xref: /illumos-gate/usr/src/man/man3xnet/socket.3xnet (revision e3ae4b35c024af1196582063ecee3ab79367227d)

Sun Microsystems, Inc. gratefully acknowledges The Open Group for
permission to reproduce portions of its copyrighted documentation.
Original documentation from The Open Group can be obtained online at
http://www.opengroup.org/bookstore/.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and The Open
Group, have given us permission to reprint portions of their
documentation.

In the following statement, the phrase ``this text'' refers to portions
of the system documentation.

Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
in the SunOS Reference Manual, from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2004 Edition,
Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System
Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6,
Copyright (C) 2001-2004 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy
between these versions and the original IEEE and The Open Group
Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee
document. The original Standard can be obtained online at
http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html.

This notice shall appear on any product containing this material.

The contents of this file are subject to the terms of the
Common Development and Distribution License (the "License").
You may not use this file except in compliance with the License.

You can obtain a copy of the license at usr/src/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE
or http://www.opensolaris.org/os/licensing.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions
and limitations under the License.

When distributing Covered Code, include this CDDL HEADER in each
file and include the License file at usr/src/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE.
If applicable, add the following below this CDDL HEADER, with the
fields enclosed by brackets "[]" replaced with your own identifying
information: Portions Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright owner]


Copyright (c) 1992, X/Open Company Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Portions Copyright (c) 1999, Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

SOCKET 3XNET "Jun 10, 2002"
NAME
socket - create an endpoint for communication
SYNOPSIS

cc [ flag ... ] file ... -lxnet [ library ... ]
#include <sys/socket.h>

int socket(int domain, int type, int protocol);
DESCRIPTION

The socket() function creates an unbound socket in a communications domain, and returns a file descriptor that can be used in later function calls that operate on sockets.

The <sys/socket.h> header defines at least the following values for the domain argument: AF_UNIX

File system pathnames.

AF_INET

Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) address.

AF_INET6

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) address.

The type argument specifies the socket type, which determines the semantics of communication over the socket. The socket types supported by the system are implementation-dependent. Possible socket types include: SOCK_STREAM

Provides sequenced, reliable, bidirectional, connection-mode byte streams, and may provide a transmission mechanism for out-of-band data.

SOCK_DGRAM

Provides datagrams, which are connectionless-mode, unreliable messages of fixed maximum length.

SOCK_SEQPACKET

Provides sequenced, reliable, bidirectional, connection-mode transmission path for records. A record can be sent using one or more output operations and received using one or more input operations, but a single operation never transfers part of more than one record. Record boundaries are visible to the receiver via the MSG_EOR flag.

If the protocol argument is non-zero, it must specify a protocol that is supported by the address family. The protocols supported by the system are implementation-dependent.

The process may need to have appropriate privileges to use the socket() function or to create some sockets.

PARAMETERS

The function takes the following arguments: domain

Specifies the communications domain in which a socket is to be created.

type

Specifies the type of socket to be created.

protocol

Specifies a particular protocol to be used with the socket. Specifying a protocol of 0 causes socket() to use an unspecified default protocol appropriate for the requested socket type.

The domain argument specifies the address family used in the communications domain. The address families supported by the system are implementation-dependent.

USAGE

The documentation for specific address families specify which protocols each address family supports. The documentation for specific protocols specify which socket types each protocol supports.

The application can determine if an address family is supported by trying to create a socket with domain set to the protocol in question.

RETURN VALUES

Upon successful completion, socket() returns a nonnegative integer, the socket file descriptor. Otherwise a value of -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS

The socket() function will fail if: EAFNOSUPPORT

The implementation does not support the specified address family.

EMFILE

No more file descriptors are available for this process.

ENFILE

No more file descriptors are available for the system.

EPROTONOSUPPORT

The protocol is not supported by the address family, or the protocol is not supported by the implementation.

EPROTOTYPE

The socket type is not supported by the protocol.

The socket() function may fail if: EACCES

The process does not have appropriate privileges.

ENOBUFS

Insufficient resources were available in the system to perform the operation.

ENOMEM

Insufficient memory was available to fulfill the request.

ENOSR

There were insufficient STREAMS resources available for the operation to complete.

ATTRIBUTES

See attributes(7) for descriptions of the following attributes:

ATTRIBUTE TYPE ATTRIBUTE VALUE
Interface Stability Standard
MT-Level MT-Safe
SEE ALSO

accept (3XNET), bind (3XNET), connect (3XNET), getsockname (3XNET), getsockopt (3XNET), listen (3XNET), recv (3XNET), recvfrom (3XNET), recvmsg (3XNET), send (3XNET), sendmsg (3XNET), setsockopt (3XNET), shutdown (3XNET), socketpair (3XNET), attributes (7), standards (7)