Introduction; Key Terms And Concepts - HP Rp3440-4 - 9000 - 0 MB RAM Programmer's Manual

Introduction

This guide describes the steps involved in establishing and using BSD
Sockets connections. It also describes the protocols you must use and
how the BSD Sockets system calls interact. The details of each system
call are described in the corresponding man pages.

Key Terms and Concepts

For a basic understanding of BSD Sockets and its general model, you
should review the following terms and definitions.
address family The address format used to interpret addresses
specified in socket operations. The internet address
family (AF_INET) and the Berkeley UNIX Domain
address family (AF_UNIX) are supported.
addressing A means of labeling a socket so that it is
distinguishable from other sockets on a host.
association A BSD Sockets connection is defined by an
association. An AF_INET association contains the
(protocol, local address, local port, remote address,
remote port)-tuple. An AF_UNIX association
contains the (protocol, local address, peer
address)-tuple. Associations must be unique;
duplicate associations on the same host cannot
exist. The tuple is created when the local and
remote socket addresses are bound and connected.
This means that the association is created in two
steps, and there is a chance that two potential
associations could be alike between steps. The host
prevents duplicate associations by checking for
uniqueness of the tuple at connection time, and
reporting an error if the tuple is not unique.
Chapter 1
BSD Sockets Concepts
Introduction
17