dwww Home | Manual pages | Find package

UNIX(7)                Miscellaneous Information Manual                UNIX(7)

NAME
       unix - sockets for local interprocess communication

SYNOPSIS
       #include <sys/socket.h>
       #include <sys/un.h>

       unix_socket = socket(AF_UNIX, type, 0);
       error = socketpair(AF_UNIX, type, 0, int *sv);

DESCRIPTION
       The  AF_UNIX (also known as AF_LOCAL) socket family is used to communi-
       cate between processes on the same machine efficiently.  Traditionally,
       UNIX domain sockets can be either unnamed, or  bound  to  a  filesystem
       pathname  (marked as being of type socket).  Linux also supports an ab-
       stract namespace which is independent of the filesystem.

       Valid socket types in the UNIX domain are: SOCK_STREAM, for  a  stream-
       oriented  socket;  SOCK_DGRAM, for a datagram-oriented socket that pre-
       serves message boundaries (as on most UNIX implementations, UNIX domain
       datagram sockets are always reliable and don't reorder datagrams);  and
       (since  Linux 2.6.4) SOCK_SEQPACKET, for a sequenced-packet socket that
       is connection-oriented, preserves message boundaries, and delivers mes-
       sages in the order that they were sent.

       UNIX domain sockets support passing file descriptors or process creden-
       tials to other processes using ancillary data.

   Address format
       A UNIX domain socket address is represented in the following structure:

           struct sockaddr_un {
               sa_family_t sun_family;               /* AF_UNIX */
               char        sun_path[108];            /* Pathname */
           };

       The sun_family field always contains AF_UNIX.  On  Linux,  sun_path  is
       108 bytes in size; see also BUGS, below.

       Various  system calls (for example, bind(2), connect(2), and sendto(2))
       take a sockaddr_un argument as input.  Some other system calls (for ex-
       ample, getsockname(2), getpeername(2), recvfrom(2), and accept(2))  re-
       turn an argument of this type.

       Three types of address are distinguished in the sockaddr_un structure:

       pathname
              a  UNIX domain socket can be bound to a null-terminated filesys-
              tem pathname using bind(2).  When  the  address  of  a  pathname
              socket is returned (by one of the system calls noted above), its
              length is

                  offsetof(struct sockaddr_un, sun_path) + strlen(sun_path) + 1

              and  sun_path contains the null-terminated pathname.  (On Linux,
              the above offsetof() expression equates to  the  same  value  as
              sizeof(sa_family_t),  but  some  other  implementations  include
              other fields before sun_path, so the offsetof() expression  more
              portably describes the size of the address structure.)

              For further details of pathname sockets, see below.

       unnamed
              A  stream  socket  that  has  not been bound to a pathname using
              bind(2) has no name.  Likewise, the two sockets created by sock-
              etpair(2) are unnamed.  When the address of an unnamed socket is
              returned, its length is sizeof(sa_family_t), and sun_path should
              not be inspected.

       abstract
              an abstract socket address is  distinguished  (from  a  pathname
              socket) by the fact that sun_path[0] is a null byte ('\0').  The
              socket's  address  in  this namespace is given by the additional
              bytes in sun_path that are covered by the  specified  length  of
              the  address structure.  (Null bytes in the name have no special
              significance.)  The name has no connection with filesystem path-
              names.  When the address of an abstract socket is returned,  the
              returned  addrlen  is  greater  than  sizeof(sa_family_t) (i.e.,
              greater than 2), and the name of the socket is contained in  the
              first (addrlen - sizeof(sa_family_t)) bytes of sun_path.

   Pathname sockets
       When binding a socket to a pathname, a few rules should be observed for
       maximum portability and ease of coding:

       •  The pathname in sun_path should be null-terminated.

       •  The  length  of  the  pathname, including the terminating null byte,
          should not exceed the size of sun_path.

       •  The addrlen argument that describes the enclosing sockaddr_un struc-
          ture should have a value of at least:

              offsetof(struct sockaddr_un, sun_path)+strlen(addr.sun_path)+1

          or, more simply, addrlen can be  specified  as  sizeof(struct  sock-
          addr_un).

       There  is  some  variation  in  how  implementations handle UNIX domain
       socket addresses that do not follow the above rules.  For example, some
       (but not all) implementations append  a  null  terminator  if  none  is
       present in the supplied sun_path.

       When  coding  portable applications, keep in mind that some implementa-
       tions have sun_path as short as 92 bytes.

       Various system calls (accept(2), recvfrom(2), getsockname(2),  getpeer-
       name(2)) return socket address structures.  When applied to UNIX domain
       sockets,  the value-result addrlen argument supplied to the call should
       be initialized as above.  Upon return, the argument is set to  indicate
       the  actual size of the address structure.  The caller should check the
       value returned in this argument: if the output value exceeds the  input
       value,  then there is no guarantee that a null terminator is present in
       sun_path.  (See BUGS.)

   Pathname socket ownership and permissions
       In the Linux implementation, pathname sockets honor the permissions  of
       the  directory  they  are  in.   Creation  of a new socket fails if the
       process does not have write and search (execute) permission on the  di-
       rectory in which the socket is created.

       On  Linux,  connecting to a stream socket object requires write permis-
       sion on that socket; sending a datagram to a datagram  socket  likewise
       requires  write  permission  on  that  socket.  POSIX does not make any
       statement about the effect of the permissions on a socket file, and  on
       some  systems  (e.g.,  older BSDs), the socket permissions are ignored.
       Portable programs should not rely on this feature for security.

       When creating a new socket, the owner and group of the socket file  are
       set  according to the usual rules.  The socket file has all permissions
       enabled, other than those that are turned off by the process umask(2).

       The owner, group, and permissions of a pathname socket can  be  changed
       (using chown(2) and chmod(2)).

   Abstract sockets
       Socket  permissions  have  no meaning for abstract sockets: the process
       umask(2) has no effect when binding an abstract  socket,  and  changing
       the  ownership  and  permissions  of the object (via fchown(2) and fch-
       mod(2)) has no effect on the accessibility of the socket.

       Abstract sockets automatically disappear when all  open  references  to
       the socket are closed.

       The abstract socket namespace is a nonportable Linux extension.

   Socket options
       For  historical  reasons,  these  socket  options  are specified with a
       SOL_SOCKET type even though they are AF_UNIX specific.  They can be set
       with setsockopt(2) and read with getsockopt(2) by specifying SOL_SOCKET
       as the socket family.

       SO_PASSCRED
              Enabling this socket option causes receipt of the credentials of
              the sending process in an SCM_CREDENTIALS ancillary  message  in
              each  subsequently  received  message.  The returned credentials
              are those specified by the sender using  SCM_CREDENTIALS,  or  a
              default  that  includes the sender's PID, real user ID, and real
              group ID, if the sender did not specify  SCM_CREDENTIALS  ancil-
              lary data.

              When  this  option is set and the socket is not yet connected, a
              unique name in the abstract namespace will be generated automat-
              ically.

              The value given as an argument to setsockopt(2) and returned  as
              the result of getsockopt(2) is an integer boolean flag.

       SO_PASSSEC
              Enables  receiving  of  the  SELinux  security label of the peer
              socket in an ancillary message of type SCM_SECURITY (see below).

              The value given as an argument to setsockopt(2) and returned  as
              the result of getsockopt(2) is an integer boolean flag.

              The  SO_PASSSEC  option  is  supported  for UNIX domain datagram
              sockets since Linux 2.6.18; support for UNIX domain stream sock-
              ets was added in Linux 4.2.

       SO_PEEK_OFF
              See socket(7).

       SO_PEERCRED
              This read-only socket option returns the credentials of the peer
              process connected to this socket.  The returned credentials  are
              those that were in effect at the time of the call to connect(2),
              listen(2), or socketpair(2).

              The argument to getsockopt(2) is a pointer to a ucred structure;
              define  the _GNU_SOURCE feature test macro to obtain the defini-
              tion of that structure from <sys/socket.h>.

              The use of this option is possible only  for  connected  AF_UNIX
              stream  sockets and for AF_UNIX stream and datagram socket pairs
              created using socketpair(2).

       SO_PEERSEC
              This read-only socket option returns the security context of the
              peer socket connected to this socket.  By default, this will  be
              the same as the security context of the process that created the
              peer socket unless overridden by the policy or by a process with
              the required permissions.

              The  argument  to  getsockopt(2) is a pointer to a buffer of the
              specified length in bytes into which the security context string
              will be copied.  If the buffer length is less than the length of
              the security context string, then getsockopt(2) returns -1, sets
              errno to ERANGE, and returns the  required  length  via  optlen.
              The  caller  should  allocate  at  least  NAME_MAX bytes for the
              buffer initially, although this is not guaranteed to  be  suffi-
              cient.   Resizing the buffer to the returned length and retrying
              may be necessary.

              The security context string may include a terminating null char-
              acter in the returned length, but is not guaranteed to do so:  a
              security   context   "foo"   might   be  represented  as  either
              {'f','o','o'} of length 3 or  {'f','o','o','\0'}  of  length  4,
              which  are  considered  to  be  interchangeable.   The string is
              printable, does not contain non-terminating null characters, and
              is in an unspecified encoding (in particular, it is not  guaran-
              teed to be ASCII or UTF-8).

              The use of this option for sockets in the AF_UNIX address family
              is supported since Linux 2.6.2 for connected stream sockets, and
              since  Linux 4.18 also for stream and datagram socket pairs cre-
              ated using socketpair(2).

   Autobind feature
       If a bind(2) call specifies  addrlen  as  sizeof(sa_family_t),  or  the
       SO_PASSCRED  socket  option was specified for a socket that was not ex-
       plicitly bound to an address, then the socket is autobound  to  an  ab-
       stract  address.   The  address  consists  of a null byte followed by 5
       bytes in the character set [0-9a-f].  Thus, there is a  limit  of  2^20
       autobind  addresses.  (From Linux 2.1.15, when the autobind feature was
       added, 8 bytes were used, and the limit  was  thus  2^32  autobind  ad-
       dresses.  The change to 5 bytes came in Linux 2.3.15.)

   Sockets API
       The  following  paragraphs  describe domain-specific details and unsup-
       ported features of the sockets API for UNIX domain sockets on Linux.

       UNIX domain sockets do not support the transmission of out-of-band data
       (the MSG_OOB flag for send(2) and recv(2)).

       The send(2) MSG_MORE flag is not supported by UNIX domain sockets.

       Before Linux 3.4, the use of MSG_TRUNC in the flags argument of recv(2)
       was not supported by UNIX domain sockets.

       The SO_SNDBUF socket option does have an effect for UNIX  domain  sock-
       ets,  but  the  SO_RCVBUF  option  does not.  For datagram sockets, the
       SO_SNDBUF value imposes an upper limit on the size  of  outgoing  data-
       grams.   This limit is calculated as the doubled (see socket(7)) option
       value less 32 bytes used for overhead.

   Ancillary messages
       Ancillary data is sent and received using  sendmsg(2)  and  recvmsg(2).
       For  historical  reasons,  the ancillary message types listed below are
       specified with a SOL_SOCKET type even though they are AF_UNIX specific.
       To send them, set  the  cmsg_level  field  of  the  struct  cmsghdr  to
       SOL_SOCKET  and the cmsg_type field to the type.  For more information,
       see cmsg(3).

       SCM_RIGHTS
              Send or receive a set of  open  file  descriptors  from  another
              process.  The data portion contains an integer array of the file
              descriptors.

              Commonly,  this  operation is referred to as "passing a file de-
              scriptor" to another process.  However, more accurately, what is
              being passed is a reference to an  open  file  description  (see
              open(2)),  and in the receiving process it is likely that a dif-
              ferent file descriptor number will be used.  Semantically,  this
              operation  is equivalent to duplicating (dup(2)) a file descrip-
              tor into the file descriptor table of another process.

              If the buffer used to receive the ancillary data containing file
              descriptors is too small (or is absent), then the ancillary data
              is truncated (or discarded) and the excess file descriptors  are
              automatically closed in the receiving process.

              If the number of file descriptors received in the ancillary data
              would  cause  the  process  to exceed its RLIMIT_NOFILE resource
              limit (see getrlimit(2)), the excess file descriptors are  auto-
              matically closed in the receiving process.

              The  kernel constant SCM_MAX_FD defines a limit on the number of
              file descriptors in the array.   Attempting  to  send  an  array
              larger  than this limit causes sendmsg(2) to fail with the error
              EINVAL.  SCM_MAX_FD has the  value  253  (or  255  before  Linux
              2.6.38).

       SCM_CREDENTIALS
              Send  or receive UNIX credentials.  This can be used for authen-
              tication.  The credentials are passed as a struct  ucred  ancil-
              lary  message.   This  structure is defined in <sys/socket.h> as
              follows:

                  struct ucred {
                      pid_t pid;    /* Process ID of the sending process */
                      uid_t uid;    /* User ID of the sending process */
                      gid_t gid;    /* Group ID of the sending process */
                  };

              Since glibc 2.8, the _GNU_SOURCE feature test macro must be  de-
              fined (before including any header files) in order to obtain the
              definition of this structure.

              The  credentials  which  the sender specifies are checked by the
              kernel.  A privileged process is allowed to specify values  that
              do  not  match its own.  The sender must specify its own process
              ID (unless it has the capability CAP_SYS_ADMIN,  in  which  case
              the PID of any existing process may be specified), its real user
              ID,  effective  user  ID,  or  saved  set-user-ID (unless it has
              CAP_SETUID), and its real group ID, effective group ID, or saved
              set-group-ID (unless it has CAP_SETGID).

              To receive a struct ucred message, the SO_PASSCRED  option  must
              be enabled on the socket.

       SCM_SECURITY
              Receive the SELinux security context (the security label) of the
              peer  socket.   The received ancillary data is a null-terminated
              string containing the security context.  The receiver should al-
              locate at least NAME_MAX bytes in the data portion of the ancil-
              lary message for this data.

              To receive the security context, the SO_PASSSEC option  must  be
              enabled on the socket (see above).

       When  sending  ancillary data with sendmsg(2), only one item of each of
       the above types may be included in the sent message.

       At least one byte of real data should be sent  when  sending  ancillary
       data.   On  Linux, this is required to successfully send ancillary data
       over a UNIX domain stream socket.  When sending ancillary data  over  a
       UNIX  domain  datagram socket, it is not necessary on Linux to send any
       accompanying real data.  However, portable applications should also in-
       clude at least one byte of real data when sending ancillary data over a
       datagram socket.

       When receiving from a stream socket, ancillary data  forms  a  kind  of
       barrier  for  the  received data.  For example, suppose that the sender
       transmits as follows:

              (1)  sendmsg(2) of four bytes, with no ancillary data.
              (2)  sendmsg(2) of one byte, with ancillary data.
              (3)  sendmsg(2) of four bytes, with no ancillary data.

       Suppose that the receiver now performs recvmsg(2)  calls  each  with  a
       buffer  size  of  20  bytes.  The first call will receive five bytes of
       data, along with the ancillary data sent by the second sendmsg(2) call.
       The next call will receive the remaining four bytes of data.

       If the space allocated for receiving incoming  ancillary  data  is  too
       small  then  the  ancillary  data is truncated to the number of headers
       that will fit in the supplied buffer (or, in the case of an  SCM_RIGHTS
       file  descriptor  list, the list of file descriptors may be truncated).
       If no buffer  is  provided  for  incoming  ancillary  data  (i.e.,  the
       msg_control  field  of  the  msghdr structure supplied to recvmsg(2) is
       NULL), then the incoming ancillary data is discarded.  In both of these
       cases, the MSG_CTRUNC flag will be set in the msg.msg_flags  value  re-
       turned by recvmsg(2).

   Ioctls
       The  following ioctl(2) calls return information in value.  The correct
       syntax is:

              int value;
              error = ioctl(unix_socket, ioctl_type, &value);

       ioctl_type can be:

       SIOCINQ
              For SOCK_STREAM sockets, this call returns the number of  unread
              bytes  in  the receive buffer.  The socket must not be in LISTEN
              state, otherwise an error (EINVAL) is returned.  SIOCINQ is  de-
              fined in <linux/sockios.h>.  Alternatively, you can use the syn-
              onymous  FIONREAD,  defined  in  <sys/ioctl.h>.   For SOCK_DGRAM
              sockets, the returned value is the same as for  Internet  domain
              datagram sockets; see udp(7).

ERRORS
       EADDRINUSE
              The  specified local address is already in use or the filesystem
              socket object already exists.

       EBADF  This error can occur for sendmsg(2) when sending a file descrip-
              tor as ancillary data over a UNIX domain  socket  (see  the  de-
              scription of SCM_RIGHTS, above), and indicates that the file de-
              scriptor number that is being sent is not valid (e.g., it is not
              an open file descriptor).

       ECONNREFUSED
              The  remote  address specified by connect(2) was not a listening
              socket.  This error can also occur if the target pathname is not
              a socket.

       ECONNRESET
              Remote socket was unexpectedly closed.

       EFAULT User memory address was not valid.

       EINVAL Invalid argument passed.  A  common  cause  is  that  the  value
              AF_UNIX  was  not  specified in the sun_type field of passed ad-
              dresses, or the socket was in an invalid state for  the  applied
              operation.

       EISCONN
              connect(2) called on an already connected socket or a target ad-
              dress was specified on a connected socket.

       ENFILE The system-wide limit on the total number of open files has been
              reached.

       ENOENT The  pathname  in the remote address specified to connect(2) did
              not exist.

       ENOMEM Out of memory.

       ENOTCONN
              Socket operation needs a target address, but the socket  is  not
              connected.

       EOPNOTSUPP
              Stream  operation  called on non-stream oriented socket or tried
              to use the out-of-band data option.

       EPERM  The sender passed invalid credentials in the struct ucred.

       EPIPE  Remote socket was closed on a stream socket.  If enabled, a SIG-
              PIPE is sent as well.   This  can  be  avoided  by  passing  the
              MSG_NOSIGNAL flag to send(2) or sendmsg(2).

       EPROTONOSUPPORT
              Passed protocol is not AF_UNIX.

       EPROTOTYPE
              Remote  socket  does not match the local socket type (SOCK_DGRAM
              versus SOCK_STREAM).

       ESOCKTNOSUPPORT
              Unknown socket type.

       ESRCH  While  sending  an  ancillary  message  containing   credentials
              (SCM_CREDENTIALS),  the  caller  specified  a  PID that does not
              match any existing process.

       ETOOMANYREFS
              This error can occur for sendmsg(2) when sending a file descrip-
              tor as ancillary data over a UNIX domain  socket  (see  the  de-
              scription  of  SCM_RIGHTS,  above).   It occurs if the number of
              "in-flight" file descriptors exceeds the RLIMIT_NOFILE  resource
              limit and the caller does not have the CAP_SYS_RESOURCE capabil-
              ity.  An in-flight file descriptor is one that has been sent us-
              ing  sendmsg(2)  but  has not yet been accepted in the recipient
              process using recvmsg(2).

              This error is diagnosed since mainline Linux 4.5  (and  in  some
              earlier  kernel versions where the fix has been backported).  In
              earlier kernel versions, it was possible to place  an  unlimited
              number  of  file descriptors in flight, by sending each file de-
              scriptor with sendmsg(2) and then closing the file descriptor so
              that it was not accounted  against  the  RLIMIT_NOFILE  resource
              limit.

       Other  errors  can  be  generated by the generic socket layer or by the
       filesystem while generating a filesystem socket object.  See the appro-
       priate manual pages for more information.

VERSIONS
       SCM_CREDENTIALS and the abstract namespace were introduced  with  Linux
       2.2  and  should  not  be used in portable programs.  (Some BSD-derived
       systems also support credential passing, but the implementation details
       differ.)

NOTES
       Binding to a socket with a filename creates a socket in the  filesystem
       that  must  be deleted by the caller when it is no longer needed (using
       unlink(2)).  The usual UNIX close-behind semantics  apply;  the  socket
       can  be  unlinked  at  any  time  and  will be finally removed from the
       filesystem when the last reference to it is closed.

       To pass file descriptors or credentials over a SOCK_STREAM socket,  you
       must send or receive at least one byte of nonancillary data in the same
       sendmsg(2) or recvmsg(2) call.

       UNIX  domain  stream  sockets  do not support the notion of out-of-band
       data.

BUGS
       When binding a socket to an address, Linux is one  of  the  implementa-
       tions  that  append  a null terminator if none is supplied in sun_path.
       In most cases this is unproblematic: when the  socket  address  is  re-
       trieved,  it will be one byte longer than that supplied when the socket
       was bound.  However, there is one case where confusing behavior can re-
       sult: if 108 non-null bytes are supplied when a socket is  bound,  then
       the  addition  of  the null terminator takes the length of the pathname
       beyond sizeof(sun_path).  Consequently, when retrieving the socket  ad-
       dress  (for  example, via accept(2)), if the input addrlen argument for
       the retrieving call is specified as  sizeof(struct  sockaddr_un),  then
       the  returned  address  structure  won't  have  a  null  terminator  in
       sun_path.

       In addition, some implementations don't require a null terminator  when
       binding  a socket (the addrlen argument is used to determine the length
       of sun_path) and when the socket address is retrieved on  these  imple-
       mentations, there is no null terminator in sun_path.

       Applications that retrieve socket addresses can (portably) code to han-
       dle the possibility that there is no null terminator in sun_path by re-
       specting the fact that the number of valid bytes in the pathname is:

           strnlen(addr.sun_path, addrlen - offsetof(sockaddr_un, sun_path))

       Alternatively,  an application can retrieve the socket address by allo-
       cating a buffer of size sizeof(struct sockaddr_un)+1 that is zeroed out
       before the retrieval.  The  retrieving  call  can  specify  addrlen  as
       sizeof(struct  sockaddr_un), and the extra zero byte ensures that there
       will be a null terminator for the string returned in sun_path:

           void *addrp;

           addrlen = sizeof(struct sockaddr_un);
           addrp = malloc(addrlen + 1);
           if (addrp == NULL)
               /* Handle error */ ;
           memset(addrp, 0, addrlen + 1);

           if (getsockname(sfd, (struct sockaddr *) addrp, &addrlen)) == -1)
               /* handle error */ ;

           printf("sun_path = %s\n", ((struct sockaddr_un *) addrp)->sun_path);

       This sort of messiness can be avoided if it is guaranteed that the  ap-
       plications that create pathname sockets follow the rules outlined above
       under Pathname sockets.

EXAMPLES
       The following code demonstrates the use of sequenced-packet sockets for
       local  interprocess  communication.   It consists of two programs.  The
       server program waits for a connection from  the  client  program.   The
       client  sends  each of its command-line arguments in separate messages.
       The server treats the incoming messages as integers and adds  them  up.
       The  client  sends  the  command string "END".  The server sends back a
       message containing the sum of the client's integers.  The client prints
       the sum and exits.  The server waits for the next  client  to  connect.
       To stop the server, the client is called with the command-line argument
       "DOWN".

       The following output was recorded while running the server in the back-
       ground  and  repeatedly  executing the client.  Execution of the server
       program ends when it receives the "DOWN" command.

   Example output
           $ ./server &
           [1] 25887
           $ ./client 3 4
           Result = 7
           $ ./client 11 -5
           Result = 6
           $ ./client DOWN
           Result = 0
           [1]+  Done                    ./server
           $

   Program source

       /*
        * File connection.h
        */

       #define SOCKET_NAME "/tmp/9Lq7BNBnBycd6nxy.socket"
       #define BUFFER_SIZE 12

       /*
        * File server.c
        */

       #include <stdio.h>
       #include <stdlib.h>
       #include <string.h>
       #include <sys/socket.h>
       #include <sys/un.h>
       #include <unistd.h>

       #include "connection.h"

       int
       main(void)
       {
           int                 down_flag = 0;
           int                 ret;
           int                 connection_socket;
           int                 data_socket;
           int                 result;
           ssize_t             r, w;
           struct sockaddr_un  name;
           char                buffer[BUFFER_SIZE];

           /* Create local socket. */

           connection_socket = socket(AF_UNIX, SOCK_SEQPACKET, 0);
           if (connection_socket == -1) {
               perror("socket");
               exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
           }

           /*
            * For portability clear the whole structure, since some
            * implementations have additional (nonstandard) fields in
            * the structure.
            */

           memset(&name, 0, sizeof(name));

           /* Bind socket to socket name. */

           name.sun_family = AF_UNIX;
           strncpy(name.sun_path, SOCKET_NAME, sizeof(name.sun_path) - 1);

           ret = bind(connection_socket, (const struct sockaddr *) &name,
                      sizeof(name));
           if (ret == -1) {
               perror("bind");
               exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
           }

           /*
            * Prepare for accepting connections. The backlog size is set
            * to 20. So while one request is being processed other requests
            * can be waiting.
            */

           ret = listen(connection_socket, 20);
           if (ret == -1) {
               perror("listen");
               exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
           }

           /* This is the main loop for handling connections. */

           for (;;) {

               /* Wait for incoming connection. */

               data_socket = accept(connection_socket, NULL, NULL);
               if (data_socket == -1) {
                   perror("accept");
                   exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
               }

               result = 0;
               for (;;) {

                   /* Wait for next data packet. */

                   r = read(data_socket, buffer, sizeof(buffer));
                   if (r == -1) {
                       perror("read");
                       exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
                   }

                   /* Ensure buffer is 0-terminated. */

                   buffer[sizeof(buffer) - 1] = 0;

                   /* Handle commands. */

                   if (!strncmp(buffer, "DOWN", sizeof(buffer))) {
                       down_flag = 1;
                       continue;
                   }

                   if (!strncmp(buffer, "END", sizeof(buffer))) {
                       break;
                   }

                   if (down_flag) {
                       continue;
                   }

                   /* Add received summand. */

                   result += atoi(buffer);
               }

               /* Send result. */

               sprintf(buffer, "%d", result);
               w = write(data_socket, buffer, sizeof(buffer));
               if (w == -1) {
                   perror("write");
                   exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
               }

               /* Close socket. */

               close(data_socket);

               /* Quit on DOWN command. */

               if (down_flag) {
                   break;
               }
           }

           close(connection_socket);

           /* Unlink the socket. */

           unlink(SOCKET_NAME);

           exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
       }

       /*
        * File client.c
        */

       #include <stdio.h>
       #include <stdlib.h>
       #include <string.h>
       #include <sys/socket.h>
       #include <sys/un.h>
       #include <unistd.h>

       #include "connection.h"

       int
       main(int argc, char *argv[])
       {
           int                 ret;
           int                 data_socket;
           ssize_t             r, w;
           struct sockaddr_un  addr;
           char                buffer[BUFFER_SIZE];

           /* Create local socket. */

           data_socket = socket(AF_UNIX, SOCK_SEQPACKET, 0);
           if (data_socket == -1) {
               perror("socket");
               exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
           }

           /*
            * For portability clear the whole structure, since some
            * implementations have additional (nonstandard) fields in
            * the structure.
            */

           memset(&addr, 0, sizeof(addr));

           /* Connect socket to socket address. */

           addr.sun_family = AF_UNIX;
           strncpy(addr.sun_path, SOCKET_NAME, sizeof(addr.sun_path) - 1);

           ret = connect(data_socket, (const struct sockaddr *) &addr,
                          sizeof(addr));
           if (ret == -1) {
               fprintf(stderr, "The server is down.\n");
               exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
           }

           /* Send arguments. */

           for (int i = 1; i < argc; ++i) {
               w = write(data_socket, argv[i], strlen(argv[i]) + 1);
               if (w == -1) {
                   perror("write");
                   break;
               }
           }

           /* Request result. */

           strcpy(buffer, "END");
           w = write(data_socket, buffer, strlen(buffer) + 1);
           if (w == -1) {
               perror("write");
               exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
           }

           /* Receive result. */

           r = read(data_socket, buffer, sizeof(buffer));
           if (r == -1) {
               perror("read");
               exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
           }

           /* Ensure buffer is 0-terminated. */

           buffer[sizeof(buffer) - 1] = 0;

           printf("Result = %s\n", buffer);

           /* Close socket. */

           close(data_socket);

           exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
       }

       For examples of the use of SCM_RIGHTS,  see  cmsg(3)  and  seccomp_uno-
       tify(2).

SEE ALSO
       recvmsg(2),  sendmsg(2),  socket(2),  socketpair(2), cmsg(3), capabili-
       ties(7), credentials(7), socket(7), udp(7)

Linux man-pages 6.7               2024-03-16                           UNIX(7)

Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Tue Dec 16 06:16:40 CET 2025.