Socket-Level Options

Socket-Level Options

— Constant: int SOL_SOCKET

Use this constant as the level argument to getsockoptor setsockoptto manipulate the socket-level options described in this section.

Here is a table of socket-level option names; all are defined in the header file sys/socket.h.

SO_REUSEADDR

This option controls whether bind (see Setting Address) should permit reuse of local addresses for this socket. If you enable this option, you can actually have two sockets with the same Internet port number; but the system won't allow you to use the two identically-named sockets in a way that would confuse the Internet. The reason for this option is that some higher-level Internet protocols, including FTP, require you to keep reusing the same port number.

The value has type int; a nonzero value means ―yes‖.

SO_KEEPALIVE

This option controls whether the underlying protocol should periodically transmit messages on a connected socket. If the peer fails to respond to these messages, the connection is considered

broken. The value has type int; a nonzero value means ―yes‖.

SO_DONTROUTE

This option controls whether outgoing messages bypass the normal message routing facilities. If set, messages are sent directly to the network interface instead. The value has type int; a nonzero

value means ―yes‖.

SO_LINGER

This option specifies what should happen when the socket of a type that promises reliable delivery still has untransmitted messages when it is closed; see Closing a Socket. The value has type

struct linger.

— Data Type: struct linger

This structure type has the following members:

int l_onoff

This field is interpreted as a boolean. If nonzero, closeblocks until the data are transmitted or the timeout period has expired.

int l_linger

This specifies the timeout period, in seconds.

SO_BROADCAST

This option controls whether datagrams may be broadcast from the socket. The value has type int; a nonzero value means ―yes‖.

SO_OOBINLINE

If this option is set, out-of-band data received on the socket is placed in the normal input queue. This permits it to be read using reador recvwithout specifying the MSG_OOB flag. See Out-of-

Band Data.The value has type int; a nonzero value means ―yes‖.

SO_SNDBUF

This option gets or sets the size of the output buffer. The value is a size_t, which is the size in bytes.

SO_RCVBUF

This option gets or sets the size of the input buffer. The value is a size_t, which is the size in bytes.

SO_STYLESO_TYPE

This option can be used with getsockoptonly. It is used to get the socket's communication style. SO_TYPEis the historical name, and SO_STYLEis the preferred name in GNU. The value has type intand its value designates a communication style; see Communication Styles.

SO_ERROR

This option can be used with getsockoptonly. It is used to reset the error status of the socket. The value is an int, which represents the previous error status.

SO_RCVBUF /SO_SNDBUF

•                 Integer values options - change the receive and send buffer sizes.

•                 Can be used with STREAM and DGRAM sockets.

•                 With TCP, this option effects the window size used for flow control – must be established before connection is made.

SO_REUSEADDR

Boolean option: enables binding to an address (port) that is already in use.

•                 Used by servers that are transient - allows binding a passive socket to a port currently in use (with active sockets) by other processes.

Can be used to establish separate servers for the same service on different interfaces (or different IP addresses on the same interface).

Virtual Web Servers can work this way.

KEEPALIVE socket Option: The purpose of this option is to detect if the peer host crashes. This option is usually used by servers, although client can also use this option. Server uses this option because they spend most of their time blocked wiating for the input across the TCP connection, that is waiting for the client request. But if the client host crashes, the server process will never know about it and it will wiat continuosly for input data that can never arrriver. This is called half open connection. The keep alive option will detect these half open connections and terminates them.

3. If there is no response from the peer to the keepalive probe, TCP sends eight additional probes, 75 sec apart trying to elicit response. TCP will give up if ther is no response within 11 minutes and 15 seconds after sending the first probe. If there is no response at all to TCPs keepalive probes, the socket‘s pending error is sent to ETIMEDOUT and the socket is closed. But if the socket receives an ICMP response to one of the keepalive probes, the socket corresponding error is returned instead such as EHOSTUNREACH error.

SO_LINGER Socket option: This option specifies how the close function operates for a connection oriented protocol (that is for TCP) By default, close function returns immediately with ack, but if there is any data still remaining the in the socket sedn buffer, the system will try to deliver the data to the peer.

The SO_LINGER socket option les us change this default. This option requires the folowing structure to be passed between the user process and the kernel. It is defined as

Struct linger {

Int l_onoff; /* 0 for Off and Nonzero for ON*/

Int l_linger; /*Linger time Posix 1g specification as seconds*/

}

Calling setsocket leads to one of the folowing threee scenarios depending on the values of the two structure memebrs.

1.     If l_onoff is 0, the option is turned off. The value of l_linger is ignored and the preveiously discussed TCP default applies: close returns immediately.

2.     If l_onoff is non zero and l_linger is 0, TCP aborts the connection when it is closed. That is TCP discards any data still remaining in the socket send buffer amd sends an RST to the peer.

(Not the four step termination sequence) This avoids the TCP‘s IME_WAIT state.

3.    If l_onoff is nonzero and l_linger is non zero, then the kernel will linger when the socket is closed . That is, if ther is any bdata stilol remaining in the socket send buffer, the process is put to sleep until either i) all the data is sent and acknolodged by the peer TCP ii) the linger time expires

When using this feature of the SO-LINGER option, it is important for the application to check the return value from close because if the linger time expires before the remianing data is sent and acknowledged, claose returns EWOULDBLOCK and any remaining data in the send buffer is discarded.

SO_RCVBUF and SO_SNDBUF Socket Option:

The receive buffer are used by the TCP and UDP to hold received data until it is read by the application. With TCP, the available room in the socket receive buffer is the window that TCP avertises to the other end. Hence the the peer sends only that amount of data and any data beyond that limit is discarded. In case of UDP, the bufffer size is not advertised hence, any data that do not fit ito the buffer, are dropped However, the abovementioned socket options allows one to change the default sizes. The default values for the TCP and UDP differ for different implementation. It is normally 4096 for TCP and send buffer for UDP is 9000 and 40000 bytes for receive buffer.

SO_REUSEADDR and  SO_REUSEPORT:

The SO_REUSEADDR serves four purposes :

This option allows a listening server to start and bind its well known port even if previously established connections exists that use this port as their local port. As the server is in listening state, when connection request comes from a client, a child process is spawned to handle that client. Wqith this listening server terminates. Once again when the listening is restarted buy calling socket, bind and listen, the call to bind fails because the listening server is trying to bind a port that is part of exisitng connection. But if the srver is sets the SO_REUSEADDR socket option between the calls to socket and bind, the latter function will succeed.

This allows multiple instances of the same service to be started on the same port as long as each instance binds a different local IP address. It is common of a a site to host multiple http servers using the IP alias techniques. If the primary address is 198.69.10.2 and it has two aliases as 198.69.10.129 and 198.69.10.128. Three HTTP servers are started. Whne the first connection request comes, the server binds the call with 198.69,10.128 and a local port of 80. The second request is connected to 198.69.10.129 provided the SO_REUSEADDR is set before the call to bind.

Simlarly for the final http server also.

It also allows a single process to bind the same port to multiple socket as slong as each bind specifies a different loacl IP address It also allows completely duplicate binding: a bind of an IP address and port, when the same IP address and port are already bound to another socket. This happens with the protocol that support multicasting (UDP)

SO_ TYPE socket Option: This option returs the socket ytpe. The integer value returned is a value such as SOCK _ STREAM or SOCK_DGRAM.

SO_USELOOPBACK Socket Option: When this option is set, the socket receives a copy of everything send on the socket.

IPv4 Socket options: The level of this options are IPPROTO_IP.

IP_HDRINC Socket Option : If this socket is set for a raw socket, we must buid our own IP header for all datagrams that we send on the raw socket. Normally kernel builds the headers for datagrams sent on raw socket. But for some applications, build there own IP address to override that IP would place into certain header fields. (Traceroute).

IP_OPTIONS Socket Options: Setting this option allows us to set the IP option in the Ipv4 header. This requires intimate knlowledge of the format of the IP options in the IP header.

IP_RECVDSTADDR Socket Options :

This socket options causes the destination IP address of a received UDP datqgram to be returned as ancillary data by recvmsg.

IP_RECVIF Socket Options :

This socket option causes the index of the interface on which a UDP datagram is received to be returned as an ancillary data by recvmsg.

IP_TOS Socket Option :

This options lets us set the type of field service in the IP header for a t

CP or UDP socket. The different value to which this o[tions can be set are given below: Constant description

IPTOS_LOWDELAY    minimize delay.

IPTOS_THROUGHPUT       maximize throughput

IPTOSRELIABILITY    maximize reliability.

IPTOS_LOWCOST       Minimize cost.

For telnet login shoul;d specify IPTOS_LOWDEAY while the data portion of an FTP transfer should specify IPTOS_ THROUGHPUT

IP_TTL Socket Option :

With this option we can set and fetch the default TTL (time to live field) that the system will use for a given socket (*64 for TCP and 255 for UDP)

ICMPv6 Socket Option :  The level is of IPPROTO_ICMPV6

ICMP6_FILTER: This option lets us fetch and set an icmp6_filter structure that specifies which of the 255 possible ICMPV6 message types are passed to the process on a raw socket.

IPv6 Socket Options:\

These are processed by IPv6 and have a level of IPPROTO_IPV6.

IPV6_ADDRFORM Socket Option:

This option allows a socket  to be converted from IPv4 to IPv6 or vice versa.

IPV6_CHECKSUM Socket Option: This socket option specifies the byte offset into the user data of where the checksum field is located. If this value is nonnegative, the kernel computes and store the checksum for all outgoing pockets. And verify the received checksum on input, discarding packets with invalid checksum. If the value is set to -1, the kernel will calculate and store the checksum for outgoing packets.

IPV6_DSTOPTS Options : This options lets any received IPv6 destination options are to be returned as ancillary data by recvmsg.

IPV6_HOPOPTS: Setting this option specifies that the received IPv6 hop by hop options are to be returned as ancillary data by recvmsg.

IPV6_HOPLIMIT : Setting this option specifies that the received hop limit field be returned as ancillary data by recvmsg.

IPV6_NEXTMSG : This is a not a socket option but the type of an ancillary data object that can be specified to sendmsg. This opjet specifies the next hop address for a datagram as a socketaddress structure.

IPV6 _PKTINFO: Setting this option specifies that the following two pieces of information about a received IPv^ datagram ae to be returned as ancillary data by recvmsg.

IPV6_PKTOPTIONS: Most of the IPv6 socket options assume a UDP socket with the information being passed between the kernel and the application using ancillary data with recvmsg and sendmsg. A TCP socket fetches and stores these values using the IPV6_PLTOPTIONS socket options.

IPV6_RTHDR: Setting this options specifies that a received IPV6 routing header is to be returned as ancillary data by recvmsg.

IPV6_UNICAST_HOPS : This IPv6 option is similar to the IPv4 IP_TTL socket option. Setting the socket option specifies the default hop limit for outgoing datagram sent on the socket, whcile fetching the socket options returns the value for the hop limit that the kernel use fo the socket. To obtain actual hop limit field, IPV^_HOPLIMIT socket option is used.

TCP SOCKET OPTIONS:  The leve is IPPROTO_TCP

TCP_KEEPALIVE socket options : It specifies the idle time in seconds for the connections before TCP starts sending keepalive probes. Default value is 7200 sec (2 hours) This is effective when SO_

KEEP ALIVE option is enabled.

TCP_MAXRT Socket Options : It specifies the amount of time in seconds before a connections is broken once TCP starts transmitting data. A value of 0 means touse the system default. And a value of –I means to rettransmit forever. If a positive value is specified, it may be rounded up to the implementations next transmission time.

TCP_MAXSIZE Socket Option: This socket option allows us to fetch or set the maximum segment size for a TCP connection. Often it is the MSS value announced by the peer process.

TCP_NODELAY Socket Option :

If this option is set, TCP‘s Nagle‘s algorithm is disabled.

Nagle‘s Algorithm: The algorithm states that if a given connection has outstanding data ( that is, data that our TCP has sent and for which it is currently awaiting an ack), then no small packet will be sent on the connection until the existing data is acknowledged. Small packet is any size less than MSS. The purpose is to prevent a connection from having multiple packets outstanding at any time. This situation becomes more prominenet in a WAN with Telnet.

Consider the example where in we type Hello to Telnet client. Let this take 250 ms between each letter (as shown below) The RTT to the server and back is 600 ms and the server immediately sends the echo of the character. We assume that ACK of the client character is sent back to the client along with the character echo and we ignore the ACKs that the client sends for the server echo. Assuming Nagle‘s algorithm disabled, we have the following figure:

IN this each packet is sent in a packet itself.

But if the Nagle‘s algorithm is enabled (default), we have the six packets as shown in the following figure:

The first packet is sent as a packet by itself., but the next two characters are not sent, since the connection has small packet outstanding. At time 600 ms when the ACK of the first packet is received, along with the echo of the first character, theset two characters are sent. Until this packet ACKed at time 1200, no more small packets are sent.

When the Nagles algorithm oftern interacts with another TCP algorithm called ‗delayed ACK‘ algorithm. This algorithm causes the TCP to not send an ACK immediately whne it receives data; instead TCP will wait some small amount of time and only then send ACK. The hope is that in this small time (50 – 200 ms) there will be more data to be sent back to the peer and the ACK can piggy back on the data saving the TCP segment. This is the normally case with Telnet. Therefore, they wait for the echoed data

to piggy back.

In all these cases, the TCP_NODELAY socket option is set.

TCP_STDURG socket option: If this is set, then the the urgent pointer will point to the data byte sent with the MSG_OOB flag

fcntrl Function : This stands for file control. This control performs various deascriptors control operations. Following table summarised some of the key file operations. These are preferred way under Posix 1g.

These features are provided in the following way.

•        Non blocking I/O: We can set the O_NONBLOCK file status flag using the F_SETFL command to set a socket nonblocking.

• Signal Driven I/O : We can set the O_SYNC file status by using F-SETFL command which caused the SIGIO signal to be generated when the status of a socket changes.

•        The F_SETDOWN command lets us set the socket owner to receive the SIGIO and SIGURG signals. SIGIO is generated when the signal driven I/O is enabled for a socket and the latter is generated with new out of band data arrives for a socket. The F-GETOWN command returns the current owner of the the socket.

#include <fcntl.h>

int fcntl (int fd, int cmd, …) returns: depends on cmd if OK, -1 on error.