xref: /netbsd/lib/libc/sys/accept.2 (revision c4a72b64)
1.\"	$NetBSD: accept.2,v 1.21 2002/10/01 18:10:43 wiz Exp $
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34.\"     @(#)accept.2	8.2 (Berkeley) 12/11/93
35.\"
36.Dd October 22, 2001
37.Dt ACCEPT 2
38.Os
39.Sh NAME
40.Nm accept
41.Nd accept a connection on a socket
42.Sh LIBRARY
43.Lb libc
44.Sh SYNOPSIS
45.Fd #include \*[Lt]sys/socket.h\*[Gt]
46.Ft int
47.Fn accept "int s" "struct sockaddr * restrict addr" "socklen_t * restrict addrlen"
48.Sh DESCRIPTION
49The argument
50.Fa s
51is a socket that has been created with
52.Xr socket 2 ,
53bound to an address with
54.Xr bind 2 ,
55and is listening for connections after a
56.Xr listen 2 .
57The
58.Fn accept
59argument
60extracts the first connection request on the queue of pending
61connections, creates a new socket with the same properties of
62.Fa s
63and allocates a new file descriptor
64for the socket.
65If no pending connections are
66present on the queue, and the socket is not marked
67as non-blocking,
68.Fn accept
69blocks the caller until a connection is present.
70If the socket is marked non-blocking and no pending
71connections are present on the queue,
72.Fn accept
73returns an error as described below.
74The accepted socket
75may not be used
76to accept more connections.
77The original socket
78.Fa s
79remains open.
80.Pp
81The argument
82.Fa addr
83is a result parameter that is filled in with
84the address of the connecting entity,
85as known to the communications layer.
86The exact format of the
87.Fa addr
88parameter is determined by the domain in which the communication
89is occurring.
90The
91.Fa addrlen
92is a value-result parameter; it should initially contain the
93amount of space pointed to by
94.Fa addr ;
95on return it will contain the actual length (in bytes) of the
96address returned.
97This call
98is used with connection-based socket types, currently with
99.Dv SOCK_STREAM .
100.Pp
101It is possible to
102.Xr select 2
103or
104.Xr poll 2
105a socket for the purposes of doing an
106.Fn accept
107by selecting or polling it for read.
108.Pp
109For certain protocols which require an explicit confirmation,
110such as
111.Tn ISO
112or
113.Tn DATAKIT ,
114.Fn accept
115can be thought of
116as merely dequeuing the next connection
117request and not implying confirmation.
118Confirmation can be implied by a normal read or write on the new
119file descriptor, and rejection can be implied by closing the
120new socket.
121.Pp
122One can obtain user connection request data without confirming
123the connection by issuing a
124.Xr recvmsg 2
125call with an
126.Fa msg_iovlen
127of 0 and a non-zero
128.Fa msg_controllen ,
129or by issuing a
130.Xr getsockopt 2
131request.
132Similarly, one can provide user connection rejection information
133by issuing a
134.Xr sendmsg 2
135call with providing only the control information,
136or by calling
137.Xr setsockopt 2 .
138.Sh RETURN VALUES
139The call returns \-1 on error.
140If it succeeds, it returns a non-negative
141integer that is a descriptor for the accepted socket.
142.Sh ERRORS
143The
144.Fn accept
145will fail if:
146.Bl -tag -width Er
147.It Bq Er EBADF
148The descriptor is invalid.
149.It Bq Er EINVAL
150The socket has not been set up to accept connections (using
151.Xr bind 2
152and
153.Xr listen 2 ) .
154.It Bq Er ENOTSOCK
155The descriptor references a file, not a socket.
156.It Bq Er EOPNOTSUPP
157The referenced socket is not of type
158.Dv SOCK_STREAM .
159.It Bq Er EFAULT
160The
161.Fa addr
162parameter is not in a writable part of the
163user address space.
164.It Bq Er EAGAIN
165The socket is marked non-blocking and no connections
166are present to be accepted.
167.It Bq Er EMFILE
168The per-process descriptor table is full.
169.It Bq Er ENFILE
170The system file table is full.
171.It Bq Er ECONNABORTED
172A connection has been aborted.
173.El
174.Sh SEE ALSO
175.Xr bind 2 ,
176.Xr connect 2 ,
177.Xr listen 2 ,
178.Xr poll 2 ,
179.Xr select 2 ,
180.Xr socket 2
181.Sh HISTORY
182The
183.Fn accept
184function appeared in
185.Bx 4.2 .
186