When a socket is created with
socket(2),
it exists in a name space (address family) but has no address assigned to it.
bind()
assigns the address specified to by
addr
to the socket referred to by the file descriptor
sockfd.
addrlen
specifies the size, in bytes, of the address structure pointed to by
addr.
Traditionally, this operation is called lqassigning a name to a socketrq.
It is normally necessary to assign a local address using
bind()
before a
SOCK_STREAM
socket may receive connections (see
accept(2)).
The rules used in name binding vary between address families.
Consult the manual entries in Section 7 for detailed information.
For
AF_INET
see
ip(7),
for
AF_INET6
see
ipv6(7),
for
AF_UNIX
see
unix(7),
for
AF_APPLETALK
see
ddp(7),
for
AF_PACKET
see
packet(7),
for
AF_X25
see
x25(7)
and for
AF_NETLINK
see
netlink(7).
The actual structure passed for the
addr
argument will depend on the address family.
The
sockaddr
structure is defined as something like:
The only purpose of this structure is to cast the structure
pointer passed in
addr
in order to avoid compiler warnings.
See EXAMPLE below.
RETURN VALUE
On success, zero is returned.
On error, -1 is returned, and
errno
is set appropriately.
ERRORS
EACCES
The address is protected, and the user is not the superuser.
EADDRINUSE
The given address is already in use.
EBADF
sockfd
is not a valid descriptor.
EINVAL
The socket is already bound to an address.
ENOTSOCK
sockfd
is a descriptor for a file, not a socket.
The following errors are specific to Unix domain
(AF_UNIX)
sockets:
EACCES
Search permission is denied on a component of the path prefix.
(See also
path_resolution(7).)
EADDRNOTAVAIL
A nonexistent interface was requested or the requested
address was not local.
EFAULT
addr
points outside the user's accessible address space.
EINVAL
The
addrlen
is wrong, or the socket was not in the
AF_UNIX
family.
ELOOP
Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving
addr.
ENAMETOOLONG
addr
is too long.
ENOENT
The file does not exist.
ENOMEM
Insufficient kernel memory was available.
ENOTDIR
A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
EROFS
The socket inode would reside on a read-only file system.
CONFORMING TO
SVr4, 4.4BSD, POSIX.1-2001
(bind()
first appeared in 4.2BSD).
NOTES
POSIX.1-2001 does not require the inclusion of
<sys/types.h>,
and this header file is not required on Linux.
However, some historical (BSD) implementations required this header
file, and portable applications are probably wise to include it.
The third argument of
bind()
is in reality an
int
(and this is what 4.x BSD and libc4 and libc5 have).
Some POSIX confusion resulted in the present
socklen_t,
also used by glibc.
See also
accept(2).
BUGS
The transparent proxy options are not described.
EXAMPLE
An example of the use of
bind()
with Internet domain sockets can be found in
getaddrinfo(3).
The following example shows how to bind a stream socket in the Unix
(AF_UNIX)
domain, and accept connections:
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <sys/un.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#define MY_SOCK_PATH "/somepath"
#define LISTEN_BACKLOG 50
#define handle_error(msg) \
do { perror(msg); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } while (0)
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
int sfd, cfd;
struct sockaddr_un my_addr, peer_addr;
socklen_t peer_addr_size;
sfd = socket(AF_UNIX, SOCK_STREAM, 0);
if (sfd == -1)
handle_error("socket");
memset(&my_addr, 0, sizeof(struct sockaddr_un));
/* Clear structure */
my_addr.sun_family = AF_UNIX;
strncpy(my_addr.sun_path, MY_SOCK_PATH,
sizeof(my_addr.sun_path) - 1);
if (bind(sfd, (struct sockaddr *) &my_addr,
sizeof(struct sockaddr_un)) == -1)
handle_error("bind");
if (listen(sfd, LISTEN_BACKLOG) == -1)
handle_error("listen");
/* Now we can accept incoming connections one
at a time using accept(2) */
peer_addr_size = sizeof(struct sockaddr_un);
cfd = accept(sfd, (struct sockaddr *) &peer_addr,
&peer_addr_size);
if (cfd == -1)
handle_error("accept");
/* Code to deal with incoming connection(s)... */
/* When no longer required, the socket pathname, MY_SOCK_PATH
should be deleted using unlink(2) or remove(3) */
}
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A description of the project,
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