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Copyright 1989 AT&T
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tcp, TCP - Internet Transmission Control Protocol

#include <sys/socket.h>

#include <netinet/in.h>

s = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);

s = socket(AF_INET6, SOCK_STREAM, 0);

t = t_open("/dev/tcp", O_RDWR);

t = t_open("/dev/tcp6", O_RDWR);

TCP is the virtual circuit protocol of the Internet protocol family. It provides reliable, flow-controlled, in order, two-way transmission of data. It is a byte-stream protocol layered above the Internet Protocol (IP), or the Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6), the Internet protocol family's internetwork datagram delivery protocol.

Programs can access TCP using the socket interface as a SOCK_STREAM socket type, or using the Transport Level Interface (TLI) where it supports the connection-oriented (T_COTS_ORD) service type.

TCP uses IP's host-level addressing and adds its own per-host collection of "port addresses." The endpoints of a TCP connection are identified by the combination of an IP or IPv6 address and a TCP port number. Although other protocols, such as the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), may use the same host and port address format, the port space of these protocols is distinct. See inet(7P) and inet6(7P) for details on the common aspects of addressing in the Internet protocol family.

Sockets utilizing TCP are either "active" or "passive." Active sockets initiate connections to passive sockets. Both types of sockets must have their local IP or IPv6 address and TCP port number bound with the bind(3SOCKET) system call after the socket is created. By default, TCP sockets are active. A passive socket is created by calling the listen(3SOCKET) system call after binding the socket with bind(). This establishes a queueing parameter for the passive socket. After this, connections to the passive socket can be received with the accept(3SOCKET) system call. Active sockets use the connect(3SOCKET) call after binding to initiate connections.

By using the special value INADDR_ANY with IP, or the unspecified address (all zeroes) with IPv6, the local IP address can be left unspecified in the bind() call by either active or passive TCP sockets. This feature is usually used if the local address is either unknown or irrelevant. If left unspecified, the local IP or IPv6 address will be bound at connection time to the address of the network interface used to service the connection.

Note that no two TCP sockets can be bound to the same port unless the bound IP addresses are different. IPv4 INADDR_ANY and IPv6 unspecified addresses compare as equal to any IPv4 or IPv6 address. For example, if a socket is bound to INADDR_ANY or unspecified address and port X, no other socket can bind to port X, regardless of the binding address. This special consideration of INADDR_ANY and unspecified address can be changed using the socket option SO_REUSEADDR. If SO_REUSEADDR is set on a socket doing a bind, IPv4 INADDR_ANY and IPv6 unspecified address do not compare as equal to any IP address. This means that as long as the two sockets are not both bound to INADDR_ANY/unspecified address or the same IP address, the two sockets can be bound to the same port.

If an application does not want to allow another socket using the SO_REUSEADDR option to bind to a port its socket is bound to, the application can set the socket level option SO_EXCLBIND on a socket. The option values of 0 and 1 mean enabling and disabling the option respectively. Once this option is enabled on a socket, no other socket can be bound to the same port.

Once a connection has been established, data can be exchanged using the read(2) and write(2) system calls.

Under most circumstances, TCP sends data when it is presented. When outstanding data has not yet been acknowledged, TCP gathers small amounts of output to be sent in a single packet once an acknowledgement has been received. For a small number of clients, such as window systems that send a stream of mouse events which receive no replies, this packetization may cause significant delays. To circumvent this problem, TCP provides a socket-level boolean option, TCP_NODELAY. TCP_NODELAY is defined in <netinet/tcp.h>, and is set with setsockopt(3SOCKET) and tested with getsockopt(3SOCKET). The option level for the setsockopt() call is the protocol number for TCP, available from getprotobyname(3SOCKET).

For some applications, it may be desirable for TCP not to send out data unless a full TCP segment can be sent. To enable this behavior, an application can use the TCP_CORK socket option. When TCP_CORK is set with a non-zero value, TCP sends out a full TCP segment only. When TCP_CORK is set to zero after it has been enabled, all buffered data is sent out (as permitted by the peer's receive window and the current congestion window). TCP_CORK is defined in <netinet/tcp.h>, and is set with setsockopt(3SOCKET) and tested with getsockopt(3SOCKET). The option level for the setsockopt() call is the protocol number for TCP, available from getprotobyname(3SOCKET).

The SO_RCVBUF socket level option can be used to control the window that TCP advertises to the peer. IP level options may also be used with TCP. See ip(7P) and ip6(7P).

Another socket level option, SO_RCVBUF, can be used to control the window that TCP advertises to the peer. IP level options may also be used with TCP. See ip(7P) and ip6(7P).

TCP provides an urgent data mechanism, which may be invoked using the out-of-band provisions of send(3SOCKET). The caller may mark one byte as "urgent" with the MSG_OOB flag to send(3SOCKET). This sets an "urgent pointer" pointing to this byte in the TCP stream. The receiver on the other side of the stream is notified of the urgent data by a SIGURG signal. The SIOCATMARK ioctl(2) request returns a value indicating whether the stream is at the urgent mark. Because the system never returns data across the urgent mark in a single read(2) call, it is possible to advance to the urgent data in a simple loop which reads data, testing the socket with the SIOCATMARK ioctl() request, until it reaches the mark.

Incoming connection requests that include an IP source route option are noted, and the reverse source route is used in responding.

A checksum over all data helps TCP implement reliability. Using a window-based flow control mechanism that makes use of positive acknowledgements, sequence numbers, and a retransmission strategy, TCP can usually recover when datagrams are damaged, delayed, duplicated or delivered out of order by the underlying communication medium.

If the local TCP receives no acknowledgements from its peer for a period of time, (for example, if the remote machine crashes), the connection is closed and an error is returned.

TCP follows the congestion control algorithm described in RFC 2581, and also supports the initial congestion window (cwnd) changes in RFC 3390. The initial cwnd calculation can be overridden by the socket option TCP_INIT_CWND. An application can use this option to set the initial cwnd to a specified number of TCP segments. This applies to the cases when the connection first starts and restarts after an idle period. The process must have the PRIV_SYS_NET_CONFIG privilege if it wants to specify a number greater than that calculated by RFC 3390.

SunOS supports TCP Extensions for High Performance (RFC 1323) which includes the window scale and time stamp options, and Protection Against Wrap Around Sequence Numbers (PAWS). SunOS also supports Selective Acknowledgment (SACK) capabilities (RFC 2018) and Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) mechanism (RFC 3168).

Turn on the window scale option in one of the following ways:

Turn on SACK capabilities in the following way:

Turn on TCP ECN mechanism in the following way:

Turn on the time stamp option in the following way:

Use the following procedure to turn on the time stamp option only when the window scale option is in effect:

Protection Against Wrap Around Sequence Numbers (PAWS) is always used when the time stamp option is set.

SunOS also supports multiple methods of generating initial sequence numbers. One of these methods is the improved technique suggested in RFC 1948. We HIGHLY recommend that you set sequence number generation parameters as close to boot time as possible. This prevents sequence number problems on connections that use the same connection-ID as ones that used a different sequence number generation. The svc:/network/initial:default service configures the initial sequence number generation. The service reads the value contained in the configuration file /etc/default/inetinit to determine which method to use.

The /etc/default/inetinit file is an unstable interface, and may change in future releases.

TCP may be configured to report some information on connections that terminate by means of an RST packet. By default, no logging is done. If the ndd(1M) parameter tcp_trace is set to 1, then trace data is collected for all new connections established after that time.

The trace data consists of the TCP headers and IP source and destination addresses of the last few packets sent in each direction before RST occurred. Those packets are logged in a series of strlog(9F) calls. This trace facility has a very low overhead, and so is superior to such utilities as snoop(1M) for non-intrusive debugging for connections terminating by means of an RST.

SunOS supports the keep-alive mechanism described in RFC 1122. It is enabled using the socket option SO_KEEPALIVE. When enabled, the first keep-alive probe is sent out after a TCP is idle for two hours If the peer does not respond to the probe within eight minutes, the TCP connection is aborted. You can alter the interval for sending out the first probe using the socket option TCP_KEEPALIVE_THRESHOLD. The option value is an unsigned integer in milliseconds. The system default is controlled by the TCP ndd parameter tcp_keepalive_interval. The minimum value is ten seconds. The maximum is ten days, while the default is two hours. If you receive no response to the probe, you can use the TCP_KEEPALIVE_ABORT_THRESHOLD socket option to change the time threshold for aborting a TCP connection. The option value is an unsigned integer in milliseconds. The value zero indicates that TCP should never time out and abort the connection when probing. The system default is controlled by the TCP ndd parameter tcp_keepalive_abort_interval. The default is eight minutes.

svcs(1), ndd(1M), ioctl(2), read(2), svcadm(1M), write(2), accept(3SOCKET), bind(3SOCKET), connect(3SOCKET), getprotobyname(3SOCKET), getsockopt(3SOCKET), listen(3SOCKET), send(3SOCKET), smf(5), inet(7P), inet6(7P), ip(7P), ip6(7P)

Ramakrishnan, K., Floyd, S., Black, D., RFC 3168, The Addition of Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) to IP, September 2001.

Mathias, M. and Hahdavi, J. Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center; Ford, S. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Romanow, A. Sun Microsystems, Inc. RFC 2018, TCP Selective Acknowledgement Options, October 1996.

Bellovin, S., RFC 1948, Defending Against Sequence Number Attacks, May 1996.

Jacobson, V., Braden, R., and Borman, D., RFC 1323, TCP Extensions for High Performance, May 1992.

Postel, Jon, RFC 793, Transmission Control Protocol - DARPA Internet Program Protocol Specification, Network Information Center, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA., September 1981.

A socket operation may fail if:

EISCONN

ETIMEDOUT

ECONNRESET

ECONNREFUSED

EADDRINUSE

EADDRNOTAVAIL

EACCES

ENOBUFS

The tcp service is managed by the service management facility, smf(5), under the service identifier:

svc:/network/initial:default

Administrative actions on this service, such as enabling, disabling, or requesting restart, can be performed using svcadm(1M). The service's status can be queried using the svcs(1) command.