PPSRATECHECK(9)

NAME
ppsratecheck - function to help implement rate-limited actions

SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/time.h>
int
ppsratecheck(struct timeval *lasttime, int *curpps, int maxpps);

DESCRIPTION
The ppsratecheck() function provides an 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
log(9), printf(9), ratecheck(9), time_second(9)

HISTORY
The ppsratecheck() function appeared in NetBSD 1.5.