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GETSOCKOPT(2) BSD System Calls Manual GETSOCKOPT(2) NAME getsockopt, setsockopt -- get and set options on sockets LIBRARY Standard C Library (libc, -lc) SYNOPSIS #include <sys/types.h> #include <sys/socket.h> int getsockopt(int s, int level, int optname, void * restrict optval, socklen_t * restrict optlen); int setsockopt(int s, int level, int optname, const void *optval, socklen_t optlen); DESCRIPTION The getsockopt() and setsockopt() system calls manipulate the options as- sociated with a socket. Options may exist at multiple protocol levels; they are always present at the uppermost "socket" level. When manipulating socket options the level at which the option resides and the name of the option must be specified. To manipulate options at the socket level, level is specified as SOL_SOCKET. To manipulate op- tions at any other level the protocol number of the appropriate protocol controlling the option is supplied. For example, to indicate that an op- tion is to be interpreted by the TCP protocol, level should be set to the protocol number of TCP; see getprotoent(3). The optval and optlen arguments are used to access option values for setsockopt(). For getsockopt() they identify a buffer in which the value for the requested option(s) are to be returned. For getsockopt(), optlen is a value-result argument, initially containing the size of the buffer pointed to by optval, and modified on return to indicate the actual size of the value returned. If no option value is to be supplied or returned, optval may be NULL. The optname argument and any specified options are passed uninterpreted to the appropriate protocol module for interpretation. The include file <sys/socket.h> contains definitions for socket level options, described below. Options at other protocol levels vary in format and name; consult the appropriate entries in section 4 of the manual. Most socket-level options utilize an int argument for optval. For setsockopt(), the argument should be non-zero to enable a boolean option, or zero if the option is to be disabled. SO_LINGER uses a struct linger argument, defined in <sys/socket.h>, which specifies the desired state of the option and the linger interval (see below). SO_SNDTIMEO and SO_RCVTIMEO use a struct timeval argument, defined in <sys/time.h>. The following options are recognized at the socket level. Except as noted, each may be examined with getsockopt() and set with setsockopt(). SO_DEBUG enables recording of debugging information SO_REUSEADDR enables local address reuse SO_REUSEPORT enables duplicate address and port bindings SO_KEEPALIVE enables keep connections alive SO_DONTROUTE enables routing bypass for outgoing messages SO_LINGER linger on close if data present SO_BROADCAST enables permission to transmit broadcast messages SO_OOBINLINE enables reception of out-of-band data in band SO_SNDBUF set buffer size for output SO_RCVBUF set buffer size for input SO_SNDLOWAT set minimum count for output SO_RCVLOWAT set minimum count for input SO_SNDTIMEO set timeout value for output SO_RCVTIMEO set timeout value for input SO_ACCEPTFILTER set accept filter on listening socket SO_NOSIGPIPE controls generation of SIGPIPE for the socket SO_TIMESTAMP enables reception of a timestamp with datagrams SO_BINTIME enables reception of a timestamp with datagrams SO_ACCEPTCONN get listening status of the socket (get only) SO_TYPE get the type of the socket (get only) SO_ERROR get and clear error on the socket (get only) SO_SETFIB set the associated FIB (routing table) for the socket (set only) SO_DEBUG enables debugging in the underlying protocol modules. SO_REUSEADDR indicates that the rules used in validating addresses sup- plied in a bind(2) system call should allow reuse of local addresses. SO_REUSEPORT allows completely duplicate bindings by multiple processes if they all set SO_REUSEPORT before binding the port. This option per- mits multiple instances of a program to each receive UDP/IP multicast or broadcast datagrams destined for the bound port. SO_KEEPALIVE enables the periodic transmission of messages on a connected socket. Should the connected party fail to respond to these messages, the connection is con- sidered broken and processes using the socket are notified via a SIGPIPE signal when attempting to send data. SO_DONTROUTE indicates that outgo- ing messages should bypass the standard routing facilities. Instead, messages are directed to the appropriate network interface according to the network portion of the destination address. SO_LINGER controls the action taken when unsent messages are queued on socket and a close(2) is performed. If the socket promises reliable de- livery of data and SO_LINGER is set, the system will block the process on the close(2) attempt until it is able to transmit the data or until it decides it is unable to deliver the information (a timeout period, termed the linger interval, is specified in seconds in the setsockopt() system call when SO_LINGER is requested). If SO_LINGER is disabled and a close(2) is issued, the system will process the close in a manner that allows the process to continue as quickly as possible. The option SO_BROADCAST requests permission to send broadcast datagrams on the socket. Broadcast was a privileged operation in earlier versions of the system. With protocols that support out-of-band data, the SO_OOBINLINE option requests that out-of-band data be placed in the nor- mal data input queue as received; it will then be accessible with recv(2) or read(2) calls without the MSG_OOB flag. Some protocols always behave as if this option is set. SO_SNDBUF and SO_RCVBUF are options to adjust the normal buffer sizes allocated for output and input buffers, respec- tively. The buffer size may be increased for high-volume connections, or may be decreased to limit the possible backlog of incoming data. The system places an absolute maximum on these values, which is accessible through the sysctl(3) MIB variable "kern.ipc.maxsockbuf". SO_SNDLOWAT is an option to set the minimum count for output operations. Most output operations process all of the data supplied by the call, de- livering data to the protocol for transmission and blocking as necessary for flow control. Nonblocking output operations will process as much data as permitted subject to flow control without blocking, but will process no data if flow control does not allow the smaller of the low wa- ter mark value or the entire request to be processed. A select(2) opera- tion testing the ability to write to a socket will return true only if the low water mark amount could be processed. The default value for SO_SNDLOWAT is set to a convenient size for network efficiency, often 1024. SO_RCVLOWAT is an option to set the minimum count for input opera- tions. In general, receive calls will block until any (non-zero) amount of data is received, then return with the smaller of the amount available or the amount requested. The default value for SO_RCVLOWAT is 1. If SO_RCVLOWAT is set to a larger value, blocking receive calls normally wait until they have received the smaller of the low water mark value or the requested amount. Receive calls may still return less than the low water mark if an error occurs, a signal is caught, or the type of data next in the receive queue is different from that which was returned. SO_SNDTIMEO is an option to set a timeout value for output operations. It accepts a struct timeval argument with the number of seconds and mi- croseconds used to limit waits for output operations to complete. If a send operation has blocked for this much time, it returns with a partial count or with the error EWOULDBLOCK if no data were sent. In the current implementation, this timer is restarted each time additional data are de- livered to the protocol, implying that the limit applies to output por- tions ranging in size from the low water mark to the high water mark for output. SO_RCVTIMEO is an option to set a timeout value for input opera- tions. It accepts a struct timeval argument with the number of seconds and microseconds used to limit waits for input operations to complete. In the current implementation, this timer is restarted each time addi- tional data are received by the protocol, and thus the limit is in effect an inactivity timer. If a receive operation has been blocked for this much time without receiving additional data, it returns with a short count or with the error EWOULDBLOCK if no data were received. SO_SETFIB can be used to over-ride the default FIB (routing table) for the given socket. The value must be from 0 to one less than the number returned from the sysctl net.fibs. SO_ACCEPTFILTER places an accept_filter(9) on the socket, which will fil- ter incoming connections on a listening stream socket before being pre- sented for accept(2). Once more, listen(2) must be called on the socket before trying to install the filter on it, or else the setsockopt() sys- tem call will fail. struct accept_filter_arg { char af_name[16]; char af_arg[256-16]; }; The optval argument should point to a struct accept_filter_arg that will select and configure the accept_filter(9). The af_name argument should be filled with the name of the accept filter that the application wishes to place on the listening socket. The optional argument af_arg can be passed to the accept filter specified by af_name to provide additional configuration options at attach time. Passing in an optval of NULL will remove the filter. The SO_NOSIGPIPE option controls generation of the SIGPIPE signal nor- mally sent when writing to a connected socket where the other end has been closed returns with the error EPIPE. If the SO_TIMESTAMP or SO_BINTIME option is enabled on a SOCK_DGRAM socket, the recvmsg(2) call will return a timestamp corresponding to when the datagram was received. The msg_control field in the msghdr structure points to a buffer that contains a cmsghdr structure followed by a struct timeval for SO_TIMESTAMP and struct bintime for SO_BINTIME. The cmsghdr fields have the following values for TIMESTAMP: cmsg_len = sizeof(struct timeval); cmsg_level = SOL_SOCKET; cmsg_type = SCM_TIMESTAMP; and for SO_BINTIME: cmsg_len = sizeof(struct bintime); cmsg_level = SOL_SOCKET; cmsg_type = SCM_BINTIME; Finally, SO_ACCEPTCONN, SO_TYPE and SO_ERROR are options used only with getsockopt(). SO_ACCEPTCONN returns whether the socket is currently ac- cepting connections, that is, whether or not the listen(2) system call was invoked on the socket. SO_TYPE returns the type of the socket, such as SOCK_STREAM; it is useful for servers that inherit sockets on startup. SO_ERROR returns any pending error on the socket and clears the error status. It may be used to check for asynchronous errors on connected datagram sockets or for other asynchronous errors. RETURN VALUES Upon successful completion, the value 0 is returned; otherwise the value -1 is returned and the global variable errno is set to indicate the error. ERRORS The call succeeds unless: [EBADF] The argument s is not a valid descriptor. [ENOTSOCK] The argument s is a file, not a socket. [ENOPROTOOPT] The option is unknown at the level indicated. [EFAULT] The address pointed to by optval is not in a valid part of the process address space. For getsockopt(), this error may also be returned if optlen is not in a valid part of the process address space. [EINVAL] Installing an accept_filter(9) on a non-listening socket was attempted. SEE ALSO ioctl(2), listen(2), recvmsg(2), socket(2), getprotoent(3), sysctl(3), protocols(5), sysctl(8), accept_filter(9), bintime(9) HISTORY The getsockopt() system call appeared in 4.2BSD. BUGS Several of the socket options should be handled at lower levels of the system. BSD March 8, 2007 BSD
NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUES | ERRORS | SEE ALSO | HISTORY | BUGS
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