.\" $NetBSD: tcp.4,v 1.3 1994/11/30 16:22:35 jtc Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 1983, 1991, 1993 .\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. .\" .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions .\" are met: .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. .\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software .\" must display the following acknowledgement: .\" This product includes software developed by the University of .\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. .\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software .\" without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" @(#)tcp.4 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93 .\" .Dd June 5, 1993 .Dt TCP 4 .Os BSD 4.2 .Sh NAME .Nm tcp .Nd Internet Transmission Control Protocol .Sh SYNOPSIS .Fd #include <sys/socket.h> .Fd #include <netinet/in.h> .Ft int .Fn socket AF_INET SOCK_STREAM 0 .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Tn TCP protocol provides reliable, flow-controlled, two-way transmission of data. It is a byte-stream protocol used to support the .Dv SOCK_STREAM abstraction. TCP uses the standard Internet address format and, in addition, provides a per-host collection of .Dq port addresses . Thus, each address is composed of an Internet address specifying the host and network, with a specific .Tn TCP port on the host identifying the peer entity. .Pp Sockets utilizing the tcp protocol are either .Dq active or .Dq passive . Active sockets initiate connections to passive sockets. By default .Tn TCP sockets are created active; to create a passive socket the .Xr listen 2 system call must be used after binding the socket with the .Xr bind 2 system call. Only passive sockets may use the .Xr accept 2 call to accept incoming connections. Only active sockets may use the .Xr connect 2 call to initiate connections. .Pp Passive sockets may .Dq underspecify their location to match incoming connection requests from multiple networks. This technique, termed .Dq 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 .Dv INADDR_ANY must be bound. The .Tn 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 socket's address is fixed by the peer entity's location. The address assigned 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. .Pp .Tn TCP supports one socket option which is set with .Xr setsockopt 2 and tested with .Xr getsockopt 2 . Under most circumstances, .Tn TCP sends data when it is presented; when outstanding 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, .Tn TCP provides a boolean option, .Dv TCP_NODELAY (from .Aq Pa netinet/tcp.h , to defeat this algorithm. The option level for the .Xr setsockopt call is the protocol number for .Tn TCP , available from .Xr getprotobyname 3 . .Pp Options at the .Tn IP transport level may be used with .Tn TCP ; see .Xr ip 4 . Incoming connection requests that are source-routed are noted, and the reverse source route is used in responding. .Sh DIAGNOSTICS A socket operation may fail with one of the following errors returned: .Bl -tag -width [EADDRNOTAVAIL] .It Bq Er EISCONN when trying to establish a connection on a socket which already has one; .It Bq Er ENOBUFS when the system runs out of memory for an internal data structure; .It Bq Er ETIMEDOUT when a connection was dropped due to excessive retransmissions; .It Bq Er ECONNRESET when the remote peer forces the connection to be closed; .It Bq Er ECONNREFUSED when the remote peer actively refuses connection establishment (usually because no process is listening to the port); .It Bq Er EADDRINUSE when an attempt is made to create a socket with a port which has already been allocated; .It Bq Er EADDRNOTAVAIL when an attempt is made to create a socket with a network address for which no network interface exists. .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr getsockopt 2 , .Xr socket 2 , .Xr intro 4 , .Xr inet 4 , .Xr ip 4 .Sh HISTORY The .Nm protocol stack appeared in .Bx 4.2 .