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UDP(4)			    Kernel Interfaces Manual			UDP(4)

NAME
       udp -- Internet User Datagram Protocol

SYNOPSIS
       #include	<sys/types.h>
       #include	<sys/socket.h>
       #include	<netinet/in.h>

       int
       socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, 0);

DESCRIPTION
       UDP  is a simple, unreliable datagram protocol which is used to support
       the SOCK_DGRAM abstraction for the Internet protocol family.  UDP sock-
       ets are connectionless, and are normally	used with  the	sendto(2)  and
       recvfrom(2)  calls,  though the connect(2) call may also	be used	to fix
       the destination for future  packets  (in	 which	case  the  recv(2)  or
       read(2) and send(2) or write(2) system calls may	be used).

       UDP  address formats are	identical to those used	by TCP.	 In particular
       UDP provides a port identifier in addition to the normal	 Internet  ad-
       dress  format.	Note  that the UDP port	space is separate from the TCP
       port space (i.e., a UDP port may	not be "connected" to a	TCP port).  In
       addition	broadcast packets may be sent (assuming	the underlying network
       supports	this) by using a reserved "broadcast address"; this address is
       network interface dependent.

       Options at the IP transport level may be	 used  with  UDP;  see	ip(4).
       UDP_ENCAP  socket option	may be used at the IPPROTO_UDP level to	encap-
       sulate ESP packets in UDP.  Only	one value is supported	for  this  op-
       tion: UDP_ENCAP_ESPINUDP	from RFC 3948, defined in <netinet/udp.h>.

FIB support
       UDP  sockets  are FIB-aware.  They inherit the FIB of the process which
       created the socket.  By default,	a UDP socket bound to an  address  can
       receive	  datagrams    originating    from    any    FIB.     If   the
       net.inet.udp.bind_all_fibs tunable is set to 0, all  UDP	 sockets  will
       receive only datagrams originating from the same	FIB as the socket.  In
       this  mode,  multiple sockets can be bound to the same address, so long
       as each socket belongs to a different FIB, similar to the  behavior  of
       the SO_REUSEPORT	option.

MIB (sysctl) Variables
       The  udp	 protocol implements a number of variables in the net.inet.udp
       branch of the sysctl(3) MIB, which can be also read  or	modified  with
       sysctl(8):

       blackhole    When  a  datagram  is received on a	port where there is no
		    socket listening, do not return an ICMP  port  unreachable
		    message.  (Disabled	by default.  See blackhole(4).)

       checksum	    Enable UDP checksums (enabled by default).

       log_in_vain  For	 all  UDP  datagrams,  to  ports  on which there is no
		    socket listening, log the connection attempt (disabled  by
		    default).

       maxdgram	    Maximum outgoing UDP datagram size

       recvspace    Maximum space for incoming UDP datagrams

ERRORS
       A socket	operation may fail with	one of the following errors returned:

       [EISCONN]	  when	trying	to  establish a	connection on a	socket
			  which	already	has one, or  when  trying  to  send  a
			  datagram  with the destination address specified and
			  the socket is	already	connected;

       [ENOTCONN]	  when trying to send a	datagram, but  no  destination
			  address  is  specified,  and the socket has not been
			  connected;

       [ENOBUFS]	  when the system runs out of memory for  an  internal
			  data structure;

       [EADDRINUSE]	  when	an  attempt  is	made to	create a socket	with a
			  port which has already been allocated;

       [EADDRNOTAVAIL]	  when an attempt is made to create a  socket  with  a
			  network  address  for	which no network interface ex-
			  ists.

SEE ALSO
       getsockopt(2),  recv(2),	 send(2),  socket(2),  blackhole(4),  inet(4),
       intro(4), ip(4),	udplite(4)

HISTORY
       The udp protocol	appeared in 4.2BSD.

FreeBSD	14.3		       January 20, 2025				UDP(4)

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