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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | ERRORS | CONFORMING TO | NOTES | EXAMPLE | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
SOCKET(2) Linux Programmer's Manual SOCKET(2)
socket - create an endpoint for communication
#include <sys/types.h> /* See NOTES */
#include <sys/socket.h>
int socket(int domain, int type, int protocol);
socket() creates an endpoint for communication and returns a file
descriptor that refers to that endpoint.
The domain argument specifies a communication domain; this selects
the protocol family which will be used for communication. These
families are defined in <sys/socket.h>. The currently understood
formats include:
Name Purpose Man page
AF_UNIX, AF_LOCAL Local communication unix(7)
AF_INET IPv4 Internet protocols ip(7)
AF_INET6 IPv6 Internet protocols ipv6(7)
AF_IPX IPX - Novell protocols
AF_NETLINK Kernel user interface device netlink(7)
AF_X25 ITU-T X.25 / ISO-8208 protocol x25(7)
AF_AX25 Amateur radio AX.25 protocol
AF_ATMPVC Access to raw ATM PVCs
AF_APPLETALK AppleTalk ddp(7)
AF_PACKET Low level packet interface packet(7)
AF_ALG Interface to kernel crypto API
The socket has the indicated type, which specifies the communication
semantics. Currently defined types are:
SOCK_STREAM Provides sequenced, reliable, two-way, connection-
based byte streams. An out-of-band data transmission
mechanism may be supported.
SOCK_DGRAM Supports datagrams (connectionless, unreliable
messages of a fixed maximum length).
SOCK_SEQPACKET Provides a sequenced, reliable, two-way connection-
based data transmission path for datagrams of fixed
maximum length; a consumer is required to read an
entire packet with each input system call.
SOCK_RAW Provides raw network protocol access.
SOCK_RDM Provides a reliable datagram layer that does not
guarantee ordering.
SOCK_PACKET Obsolete and should not be used in new programs; see
packet(7).
Some socket types may not be implemented by all protocol families.
Since Linux 2.6.27, the type argument serves a second purpose: in
addition to specifying a socket type, it may include the bitwise OR
of any of the following values, to modify the behavior of socket():
SOCK_NONBLOCK Set the O_NONBLOCK file status flag on the new open
file description. Using this flag saves extra calls
to fcntl(2) to achieve the same result.
SOCK_CLOEXEC Set the close-on-exec (FD_CLOEXEC) flag on the new
file descriptor. See the description of the
O_CLOEXEC flag in open(2) for reasons why this may be
useful.
The protocol specifies a particular protocol to be used with the
socket. Normally only a single protocol exists to support a
particular socket type within a given protocol family, in which case
protocol can be specified as 0. However, it is possible that many
protocols may exist, in which case a particular protocol must be
specified in this manner. The protocol number to use is specific to
the “communication domain” in which communication is to take place;
see protocols(5). See getprotoent(3) on how to map protocol name
strings to protocol numbers.
Sockets of type SOCK_STREAM are full-duplex byte streams. They do
not preserve record boundaries. A stream socket must be in a
connected state before any data may be sent or received on it. A
connection to another socket is created with a connect(2) call. Once
connected, data may be transferred using read(2) and write(2) calls
or some variant of the send(2) and recv(2) calls. When a session has
been completed a close(2) may be performed. Out-of-band data may
also be transmitted as described in send(2) and received as described
in recv(2).
The communications protocols which implement a SOCK_STREAM ensure
that data is not lost or duplicated. If a piece of data for which
the peer protocol has buffer space cannot be successfully transmitted
within a reasonable length of time, then the connection is considered
to be dead. When SO_KEEPALIVE is enabled on the socket the protocol
checks in a protocol-specific manner if the other end is still alive.
A SIGPIPE signal is raised if a process sends or receives on a broken
stream; this causes naive processes, which do not handle the signal,
to exit. SOCK_SEQPACKET sockets employ the same system calls as
SOCK_STREAM sockets. The only difference is that read(2) calls will
return only the amount of data requested, and any data remaining in
the arriving packet will be discarded. Also all message boundaries
in incoming datagrams are preserved.
SOCK_DGRAM and SOCK_RAW sockets allow sending of datagrams to
correspondents named in sendto(2) calls. Datagrams are generally
received with recvfrom(2), which returns the next datagram along with
the address of its sender.
SOCK_PACKET is an obsolete socket type to receive raw packets
directly from the device driver. Use packet(7) instead.
An fcntl(2) F_SETOWN operation can be used to specify a process or
process group to receive a SIGURG signal when the out-of-band data
arrives or SIGPIPE signal when a SOCK_STREAM connection breaks
unexpectedly. This operation may also be used to set the process or
process group that receives the I/O and asynchronous notification of
I/O events via SIGIO. Using F_SETOWN is equivalent to an ioctl(2)
call with the FIOSETOWN or SIOCSPGRP argument.
When the network signals an error condition to the protocol module
(e.g., using an ICMP message for IP) the pending error flag is set
for the socket. The next operation on this socket will return the
error code of the pending error. For some protocols it is possible
to enable a per-socket error queue to retrieve detailed information
about the error; see IP_RECVERR in ip(7).
The operation of sockets is controlled by socket level options.
These options are defined in <sys/socket.h>. The functions
setsockopt(2) and getsockopt(2) are used to set and get options,
respectively.
On success, a file descriptor for the new socket is returned. On
error, -1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately.
EACCES Permission to create a socket of the specified type and/or
protocol is denied.
EAFNOSUPPORT
The implementation does not support the specified address
family.
EINVAL Unknown protocol, or protocol family not available.
EINVAL Invalid flags in type.
EMFILE The per-process limit on the number of open file descriptors
has been reached.
ENFILE The system-wide limit on the total number of open files has
been reached.
ENOBUFS or ENOMEM
Insufficient memory is available. The socket cannot be
created until sufficient resources are freed.
EPROTONOSUPPORT
The protocol type or the specified protocol is not supported
within this domain.
Other errors may be generated by the underlying protocol modules.
POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, 4.4BSD.
The SOCK_NONBLOCK and SOCK_CLOEXEC flags are Linux-specific.
socket() appeared in 4.2BSD. It is generally portable to/from non-
BSD systems supporting clones of the BSD socket layer (including
System V variants).
POSIX.1 does not require the inclusion of <sys/types.h>, and this
header file is not required on Linux. However, some historical (BSD)
implementations required this header file, and portable applications
are probably wise to include it.
The manifest constants used under 4.x BSD for protocol families are
PF_UNIX, PF_INET, and so on, while AF_UNIX, AF_INET, and so on are
used for address families. However, already the BSD man page
promises: "The protocol family generally is the same as the address
family", and subsequent standards use AF_* everywhere.
The AF_ALG protocol type was added in Linux 2.6.38. More information
on this interface is provided with the kernel HTML documentation at
https://www.kernel.org/doc/htmldocs/crypto-API/User.html .
An example of the use of socket() is shown in getaddrinfo(3).
accept(2), bind(2), close(2), connect(2), fcntl(2), getpeername(2),
getsockname(2), getsockopt(2), ioctl(2), listen(2), read(2), recv(2),
select(2), send(2), shutdown(2), socketpair(2), write(2),
getprotoent(3), ip(7), socket(7), tcp(7), udp(7), unix(7)
“An Introductory 4.3BSD Interprocess Communication Tutorial” and “BSD
Interprocess Communication Tutorial”, reprinted in UNIX Programmer's
Supplementary Documents Volume 1.
This page is part of release 4.12 of the Linux man-pages project. A
description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the
latest version of this page, can be found at
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Linux 2015-12-28 SOCKET(2)
Pages that refer to this page: pmsocks(1), accept(2), bind(2), bpf(2), connect(2), fcntl(2), getsockname(2), getsockopt(2), listen(2), mknod(2), open(2), recv(2), recvmmsg(2), send(2), sendfile(2), sendmmsg(2), shutdown(2), socketcall(2), socketpair(2), syscalls(2), audit_open(3), getaddrinfo(3), getifaddrs(3), getnameinfo(3), if_nameindex(3), if_nametoindex(3), pmda(3), pmdaconnect(3), systemd.exec(5), ddp(7), ip(7), packet(7), raw(7), sctp(7), signal-safety(7), socket(7), tcp(7), unix(7), x25(7)