(libc.info.gz) Sockets

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 16 Sockets
 **********
 
 This chapter describes the GNU facilities for interprocess communication
 using sockets.
 
    A "socket" is a generalized interprocess communication channel.  Like
 a pipe, a socket is represented as a file descriptor.  Unlike pipes
 sockets support communication between unrelated processes, and even
 between processes running on different machines that communicate over a
 network.  Sockets are the primary means of communicating with other
 machines; 'telnet', 'rlogin', 'ftp', 'talk' and the other familiar
 network programs use sockets.
 
    Not all operating systems support sockets.  In the GNU C Library, the
 header file 'sys/socket.h' exists regardless of the operating system,
 and the socket functions always exist, but if the system does not really
 support sockets these functions always fail.
 
    *Incomplete:* We do not currently document the facilities for
 broadcast messages or for configuring Internet interfaces.  The
 reentrant functions and some newer functions that are related to IPv6
 aren't documented either so far.
 

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* Socket Concepts     Basic concepts you need to know about.
* Communication StylesStream communication, datagrams and other styles.
* Socket Addresses    How socket names ("addresses") work.
* Interface Naming    Identifying specific network interfaces.
* Local Namespace     Details about the local namespace.
* Internet Namespace  Details about the Internet namespace.
* Misc Namespaces     Other namespaces not documented fully here.
* Open/Close Sockets  Creating sockets and destroying them.
* Connections         Operations on sockets with connection state.
* Datagrams           Operations on datagram sockets.
* Inetd               Inetd is a daemon that starts servers on request.
 			   The most convenient way to write a server
 			   is to make it work with Inetd.
* Socket Options      Miscellaneous low-level socket options.
* Networks Database   Accessing the database of network names.
 
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