xref: /dragonfly/lib/libc/sys/intro.2 (revision 97fa55c4)
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28.\"     @(#)intro.2	8.5 (Berkeley) 2/27/95
29.\" $FreeBSD: src/lib/libc/sys/intro.2,v 1.48 2007/01/09 00:28:14 imp Exp $
30.\"
31.Dd May 16, 2018
32.Dt INTRO 2
33.Os
34.Sh NAME
35.Nm intro
36.Nd introduction to system calls and error numbers
37.Sh LIBRARY
38.Lb libc
39.Sh SYNOPSIS
40.In errno.h
41.Sh DESCRIPTION
42This section provides an overview of the system calls,
43their error returns, and other common definitions and concepts.
44.\".Pp
45.\".Sy System call restart
46.\".Pp
47.\"(more later...)
48.Sh RETURN VALUES
49Nearly all of the system calls provide an error number referenced via
50the external identifier
51.Va errno .
52This identifier is defined in
53.In errno.h
54as
55.Pp
56.Dl extern __thread int      errno;
57.Dl static __inline int    * __error(void);
58.Dl #define   errno       (* __error())
59.Pp
60This means there exists a thread-local
61.Va errno
62variable, though it is shadowed by the inline
63.Fn __error
64function to allow compilation of source code which
65erroneously itself declares
66.Va errno
67as
68.Vt extern int errno;
69which collides with the thread-local declaration.
70The
71.Fn __error
72function returns a pointer the thread specific
73.Va errno
74variable.
75As it is defined
76.Vt inline ,
77it will compile to a no-op, effectively producing
78the same code as if the define wouldn't exist.
79.Pp
80When a system call detects an error,
81it returns an integer value
82indicating failure (usually -1)
83and sets the variable
84.Va errno
85accordingly.
86(This allows interpretation of the failure on receiving
87a -1 and to take action accordingly.)
88Successful calls never set
89.Va errno ;
90once set, it remains until another error occurs.
91It should only be examined after an error.
92Note that a number of system calls overload the meanings of these
93error numbers, and that the meanings must be interpreted according
94to the type and circumstances of the call.
95.Pp
96The following is a complete list of the errors and their
97names as given in
98.In sys/errno.h .
99.Bl -hang -width Ds
100.It Er 0 Em "Undefined error: 0" .
101Not used.
102.It Er 1 EPERM Em "Operation not permitted" .
103An attempt was made to perform an operation limited to processes
104with appropriate privileges or to the owner of a file or other
105resources.
106.It Er 2 ENOENT Em "No such file or directory" .
107A component of a specified pathname did not exist, or the
108pathname was an empty string.
109.It Er 3 ESRCH Em "No such process" .
110No process could be found corresponding to that specified by the given
111process ID.
112.It Er 4 EINTR Em "Interrupted system call" .
113An asynchronous signal (such as
114.Dv SIGINT
115or
116.Dv SIGQUIT )
117was caught by the process during the execution of an interruptible
118function.
119If the signal handler performs a normal return, the
120interrupted system call will seem to have returned the error condition.
121.It Er 5 EIO Em "Input/output error" .
122Some physical input or output error occurred.
123This error will not be reported until a subsequent operation on the same file
124descriptor and may be lost (over written) by any subsequent errors.
125.It Er 6 ENXIO Em "Device not configured" .
126Input or output on a special file referred to a device that did not
127exist, or
128made a request beyond the limits of the device.
129This error may also occur when, for example,
130a tape drive is not online or no disk pack is
131loaded on a drive.
132.It Er 7 E2BIG Em "Argument list too long" .
133The number of bytes used for the argument and environment
134list of the new process exceeded the current limit
135.Dv ( NCARGS
136in
137.In sys/param.h ) .
138.It Er 8 ENOEXEC Em "Exec format error" .
139A request was made to execute a file
140that, although it has the appropriate permissions,
141was not in the format required for an
142executable file.
143.It Er 9 EBADF Em "Bad file descriptor" .
144A file descriptor argument was out of range, referred to no open file,
145or a read (write) request was made to a file that was only open for
146writing (reading).
147.It Er 10 ECHILD Em "\&No child processes" .
148A
149.Xr wait 2
150or
151.Xr waitpid 2
152function was executed by a process that had no existing or unwaited-for
153child processes.
154.It Er 11 EDEADLK Em "Resource deadlock avoided" .
155An attempt was made to lock a system resource that
156would have resulted in a deadlock situation.
157.It Er 12 ENOMEM Em "Cannot allocate memory" .
158The new process image required more memory than was allowed by the hardware
159or by system-imposed memory management constraints.
160A lack of swap space is normally temporary; however,
161a lack of core is not.
162Soft limits may be increased to their corresponding hard limits.
163.It Er 13 EACCES Em "Permission denied" .
164An attempt was made to access a file in a way forbidden
165by its file access permissions.
166.It Er 14 EFAULT Em "Bad address" .
167The system detected an invalid address in attempting to
168use an argument of a call.
169.It Er 15 ENOTBLK Em "Block device required" .
170A block device operation was attempted on a non-block device or file.
171.It Er 16 EBUSY Em "Device busy" .
172An attempt to use a system resource which was in use at the time
173in a manner which would have conflicted with the request.
174.It Er 17 EEXIST Em "File exists" .
175An existing file was mentioned in an inappropriate context,
176for instance, as the new link name in a
177.Xr link 2
178system call.
179.It Er 18 EXDEV Em "Cross-device link" .
180A hard link to a file on another file system
181was attempted.
182.It Er 19 ENODEV Em "Operation not supported by device" .
183An attempt was made to apply an inappropriate
184function to a device,
185for example,
186trying to read a write-only device such as a printer.
187.It Er 20 ENOTDIR Em "Not a directory" .
188A component of the specified pathname existed, but it was
189not a directory, when a directory was expected.
190.It Er 21 EISDIR Em "Is a directory" .
191An attempt was made to open a directory with write mode specified.
192.It Er 22 EINVAL Em "Invalid argument" .
193Some invalid argument was supplied.
194(For example,
195specifying an undefined signal to a
196.Xr signal 3
197function
198or a
199.Xr kill 2
200system call).
201.It Er 23 ENFILE Em "Too many open files in system" .
202Maximum number of file descriptors allowable on the system
203has been reached and a requests for an open cannot be satisfied
204until at least one has been closed.
205.It Er 24 EMFILE Em "Too many open files" .
206(As released, the limit on the number of
207open files per process is 64.)
208The
209.Xr getdtablesize 2
210system call will obtain the current limit.
211.It Er 25 ENOTTY Em "Inappropriate ioctl for device" .
212A control function (see
213.Xr ioctl 2 )
214was attempted for a file or
215special device for which the operation was inappropriate.
216.It Er 26 ETXTBSY Em "Text file busy" .
217The new process was a pure procedure (shared text) file
218which was open for writing by another process, or
219while the pure procedure file was being executed an
220.Xr open 2
221call requested write access.
222.It Er 27 EFBIG Em "File too large" .
223The size of a file exceeded the maximum.
224.It Er 28 ENOSPC Em "No space left on device" .
225A
226.Xr write 2
227to an ordinary file, the creation of a
228directory or symbolic link, or the creation of a directory
229entry failed because no more disk blocks were available
230on the file system, or the allocation of an inode for a newly
231created file failed because no more inodes were available
232on the file system.
233.It Er 29 ESPIPE Em "Illegal seek" .
234An
235.Xr lseek 2
236system call was issued on a socket, pipe or
237.Tn FIFO .
238.It Er 30 EROFS Em "Read-only file system" .
239An attempt was made to modify a file or directory
240on a file system that was read-only at the time.
241.It Er 31 EMLINK Em "Too many links" .
242Maximum allowable hard links to a single file has been exceeded (limit
243of 32767 hard links per file).
244.It Er 32 EPIPE Em "Broken pipe" .
245A write on a pipe, socket or
246.Tn FIFO
247for which there is no process
248to read the data.
249.It Er 33 EDOM Em "Numerical argument out of domain" .
250A numerical input argument was outside the defined domain of the mathematical
251function.
252.It Er 34 ERANGE Em "Result too large" .
253A numerical result of the function was too large to fit in the
254available space (perhaps exceeded precision).
255.It Er 35 EAGAIN Em "Resource temporarily unavailable" .
256This is a temporary condition and later calls to the
257same routine may complete normally.
258.It Er 36 EINPROGRESS Em "Operation now in progress" .
259An operation that takes a long time to complete (such as
260a
261.Xr connect 2 )
262was attempted on a non-blocking object (see
263.Xr fcntl 2 ) .
264.It Er 37 EALREADY Em "Operation already in progress" .
265An operation was attempted on a non-blocking object that already
266had an operation in progress.
267.It Er 38 ENOTSOCK Em "Socket operation on non-socket" .
268Self-explanatory.
269.It Er 39 EDESTADDRREQ Em "Destination address required" .
270A required address was omitted from an operation on a socket.
271.It Er 40 EMSGSIZE Em "Message too long" .
272A message sent on a socket was larger than the internal message buffer
273or some other network limit.
274.It Er 41 EPROTOTYPE Em "Protocol wrong type for socket" .
275A protocol was specified that does not support the semantics of the
276socket type requested.
277For example, you cannot use the
278.Tn ARPA
279Internet
280.Tn UDP
281protocol with type
282.Dv SOCK_STREAM .
283.It Er 42 ENOPROTOOPT Em "Protocol not available" .
284A bad option or level was specified in a
285.Xr getsockopt 2
286or
287.Xr setsockopt 2
288call.
289.It Er 43 EPROTONOSUPPORT Em "Protocol not supported" .
290The protocol has not been configured into the
291system or no implementation for it exists.
292.It Er 44 ESOCKTNOSUPPORT Em "Socket type not supported" .
293The support for the socket type has not been configured into the
294system or no implementation for it exists.
295.It Er 45 EOPNOTSUPP Em "Operation not supported" .
296The attempted operation is not supported for the type of object referenced.
297Usually this occurs when a file descriptor refers to a file or socket
298that cannot support this operation,
299for example, trying to
300.Em accept
301a connection on a datagram socket.
302.It Er 46 EPFNOSUPPORT Em "Protocol family not supported" .
303The protocol family has not been configured into the
304system or no implementation for it exists.
305.It Er 47 EAFNOSUPPORT Em "Address family not supported by protocol family" .
306An address incompatible with the requested protocol was used.
307For example, you should not necessarily expect to be able to use
308.Tn NS
309addresses with
310.Tn ARPA
311Internet protocols.
312.It Er 48 EADDRINUSE Em "Address already in use" .
313Only one usage of each address is normally permitted.
314.It Er 49 EADDRNOTAVAIL Em "Cannot assign requested address" .
315Normally results from an attempt to create a socket with an
316address not on this machine.
317.It Er 50 ENETDOWN Em "Network is down" .
318A socket operation encountered a dead network.
319.It Er 51 ENETUNREACH Em "Network is unreachable" .
320A socket operation was attempted to an unreachable network.
321.It Er 52 ENETRESET Em "Network dropped connection on reset" .
322The host you were connected to crashed and rebooted.
323.It Er 53 ECONNABORTED Em "Software caused connection abort" .
324A connection abort was caused internal to your host machine.
325.It Er 54 ECONNRESET Em "Connection reset by peer" .
326A connection was forcibly closed by a peer.
327This normally
328results from a loss of the connection on the remote socket
329due to a timeout or a reboot.
330.It Er 55 ENOBUFS Em "\&No buffer space available" .
331An operation on a socket or pipe was not performed because
332the system lacked sufficient buffer space or because a queue was full.
333.It Er 56 EISCONN Em "Socket is already connected" .
334A
335.Xr connect 2
336request was made on an already connected socket; or,
337a
338.Xr sendto 2
339or
340.Xr sendmsg 2
341request on a connected socket specified a destination
342when already connected.
343.It Er 57 ENOTCONN Em "Socket is not connected" .
344An request to send or receive data was disallowed because
345the socket was not connected and (when sending on a datagram socket)
346no address was supplied.
347.It Er 58 ESHUTDOWN Em "Cannot send after socket shutdown" .
348A request to send data was disallowed because the socket
349had already been shut down with a previous
350.Xr shutdown 2
351call.
352.It Er 60 ETIMEDOUT Em "Operation timed out" .
353A
354.Xr connect 2
355or
356.Xr send 2
357request failed because the connected party did not
358properly respond after a period of time.
359(The timeout
360period is dependent on the communication protocol.)
361.It Er 61 ECONNREFUSED Em "Connection refused" .
362No connection could be made because the target machine actively
363refused it.
364This usually results from trying to connect
365to a service that is inactive on the foreign host.
366.It Er 62 ELOOP Em "Too many levels of symbolic links" .
367A path name lookup involved more than 32
368.Pq Dv MAXSYMLINKS
369symbolic links.
370.It Er 63 ENAMETOOLONG Em "File name too long" .
371A component of a path name exceeded
372.Brq Dv NAME_MAX
373characters, or an entire
374path name exceeded
375.Brq Dv PATH_MAX
376characters.
377(See also the description of
378.Dv _PC_NO_TRUNC
379in
380.Xr pathconf 2 . )
381.It Er 64 EHOSTDOWN Em "Host is down" .
382A socket operation failed because the destination host was down.
383.It Er 65 EHOSTUNREACH Em "No route to host" .
384A socket operation was attempted to an unreachable host.
385.It Er 66 ENOTEMPTY Em "Directory not empty" .
386A directory with entries other than
387.Ql .\&
388and
389.Ql ..\&
390was supplied to a remove directory or rename call.
391.It Er 67 EPROCLIM Em "Too many processes" .
392.It Er 68 EUSERS Em "Too many users" .
393The quota system ran out of table entries.
394.It Er 69 EDQUOT Em "Disc quota exceeded" .
395A
396.Xr write 2
397to an ordinary file, the creation of a
398directory or symbolic link, or the creation of a directory
399entry failed because the user's quota of disk blocks was
400exhausted, or the allocation of an inode for a newly
401created file failed because the user's quota of inodes
402was exhausted.
403.It Er 70 ESTALE Em "Stale NFS file handle" .
404An attempt was made to access an open file (on an
405.Tn NFS
406file system)
407which is now unavailable as referenced by the file descriptor.
408This may indicate the file was deleted on the
409.Tn NFS
410server or some
411other catastrophic event occurred.
412.It Er 72 EBADRPC Em "RPC struct is bad" .
413Exchange of
414.Tn RPC
415information was unsuccessful.
416.It Er 73 ERPCMISMATCH Em "RPC version wrong" .
417The version of
418.Tn RPC
419on the remote peer is not compatible with
420the local version.
421.It Er 74 EPROGUNAVAIL Em "RPC prog. not avail" .
422The requested program is not registered on the remote host.
423.It Er 75 EPROGMISMATCH Em "Program version wrong" .
424The requested version of the program is not available
425on the remote host
426.Pq Tn RPC .
427.It Er 76 EPROCUNAVAIL Em "Bad procedure for program" .
428An
429.Tn RPC
430call was attempted for a procedure which does not exist
431in the remote program.
432.It Er 77 ENOLCK Em "No locks available" .
433A system-imposed limit on the number of simultaneous file
434locks was reached.
435.It Er 78 ENOSYS Em "Function not implemented" .
436Attempted a system call that is not available on this
437system.
438.It Er 79 EFTYPE Em "Inappropriate file type or format" .
439The file was the wrong type for the operation, or a data file had
440the wrong format.
441.It Er 80 EAUTH Em "Authentication error" .
442Attempted to use an invalid authentication ticket to mount a
443.Tn NFS
444file system.
445.It Er 81 ENEEDAUTH Em "Need authenticator" .
446An authentication ticket must be obtained before the given
447.Tn NFS
448file system may be mounted.
449.It Er 82 EIDRM Em "Identifier removed" .
450An IPC identifier was removed while the current process was waiting on it.
451.It Er 83 ENOMSG Em "No message of desired type" .
452An IPC message queue does not contain a message of the desired type, or a
453message catalog does not contain the requested message.
454.It Er 84 EOVERFLOW Em "Value too large to be stored in data type" .
455A numerical result of the function was too large to be stored in the caller
456provided space.
457.It Er 85 ECANCELED Em "Operation canceled" .
458The scheduled operation was canceled.
459.It Er 86 EILSEQ Em "Illegal byte sequence" .
460While decoding a multibyte character the function came along an
461invalid or an incomplete sequence of bytes or the given wide
462character is invalid.
463.It Er 87 ENOATTR Em "Attribute not found" .
464The specified extended attribute does not exist.
465.It Er 88 EDOOFUS Em "Programming error" .
466A function or API is being abused in a way which could only be detected
467at run-time.
468.It Er 89 EBADMSG Em "Bad message" .
469A corrupted message was detected.
470.It Er 90 EMULTIHOP Em "Multihop attempted" .
471This error code is unused, but present for compatibility with other systems.
472.It Er 91 ENOLINK Em "Link has been severed" .
473This error code is unused, but present for compatibility with other systems.
474.It Er 92 EPROTO Em "Protocol error" .
475A device or socket encountered an unrecoverable protocol error.
476.It Er 93 ENOMEDIUM Em "No medium found" .
477This error code is unused, but present for compatibility with other systems.
478.El
479.Sh DEFINITIONS
480.Bl -tag -width Ds
481.It Process ID .
482Each active process in the system is uniquely identified by a non-negative
483integer called a process ID.
484The range of this ID is from 0 to 99999.
485.It Parent process ID
486A new process is created by a currently active process (see
487.Xr fork 2 ) .
488The parent process ID of a process is initially the process ID of its creator.
489If the creating process exits,
490the parent process ID of each child is set to the ID of a system process,
491.Xr init 8 .
492.It Process Group
493Each active process is a member of a process group that is identified by
494a non-negative integer called the process group ID.
495This is the process
496ID of the group leader.
497This grouping permits the signaling of related
498processes (see
499.Xr termios 4 )
500and the job control mechanisms of
501.Xr csh 1 .
502.It Session
503A session is a set of one or more process groups.
504A session is created by a successful call to
505.Xr setsid 2 ,
506which causes the caller to become the only member of the only process
507group in the new session.
508.It Session leader
509A process that has created a new session by a successful call to
510.Xr setsid 2 ,
511is known as a session leader.
512Only a session leader may acquire a terminal as its controlling terminal (see
513.Xr termios 4 ) .
514.It Controlling process
515A session leader with a controlling terminal is a controlling process.
516.It Controlling terminal
517A terminal that is associated with a session is known as the controlling
518terminal for that session and its members.
519.It "Terminal Process Group ID"
520A terminal may be acquired by a session leader as its controlling terminal.
521Once a terminal is associated with a session, any of the process groups
522within the session may be placed into the foreground by setting
523the terminal process group ID to the ID of the process group.
524This facility is used
525to arbitrate between multiple jobs contending for the same terminal;
526(see
527.Xr csh 1
528and
529.Xr tty 4 ) .
530.It "Orphaned Process Group"
531A process group is considered to be
532.Em orphaned
533if it is not under the control of a job control shell.
534More precisely, a process group is orphaned
535when none of its members has a parent process that is in the same session
536as the group,
537but is in a different process group.
538Note that when a process exits, the parent process for its children
539is changed to be
540.Xr init 8 ,
541which is in a separate session.
542Not all members of an orphaned process group are necessarily orphaned
543processes (those whose creating process has exited).
544The process group of a session leader is orphaned by definition.
545.It "Real User ID and Real Group ID"
546Each user on the system is identified by a positive integer
547termed the real user ID.
548.Pp
549Each user is also a member of one or more groups.
550One of these groups is distinguished from others and
551used in implementing accounting facilities.
552The positive
553integer corresponding to this distinguished group is termed
554the real group ID.
555.Pp
556All processes have a real user ID and real group ID.
557These are initialized from the equivalent attributes
558of the process that created it.
559.It "Effective User Id, Effective Group Id, and Group Access List"
560Access to system resources is governed by two values:
561the effective user ID, and the group access list.
562The first member of the group access list is also known as the
563effective group ID.
564(In POSIX.1, the group access list is known as the set of supplementary
565group IDs, and it is unspecified whether the effective group ID is
566a member of the list.)
567.Pp
568The effective user ID and effective group ID are initially the
569process's real user ID and real group ID respectively.
570Either
571may be modified through execution of a set-user-ID or set-group-ID
572file (possibly by one its ancestors) (see
573.Xr execve 2 ) .
574By convention, the effective group ID (the first member of the group access
575list) is duplicated, so that the execution of a set-group-ID program
576does not result in the loss of the original (real) group ID.
577.Pp
578The group access list is a set of group IDs
579used only in determining resource accessibility.
580Access checks
581are performed as described below in ``File Access Permissions''.
582.It "Saved Set User ID and Saved Set Group ID"
583When a process executes a new file, the effective user ID is set
584to the owner of the file if the file is set-user-ID, and the effective
585group ID (first element of the group access list) is set to the group
586of the file if the file is set-group-ID.
587The effective user ID of the process is then recorded as the saved set-user-ID,
588and the effective group ID of the process is recorded as the saved set-group-ID.
589These values may be used to regain those values as the effective user
590or group ID after reverting to the real ID (see
591.Xr setuid 2 ) .
592(In POSIX.1, the saved set-user-ID and saved set-group-ID are optional,
593and are used in setuid and setgid, but this does not work as desired
594for the super-user.)
595.It Super-user
596A process is recognized as a
597.Em super-user
598process and is granted special privileges if its effective user ID is 0.
599.It Descriptor
600An integer assigned by the system when a file is referenced
601by
602.Xr open 2
603or
604.Xr dup 2 ,
605or when a socket is created by
606.Xr pipe 2 ,
607.Xr socket 2
608or
609.Xr socketpair 2 ,
610which uniquely identifies an access path to that file or socket from
611a given process or any of its children.
612.It File Name
613Names consisting of up to
614.Brq Dv NAME_MAX
615characters may be used to name
616an ordinary file, special file, or directory.
617.Pp
618These characters may be arbitrary eight-bit values,
619excluding
620.Dv NUL
621.Tn ( ASCII
6220) and the
623.Ql \&/
624character (slash,
625.Tn ASCII
62647).
627.Pp
628Note that it is generally unwise to use
629.Ql \&* ,
630.Ql \&? ,
631.Ql \&[
632or
633.Ql \&]
634as part of
635file names because of the special meaning attached to these characters
636by the shell.
637.It Path Name
638A path name is a
639.Dv NUL Ns -terminated
640character string starting with an
641optional slash
642.Ql \&/ ,
643followed by zero or more directory names separated
644by slashes, optionally followed by a file name.
645The total length of a path name must be less than
646.Brq Dv PATH_MAX
647characters.
648(On some systems, this limit may be infinite.)
649.Pp
650If a path name begins with a slash, the path search begins at the
651.Em root
652directory.
653Otherwise, the search begins from the current working directory.
654A slash by itself names the root directory.
655An empty
656pathname refers to the current directory.
657.It Directory
658A directory is a special type of file that contains entries
659that are references to other files.
660Directory entries are called links.
661By convention, a directory
662contains at least two links,
663.Ql .\&
664and
665.Ql \&.. ,
666referred to as
667.Em dot
668and
669.Em dot-dot
670respectively.
671Dot refers to the directory itself and
672dot-dot refers to its parent directory.
673.It "Root Directory and Current Working Directory"
674Each process has associated with it a concept of a root directory
675and a current working directory for the purpose of resolving path
676name searches.
677A process's root directory need not be the root
678directory of the root file system.
679.It File Access Permissions
680Every file in the file system has a set of access permissions.
681These permissions are used in determining whether a process
682may perform a requested operation on the file (such as opening
683a file for writing).
684Access permissions are established at the
685time a file is created.
686They may be changed at some later time
687through the
688.Xr chmod 2
689call.
690.Pp
691File access is broken down according to whether a file may be: read,
692written, or executed.
693Directory files use the execute
694permission to control if the directory may be searched.
695.Pp
696File access permissions are interpreted by the system as
697they apply to three different classes of users: the owner
698of the file, those users in the file's group, anyone else.
699Every file has an independent set of access permissions for
700each of these classes.
701When an access check is made, the system
702decides if permission should be granted by checking the access
703information applicable to the caller.
704.Pp
705Read, write, and execute/search permissions on
706a file are granted to a process if:
707.Pp
708The process's effective user ID is that of the super-user.
709(Note:
710even the super-user cannot execute a non-executable file.)
711.Pp
712The process's effective user ID matches the user ID of the owner
713of the file and the owner permissions allow the access.
714.Pp
715The process's effective user ID does not match the user ID of the
716owner of the file, and either the process's effective
717group ID matches the group ID
718of the file, or the group ID of the file is in
719the process's group access list,
720and the group permissions allow the access.
721.Pp
722Neither the effective user ID nor effective group ID
723and group access list of the process
724match the corresponding user ID and group ID of the file,
725but the permissions for ``other users'' allow access.
726.Pp
727Otherwise, permission is denied.
728.It Sockets and Address Families
729A socket is an endpoint for communication between processes.
730Each socket has queues for sending and receiving data.
731.Pp
732Sockets are typed according to their communications properties.
733These properties include whether messages sent and received
734at a socket require the name of the partner, whether communication
735is reliable, the format used in naming message recipients, etc.
736.Pp
737Each instance of the system supports some
738collection of socket types; consult
739.Xr socket 2
740for more information about the types available and
741their properties.
742.Pp
743Each instance of the system supports some number of sets of
744communications protocols.
745Each protocol set supports addresses of a certain format.
746An Address Family is the set of addresses for a specific group of protocols.
747Each socket has an address
748chosen from the address family in which the socket was created.
749.El
750.Sh SEE ALSO
751.Xr intro 3 ,
752.Xr perror 3 ,
753.Xr errno 9
754