mysocket = socket(int socket_family, int socket_type, int protocol);
DESCRIPTION
This manual page describes the Linux networking socket layer user
interface.
The BSD compatible sockets
are the uniform interface
between the user process and the network protocol stacks in the kernel.
The protocol modules are grouped into
protocol families
like
AF_INET, AF_IPX, AF_PACKET
and
socket types
like
SOCK_STREAM
or
SOCK_DGRAM.
See
socket(2)
for more information on families and types.
Socket Layer Functions
These functions are used by the user process to send or receive packets
and to do other socket operations.
For more information see their respective manual pages.
socket(2)
creates a socket,
connect(2)
connects a socket to a remote socket address,
the
bind(2)
function binds a socket to a local socket address,
listen(2)
tells the socket that new connections shall be accepted, and
accept(2)
is used to get a new socket with a new incoming connection.
socketpair(2)
returns two connected anonymous sockets (only implemented for a few
local families like
AF_UNIX)
send(2),
sendto(2),
and
sendmsg(2)
send data over a socket, and
recv(2),
recvfrom(2),
recvmsg(2)
receive data from a socket.
poll(2)
and
select(2)
wait for arriving data or a readiness to send data.
In addition, the standard I/O operations like
write(2),
writev(2),
sendfile(2),
read(2),
and
readv(2)
can be used to read and write data.
getsockname(2)
returns the local socket address and
getpeername(2)
returns the remote socket address.
getsockopt(2)
and
setsockopt(2)
are used to set or get socket layer or protocol options.
ioctl(2)
can be used to set or read some other options.
close(2)
is used to close a socket.
shutdown(2)
closes parts of a full-duplex socket connection.
Seeking, or calling
pread(2)
or
pwrite(2)
with a non-zero position is not supported on sockets.
It is possible to do non-blocking I/O on sockets by setting the
O_NONBLOCK
flag on a socket file descriptor using
fcntl(2).
Then all operations that would block will (usually)
return with
EAGAIN
(operation should be retried later);
connect(2)
will return
EINPROGRESS
error.
The user can then wait for various events via
poll(2)
or
select(2).
I/O events
Event
Poll flag
Occurrence
Read
POLLIN
New data arrived.
Read
POLLIN
A connection setup has been completed
(for connection-oriented sockets)
Read
POLLHUP
A disconnection request has been initiated by the other end.
Read
POLLHUP
A connection is broken (only for connection-oriented protocols).
When the socket is written
SIGPIPE
is also sent.
Write
POLLOUT
Socket has enough send buffer space for writing new data.
An alternative to
poll(2)
and
select(2)
is to let the kernel inform the application about events
via a
SIGIO
signal.
For that the
O_ASYNC
flag must be set on a socket file descriptor via
fcntl(2)
and a valid signal handler for
SIGIO
must be installed via
sigaction(2).
See the
Signals
discussion below.
Socket Options
These socket options can be set by using
setsockopt(2)
and read with
getsockopt(2)
with the socket level set to
SOL_SOCKET
for all sockets:
SO_ACCEPTCONN
Returns a value indicating whether or not this socket has been marked
to accept connections with
listen(2).
The value 0 indicates that this is not a listening socket,
the value 1 indicates that this is a listening socket.
Can only be read
with
getsockopt(2).
SO_BINDTODEVICE
Bind this socket to a particular device like lqeth0rq,
as specified in the passed interface name.
If the
name is an empty string or the option length is zero, the socket device
binding is removed.
The passed option is a variable-length null-terminated
interface name string with the maximum size of
IFNAMSIZ.
If a socket is bound to an interface,
only packets received from that particular interface are processed by the
socket.
Note that this only works for some socket types, particularly
AF_INET
sockets.
It is not supported for packet sockets (use normal
bind(8)
there).
SO_BROADCAST
Set or get the broadcast flag.
When enabled, datagram sockets
receive packets sent to a broadcast address and they are allowed to send
packets to a broadcast address.
This option has no effect on stream-oriented sockets.
SO_BSDCOMPAT
Enable BSD bug-to-bug compatibility.
This is used by the UDP protocol module in Linux 2.0 and 2.2.
If enabled ICMP errors received for a UDP socket will not be passed
to the user program.
In later kernel versions, support for this option has been phased out:
Linux 2.4 silently ignores it, and Linux 2.6 generates a kernel warning
(printk()) if a program uses this option.
Linux 2.0 also enabled BSD bug-to-bug compatibility
options (random header changing, skipping of the broadcast flag) for raw
sockets with this option, but that was removed in Linux 2.2.
SO_DEBUG
Enable socket debugging.
Only allowed for processes with the
CAP_NET_ADMIN
capability or an effective user ID of 0.
SO_ERROR
Get and clear the pending socket error.
Only valid as a
getsockopt(2).
Expects an integer.
SO_DONTROUTE
Don't send via a gateway, only send to directly connected hosts.
The same effect can be achieved by setting the
MSG_DONTROUTE
flag on a socket
send(2)
operation.
Expects an integer boolean flag.
SO_KEEPALIVE
Enable sending of keep-alive messages on connection-oriented sockets.
Expects an integer boolean flag.
SO_LINGER
Sets or gets the
SO_LINGER
option.
The argument is a
linger
structure.
struct linger {
int l_onoff; /* linger active */
int l_linger; /* how many seconds to linger for */
};
When enabled, a
close(2)
or
shutdown(2)
will not return until all queued messages for the socket have been
successfully sent or the linger timeout has been reached.
Otherwise,
the call returns immediately and the closing is done in the background.
When the socket is closed as part of
exit(2),
it always lingers in the background.
SO_OOBINLINE
If this option is enabled,
out-of-band data is directly placed into the receive data stream.
Otherwise out-of-band data is only passed when the
MSG_OOB
flag is set during receiving.
SO_PASSCRED
Enable or disable the receiving of the
SCM_CREDENTIALS
control message.
For more information see
unix(7).
SO_PEERCRED
Return the credentials of the foreign process connected to this socket.
This is only possible for connected
AF_UNIX
stream sockets and
AF_UNIX
stream and datagram socket pairs created using
socketpair(2);
see
unix(7).
The returned credentials are those that were in effect at the time
of the call to
connect(2)
or
socketpair(2).
Argument is a
ucred
structure.
Only valid as a
getsockopt(2).
SO_PRIORITY
Set the protocol-defined priority for all packets to be sent on
this socket.
Linux uses this value to order the networking queues:
packets with a higher priority may be processed first depending
on the selected device queueing discipline.
For
ip(7),
this also sets the IP type-of-service (TOS) field for outgoing packets.
Setting a priority outside the range 0 to 6 requires the
CAP_NET_ADMIN
capability.
SO_RCVBUF
Sets or gets the maximum socket receive buffer in bytes.
The kernel doubles this value (to allow space for bookkeeping overhead)
when it is set using
setsockopt(2),
and this doubled value is returned by
getsockopt(2).
The default value is set by the
/proc/sys/net/core/rmem_default
file, and the maximum allowed value is set by the
/proc/sys/net/core/rmem_max
file.
The minimum (doubled) value for this option is 256.
SO_RCVBUFFORCE (since Linux 2.6.14)
Using this socket option, a privileged
(CAP_NET_ADMIN)
process can perform the same task as
SO_RCVBUF,
but the
rmem_max
limit can be overridden.
SO_RCVLOWAT and SO_SNDLOWAT
Specify the minimum number of bytes in the buffer until the socket layer
will pass the data to the protocol
(SO_SNDLOWAT)
or the user on receiving
(SO_RCVLOWAT).
These two values are initialized to 1.
SO_SNDLOWAT
is not changeable on Linux
(setsockopt(2)
fails with the error
ENOPROTOOPT).
SO_RCVLOWAT
is changeable
only since Linux 2.4.
The
select(2)
and
poll(2)
system calls currently do not respect the
SO_RCVLOWAT
setting on Linux,
and mark a socket readable when even a single byte of data is available.
A subsequent read from the socket will block until
SO_RCVLOWAT
bytes are available.
SO_RCVTIMEO and SO_SNDTIMEO
Specify the receiving or sending timeouts until reporting an error.
The argument is a
struct timeval.
If an input or output function blocks for this period of time, and
data has been sent or received, the return value of that function
will be the amount of data transferred; if no data has been transferred
and the timeout has been reached then -1 is returned with
errno
set to
EAGAIN
or
EWOULDBLOCK
just as if the socket was specified to be non-blocking.
If the timeout is set to zero (the default)
then the operation will never timeout.
Timeouts only have effect for system calls that perform socket I/O (e.g.,
read(2),
recvmsg(2),
send(2),
sendmsg(2));
timeouts have no effect for
select(2),
poll(2),
epoll_wait(2),
etc.
SO_REUSEADDR
Indicates that the rules used in validating addresses supplied in a
bind(2)
call should allow reuse of local addresses.
For
AF_INET
sockets this
means that a socket may bind, except when there
is an active listening socket bound to the address.
When the listening socket is bound to
INADDR_ANY
with a specific port then it is not possible
to bind to this port for any local address.
Argument is an integer boolean flag.
SO_SNDBUF
Sets or gets the maximum socket send buffer in bytes.
The kernel doubles this value (to allow space for bookkeeping overhead)
when it is set using
setsockopt(2),
and this doubled value is returned by
getsockopt(2).
The default value is set by the
/proc/sys/net/core/wmem_default
file and the maximum allowed value is set by the
/proc/sys/net/core/wmem_max
file.
The minimum (doubled) value for this option is 2048.
SO_SNDBUFFORCE (since Linux 2.6.14)
Using this socket option, a privileged
(CAP_NET_ADMIN)
process can perform the same task as
SO_SNDBUF,
but the
wmem_max
limit can be overridden.
SO_TIMESTAMP
Enable or disable the receiving of the
SO_TIMESTAMP
control message.
The timestamp control message is sent with level
SOL_SOCKET
and the
cmsg_data
field is a
struct timeval
indicating the
reception time of the last packet passed to the user in this call.
See
cmsg(3)
for details on control messages.
SO_TYPE
Gets the socket type as an integer (like
SOCK_STREAM).
Can only be read
with
getsockopt(2).
Signals
When writing onto a connection-oriented socket that has been shut down
(by the local or the remote end)
SIGPIPE
is sent to the writing process and
EPIPE
is returned.
The signal is not sent when the write call
specified the
MSG_NOSIGNAL
flag.
When requested with the
FIOSETOWNfcntl(2)
or
SIOCSPGRPioctl(2),
SIGIO
is sent when an I/O event occurs.
It is possible to use
poll(2)
or
select(2)
in the signal handler to find out which socket the event occurred on.
An alternative (in Linux 2.2) is to set a real-time signal using the
F_SETSIGfcntl(2);
the handler of the real time signal will be called with
the file descriptor in the
si_fd
field of its
siginfo_t.
See
fcntl(2)
for more information.
Under some circumstances (e.g., multiple processes accessing a
single socket), the condition that caused the
SIGIO
may have already disappeared when the process reacts to the signal.
If this happens, the process should wait again because Linux
will resend the signal later.
/proc interfaces
The core socket networking parameters can be accessed
via files in the directory
/proc/sys/net/core/.
rmem_default
contains the default setting in bytes of the socket receive buffer.
rmem_max
contains the maximum socket receive buffer size in bytes which a user may
set by using the
SO_RCVBUF
socket option.
wmem_default
contains the default setting in bytes of the socket send buffer.
wmem_max
contains the maximum socket send buffer size in bytes which a user may
set by using the
SO_SNDBUF
socket option.
message_cost and message_burst
configure the token bucket filter used to load limit warning messages
caused by external network events.
netdev_max_backlog
Maximum number of packets in the global input queue.
optmem_max
Maximum length of ancillary data and user control data like the iovecs
per socket.
Return a
struct timeval
with the receive timestamp of the last packet passed to the user.
This is useful for accurate round trip time measurements.
See
setitimer(2)
for a description of
struct timeval.
This ioctl should only be used if the socket option
SO_TIMESTAMP
is not set on the socket.
Otherwise, it returns the timestamp of the
last packet that was received while
SO_TIMESTAMP
was not set, or it fails if no such packet has been received,
(i.e.,
ioctl(2)
returns -1 with
errno
set to
ENOENT).
SIOCSPGRP
Set the process or process group to send
SIGIO
or
SIGURG
signals
to when an
asynchronous I/O operation has finished or urgent data is available.
The argument is a pointer to a
pid_t.
If the argument is positive, send the signals to that process.
If the
argument is negative, send the signals to the process group with the ID
of the absolute value of the argument.
The process may only choose itself or its own process group to receive
signals unless it has the
CAP_KILL
capability or an effective UID of 0.
FIOASYNC
Change the
O_ASYNC
flag to enable or disable asynchronous I/O mode of the socket.
Asynchronous I/O mode means that the
SIGIO
signal or the signal set with
F_SETSIG
is raised when a new I/O event occurs.
Argument is an integer boolean flag.
(This operation is synonymous with the use of
fcntl(2)
to set the
O_ASYNC
flag.)
SIOCGPGRP
Get the current process or process group that receives
SIGIO
or
SIGURG
signals,
or 0
when none is set.
SO_BINDTODEVICE
was introduced in Linux 2.0.30.
SO_PASSCRED
is new in Linux 2.2.
The
/proc
interfaces was introduced in Linux 2.2.
SO_RCVTIMEO
and
SO_SNDTIMEO
are supported since Linux 2.3.41.
Earlier, timeouts were fixed to
a protocol-specific setting, and could not be read or written.
NOTES
Linux assumes that half of the send/receive buffer is used for internal
kernel structures; thus the values in the corresponding
/proc
files are twice what can be observed on the wire.
Linux will only allow port re-use with the
SO_REUSEADDR
option
when this option was set both in the previous program that performed a
bind(2)
to the port and in the program that wants to re-use the port.
This differs from some implementations (e.g., FreeBSD)
where only the later program needs to set the
SO_REUSEADDR
option.
Typically this difference is invisible, since, for example, a server
program is designed to always set this option.
BUGS
The
CONFIG_FILTER
socket options
SO_ATTACH_FILTER
and
SO_DETACH_FILTER
are
not documented.
The suggested interface to use them is via the libpcap
library.
This page is part of release 3.14 of the Linux
man-pages
project.
A description of the project,
and information about reporting bugs,
can be found at
http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
