>

     int
     ppsratecheck(struct timeval *lasttime, int *curpps, int maxpps);

DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]

     The ppsratecheck() function provides easy way to perform packet-per-sec,
     or event-per-sec, rate limitation.  The motivation for implementing
     ppsratecheck() was to provide a mechanism that could be used to add rate
     limitation to network packet output.  For certain network packets, we may
     want to impose rate limitation, to avoid denial-of-service attack possibilities.


     maxpps specifies maximum permitted packets, or events, per second.  If
     ppsratecheck() is called more than maxpps times in a given one second
     period, the function will return 0, indicating that we exceeded the
     limit.  If we are below the limit, the function will return 1.  If maxpps
     is set to 0, the function will always return 0 (no packets/events are
     permitted).  Negative maxpps indicates that rate limitation is disabled,
     and ppsratecheck will always return 1.

     curpps and lasttime are used to maintain the number of recent calls.
     curpps will be incremented every time ppsratecheck() is called, and will
     be reset whenever necessary.

SEE ALSO    [Toc]    [Back]

     log(9), printf(9), ratecheck(9), time(9)

HISTORY    [Toc]    [Back]

     The ppsratecheck() function appeared in NetBSD 1.5.

BSD                             August 3, 2000                             BSD