How to cast sockaddr_storage and avoid breaking strict-aliasing rules

Question

I'm using Beej's Guide to Networking and came across an aliasing issue. He proposes a function to return either the IPv4 or IPv6 address of a particular struct:

1  void *get_in_addr( struct sockaddr *sa )
2  {
3      if (sa->sa_family == AF_INET)
4        return &(((struct sockaddr_in*)sa)->sin_addr);
5      else
6        return &(((struct sockaddr_in6*)sa)->sin6_addr);
7  }

This causes GCC to spit out a strict-aliasing error for sa on line 3. As I understand it, it is because I call this function like so:

struct sockaddr_storage their_addr;
...
inet_ntop(their_addr.ss_family,
          get_in_addr((struct sockaddr *)&their_addr),
          connection_name,
          sizeof connection_name);

I'm guessing the aliasing has to do with the fact that the their_addr variable is of type sockaddr_storage and another pointer of a differing type points to the same memory.

Is the best way to get around this sticking sockaddr_storage, sockaddr_in, and sockaddr_in6 into a union? It seems like this should be well worn territory in networking, I just can't find any good examples with best practices.

Also, if anyone can explain exactly where the aliasing issue takes place, I'd much appreciate it.

Answer 1

I tend to do this to get GCC do the right thing with type-punning, which is explicitly allowed with unions:

/*! Multi-family socket end-point address. */
typedef union address
{
    struct sockaddr sa;
    struct sockaddr_in sa_in;
    struct sockaddr_in6 sa_in6;
    struct sockaddr_storage sa_stor;
}
address_t;

Answer 2

I tend to do this to get GCC do the right thing with type-punning, which is explicitly allowed with unions

I am pretty sure this (mis)use of union will not work (or only by accident) with GCC:

short type_pun2 (int i, int *pi, short *ps) {
    *pi = i;
    return *ps;
}

union U {
    int i;
    short s;
};

short type_pun (int i) {
    U u;
    return type_pun2 (i, &u.i, &u.s);
}

The correct way to do that is with memcpy, not union.