How can I send through a specific network interface?

Question

I need send messages through different gateways dynamically. How do that and what must be my first step in this direction?

On my server I have two connections: one-direct, and secondary over VPN. Default route is direct connection, but i need dynamically change connection to VPN.

At current time I try build socket from libc::bind() it's work, but have not expected effect.

Changing the outgoing IP is not a solution to define the interface.

Answer 1

As suggested in a comment we must use SO_BINDTODEVICE, and no way to escape FFI cause it used internally. Here working example:

extern crate libc;

use libc as c;
use std::ffi::CString;
use std::net::{TcpStream, SocketAddr};
use std::io::{self, Write};
use std::os::unix::io::FromRawFd;
use std::mem;

#[cfg(any(target_os = "linux"))]
fn connect_dev(addr: SocketAddr, link: &str) -> io::Result<TcpStream> {
    let (addr_raw, addr_len) = match addr {
        SocketAddr::V4(ref a) =>
            (a as *const _ as *const _, mem::size_of_val(a) as c::socklen_t),
        SocketAddr::V6(ref a) =>
            (a as *const _ as *const _, mem::size_of_val(a) as c::socklen_t),
    };

    unsafe {
        let fd = check_os_error(c::socket(c::AF_INET, c::SOCK_STREAM, 0))?;
        check_os_error(c::setsockopt(
            fd,
            c::SOL_SOCKET,
            c::SO_BINDTODEVICE,
            CString::new(link).expect("device name").as_ptr() as *const c::c_void,
            mem::size_of::<CString>() as c::socklen_t,
        ))?;
        check_os_error(c::connect(fd, addr_raw, addr_len))?;

        Ok(TcpStream::from_raw_fd(fd))
    }
}

#[cfg(any(target_os = "linux"))]
pub fn check_os_error(res: c::c_int) -> io::Result<c::c_int> {
    if res == -1 {
        Err(io::Error::from_raw_os_error(unsafe { *c::__errno_location()  as i32 }))
    } else {
        Ok(res)
    }
}