TCP(4) OpenBSD Programmer's Manual TCP(4)
NAME
tcp - Internet Transmission Control Protocol
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
int
socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);
int
socket(AF_INET6, SOCK_STREAM, 0);
DESCRIPTION
The TCP protocol provides a reliable, flow-controlled, two-way transmis-
sion of data. It is a byte-stream protocol used to support the
SOCK_STREAM abstraction. TCP uses the standard Internet address format
and, in addition, provides a per-host collection of ``port addresses''.
Thus, each address is composed of an Internet address specifying the host
and network, with a specific TCP port on the host identifying the peer
entity.
Sockets utilizing the TCP protocol are either ``active'' or ``passive''.
Active sockets initiate connections to passive sockets. By default TCP
sockets are created active; to create a passive socket the listen(2) sys-
tem call must be used after binding the socket with the bind(2) system
call. Only passive sockets may use the accept(2) call to accept incoming
connections. Only active sockets may use the connect(2) call to initiate
connections.
Passive sockets may ``underspecify'' their location to match incoming
connection requests from multiple networks. This technique, termed
``wildcard addressing'', allows a single server to provide service to
clients on multiple networks. To create a socket which listens on all
networks, the Internet address INADDR_ANY must be bound. The TCP port
may still be specified at this time; if the port is not specified the
system will assign one. Once a connection has been established the sock-
et's address is fixed by the peer entity's location. The address as-
signed to the socket is the address associated with the network interface
through which packets are being transmitted and received. Normally this
address corresponds to the peer entity's network.
TCP supports several socket options which are set with setsockopt(2) and
tested with getsockopt(2).
TCP_NODELAY
Under most circumstances, TCP sends data when it is presented; when out-
standing data has not yet been acknowledged, it gathers small amounts of
output to be sent in a single packet once an acknowledgement is 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. Therefore, TCP provides a boolean option,
TCP_NODELAY (from <netinet/tcp.h>), to defeat this algorithm.
TCP_MAXSEG
Set the maximum segment size for this connection. The maximum segment
size can only be lowered.
TCP_SACK_ENABLE
Use selective acknowledgements for this connection. See options(4).
TCP_MD5SIG
Use TCP MD5 signatures per RFC 2385. This requires Security Associations
to be set up, which can be done using ipsecadm(8). When a listening
socket has TCP_MD5SIG set, it accepts connections with MD5 signatures on-
ly from sources for which a Security Association is set up. Connections
without MD5 signatures are only accepted from sources for which no
Security Association is set up. The connected socket only has TCP_MD5SIG
set if the connection is protected with MD5 signatures.
The option level for the setsockopt(2) call is the protocol number for
TCP, available from getprotobyname(3).
Options at the IP transport level may be used with TCP; see ip(4) or
ip6(4). Incoming connection requests that are source-routed are noted,
and the reverse source route is used in responding.
DIAGNOSTICS
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;
[ENOBUFS] when the system runs out of memory for an internal data
structure;
[ETIMEDOUT] when a connection was dropped due to excessive retrans-
missions;
[ECONNRESET] when the remote peer forces the connection to be closed;
[ECONNREFUSED] when the remote peer actively refuses connection estab-
lishment (usually because no process is listening to the
port);
[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 net-
work address for which no network interface exists.
SEE ALSO
getsockopt(2), socket(2), inet(4), inet6(4), ip(4), ip6(4), netintro(4),
ipsecadm(8)
HISTORY
The tcp protocol stack appeared in 4.2BSD.
OpenBSD 3.6 June 5, 1993 2