xref: /freebsd-14.2/lib/libc/sys/intro.2 (revision ca2e4ecd)
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31.Dd May 4, 2013
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 errno.
51This identifier is defined in
52.In sys/errno.h
53as
54.Pp
55.Dl extern    int *       __error();
56.Dl #define   errno       (* __error())
57.Pp
58The
59.Va __error()
60function returns a pointer to a field in the thread specific structure for
61threads other than the initial thread.
62For the initial thread and
63non-threaded processes,
64.Va __error()
65returns a pointer to a global
66.Va errno
67variable that is compatible with the previous definition.
68.Pp
69When a system call detects an error,
70it returns an integer value
71indicating failure (usually -1)
72and sets the variable
73.Va errno
74accordingly.
75(This allows interpretation of the failure on receiving
76a -1 and to take action accordingly.)
77Successful calls never set
78.Va errno ;
79once set, it remains until another error occurs.
80It should only be examined after an error.
81Note that a number of system calls overload the meanings of these
82error numbers, and that the meanings must be interpreted according
83to the type and circumstances of the call.
84.Pp
85The following is a complete list of the errors and their
86names as given in
87.In sys/errno.h .
88.Bl -hang -width Ds
89.It Er 0 Em "Undefined error: 0" .
90Not used.
91.It Er 1 EPERM Em "Operation not permitted" .
92An attempt was made to perform an operation limited to processes
93with appropriate privileges or to the owner of a file or other
94resources.
95.It Er 2 ENOENT Em "No such file or directory" .
96A component of a specified pathname did not exist, or the
97pathname was an empty string.
98.It Er 3 ESRCH Em "No such process" .
99No process could be found corresponding to that specified by the given
100process ID.
101.It Er 4 EINTR Em "Interrupted system call" .
102An asynchronous signal (such as
103.Dv SIGINT
104or
105.Dv SIGQUIT )
106was caught by the process during the execution of an interruptible
107function.
108If the signal handler performs a normal return, the
109interrupted system call will seem to have returned the error condition.
110.It Er 5 EIO Em "Input/output error" .
111Some physical input or output error occurred.
112This error will not be reported until a subsequent operation on the same file
113descriptor and may be lost (over written) by any subsequent errors.
114.It Er 6 ENXIO Em "Device not configured" .
115Input or output on a special file referred to a device that did not
116exist, or
117made a request beyond the limits of the device.
118This error may also occur when, for example,
119a tape drive is not online or no disk pack is
120loaded on a drive.
121.It Er 7 E2BIG Em "Argument list too long" .
122The number of bytes used for the argument and environment
123list of the new process exceeded the current limit
124.Dv ( NCARGS
125in
126.In sys/param.h ) .
127.It Er 8 ENOEXEC Em "Exec format error" .
128A request was made to execute a file
129that, although it has the appropriate permissions,
130was not in the format required for an
131executable file.
132.It Er 9 EBADF Em "Bad file descriptor" .
133A file descriptor argument was out of range, referred to no open file,
134or a read (write) request was made to a file that was only open for
135writing (reading).
136.It Er 10 ECHILD Em "\&No child processes" .
137A
138.Xr wait 2
139or
140.Xr waitpid 2
141function was executed by a process that had no existing or unwaited-for
142child processes.
143.It Er 11 EDEADLK Em "Resource deadlock avoided" .
144An attempt was made to lock a system resource that
145would have resulted in a deadlock situation.
146.It Er 12 ENOMEM Em "Cannot allocate memory" .
147The new process image required more memory than was allowed by the hardware
148or by system-imposed memory management constraints.
149A lack of swap space is normally temporary; however,
150a lack of core is not.
151Soft limits may be increased to their corresponding hard limits.
152.It Er 13 EACCES Em "Permission denied" .
153An attempt was made to access a file in a way forbidden
154by its file access permissions.
155.It Er 14 EFAULT Em "Bad address" .
156The system detected an invalid address in attempting to
157use an argument of a call.
158.It Er 15 ENOTBLK Em "Block device required" .
159A block device operation was attempted on a non-block device or file.
160.It Er 16 EBUSY Em "Device busy" .
161An attempt to use a system resource which was in use at the time
162in a manner which would have conflicted with the request.
163.It Er 17 EEXIST Em "File exists" .
164An existing file was mentioned in an inappropriate context,
165for instance, as the new link name in a
166.Xr link 2
167system call.
168.It Er 18 EXDEV Em "Cross-device link" .
169A hard link to a file on another file system
170was attempted.
171.It Er 19 ENODEV Em "Operation not supported by device" .
172An attempt was made to apply an inappropriate
173function to a device,
174for example,
175trying to read a write-only device such as a printer.
176.It Er 20 ENOTDIR Em "Not a directory" .
177A component of the specified pathname existed, but it was
178not a directory, when a directory was expected.
179.It Er 21 EISDIR Em "Is a directory" .
180An attempt was made to open a directory with write mode specified.
181.It Er 22 EINVAL Em "Invalid argument" .
182Some invalid argument was supplied.
183(For example,
184specifying an undefined signal to a
185.Xr signal 3
186function
187or a
188.Xr kill 2
189system call).
190.It Er 23 ENFILE Em "Too many open files in system" .
191Maximum number of open files allowable on the system
192has been reached and requests for an open cannot be satisfied
193until at least one has been closed.
194.It Er 24 EMFILE Em "Too many open files" .
195Maximum number of file descriptors allowable in the process
196has been reached and requests for an open cannot be satisfied
197until at least one has been closed.
198The
199.Xr getdtablesize 2
200system call will obtain the current limit.
201.It Er 25 ENOTTY Em "Inappropriate ioctl for device" .
202A control function (see
203.Xr ioctl 2 )
204was attempted for a file or
205special device for which the operation was inappropriate.
206.It Er 26 ETXTBSY Em "Text file busy" .
207The new process was a pure procedure (shared text) file
208which was open for writing by another process, or
209while the pure procedure file was being executed an
210.Xr open 2
211call requested write access.
212.It Er 27 EFBIG Em "File too large" .
213The size of a file exceeded the maximum.
214.It Er 28 ENOSPC Em "No space left on device" .
215A
216.Xr write 2
217to an ordinary file, the creation of a
218directory or symbolic link, or the creation of a directory
219entry failed because no more disk blocks were available
220on the file system, or the allocation of an inode for a newly
221created file failed because no more inodes were available
222on the file system.
223.It Er 29 ESPIPE Em "Illegal seek" .
224An
225.Xr lseek 2
226system call was issued on a socket, pipe or
227.Tn FIFO .
228.It Er 30 EROFS Em "Read-only file system" .
229An attempt was made to modify a file or directory
230on a file system that was read-only at the time.
231.It Er 31 EMLINK Em "Too many links" .
232Maximum allowable hard links to a single file has been exceeded (limit
233of 32767 hard links per file).
234.It Er 32 EPIPE Em "Broken pipe" .
235A write on a pipe, socket or
236.Tn FIFO
237for which there is no process
238to read the data.
239.It Er 33 EDOM Em "Numerical argument out of domain" .
240A numerical input argument was outside the defined domain of the mathematical
241function.
242.It Er 34 ERANGE Em "Result too large" .
243A numerical result of the function was too large to fit in the
244available space (perhaps exceeded precision).
245.It Er 35 EAGAIN Em "Resource temporarily unavailable" .
246This is a temporary condition and later calls to the
247same routine may complete normally.
248.It Er 36 EINPROGRESS Em "Operation now in progress" .
249An operation that takes a long time to complete (such as
250a
251.Xr connect 2 )
252was attempted on a non-blocking object (see
253.Xr fcntl 2 ) .
254.It Er 37 EALREADY Em "Operation already in progress" .
255An operation was attempted on a non-blocking object that already
256had an operation in progress.
257.It Er 38 ENOTSOCK Em "Socket operation on non-socket" .
258Self-explanatory.
259.It Er 39 EDESTADDRREQ Em "Destination address required" .
260A required address was omitted from an operation on a socket.
261.It Er 40 EMSGSIZE Em "Message too long" .
262A message sent on a socket was larger than the internal message buffer
263or some other network limit.
264.It Er 41 EPROTOTYPE Em "Protocol wrong type for socket" .
265A protocol was specified that does not support the semantics of the
266socket type requested.
267For example, you cannot use the
268.Tn ARPA
269Internet
270.Tn UDP
271protocol with type
272.Dv SOCK_STREAM .
273.It Er 42 ENOPROTOOPT Em "Protocol not available" .
274A bad option or level was specified in a
275.Xr getsockopt 2
276or
277.Xr setsockopt 2
278call.
279.It Er 43 EPROTONOSUPPORT Em "Protocol not supported" .
280The protocol has not been configured into the
281system or no implementation for it exists.
282.It Er 44 ESOCKTNOSUPPORT Em "Socket type not supported" .
283The support for the socket type has not been configured into the
284system or no implementation for it exists.
285.It Er 45 EOPNOTSUPP Em "Operation not supported" .
286The attempted operation is not supported for the type of object referenced.
287Usually this occurs when a file descriptor refers to a file or socket
288that cannot support this operation,
289for example, trying to
290.Em accept
291a connection on a datagram socket.
292.It Er 46 EPFNOSUPPORT Em "Protocol family not supported" .
293The protocol family has not been configured into the
294system or no implementation for it exists.
295.It Er 47 EAFNOSUPPORT Em "Address family not supported by protocol family" .
296An address incompatible with the requested protocol was used.
297For example, you should not necessarily expect to be able to use
298.Tn NS
299addresses with
300.Tn ARPA
301Internet protocols.
302.It Er 48 EADDRINUSE Em "Address already in use" .
303Only one usage of each address is normally permitted.
304.It Er 49 EADDRNOTAVAIL Em "Can't assign requested address" .
305Normally results from an attempt to create a socket with an
306address not on this machine.
307.It Er 50 ENETDOWN Em "Network is down" .
308A socket operation encountered a dead network.
309.It Er 51 ENETUNREACH Em "Network is unreachable" .
310A socket operation was attempted to an unreachable network.
311.It Er 52 ENETRESET Em "Network dropped connection on reset" .
312The host you were connected to crashed and rebooted.
313.It Er 53 ECONNABORTED Em "Software caused connection abort" .
314A connection abort was caused internal to your host machine.
315.It Er 54 ECONNRESET Em "Connection reset by peer" .
316A connection was forcibly closed by a peer.
317This normally
318results from a loss of the connection on the remote socket
319due to a timeout or a reboot.
320.It Er 55 ENOBUFS Em "\&No buffer space available" .
321An operation on a socket or pipe was not performed because
322the system lacked sufficient buffer space or because a queue was full.
323.It Er 56 EISCONN Em "Socket is already connected" .
324A
325.Xr connect 2
326request was made on an already connected socket; or,
327a
328.Xr sendto 2
329or
330.Xr sendmsg 2
331request on a connected socket specified a destination
332when already connected.
333.It Er 57 ENOTCONN Em "Socket is not connected" .
334An request to send or receive data was disallowed because
335the socket was not connected and (when sending on a datagram socket)
336no address was supplied.
337.It Er 58 ESHUTDOWN Em "Can't send after socket shutdown" .
338A request to send data was disallowed because the socket
339had already been shut down with a previous
340.Xr shutdown 2
341call.
342.It Er 60 ETIMEDOUT Em "Operation timed out" .
343A
344.Xr connect 2
345or
346.Xr send 2
347request failed because the connected party did not
348properly respond after a period of time.
349(The timeout
350period is dependent on the communication protocol.)
351.It Er 61 ECONNREFUSED Em "Connection refused" .
352No connection could be made because the target machine actively
353refused it.
354This usually results from trying to connect
355to a service that is inactive on the foreign host.
356.It Er 62 ELOOP Em "Too many levels of symbolic links" .
357A path name lookup involved more than 32
358.Pq Dv MAXSYMLINKS
359symbolic links.
360.It Er 63 ENAMETOOLONG Em "File name too long" .
361A component of a path name exceeded
362.Brq Dv NAME_MAX
363characters, or an entire
364path name exceeded
365.Brq Dv PATH_MAX
366characters.
367(See also the description of
368.Dv _PC_NO_TRUNC
369in
370.Xr pathconf 2 . )
371.It Er 64 EHOSTDOWN Em "Host is down" .
372A socket operation failed because the destination host was down.
373.It Er 65 EHOSTUNREACH Em "No route to host" .
374A socket operation was attempted to an unreachable host.
375.It Er 66 ENOTEMPTY Em "Directory not empty" .
376A directory with entries other than
377.Ql .\&
378and
379.Ql ..\&
380was supplied to a remove directory or rename call.
381.It Er 67 EPROCLIM Em "Too many processes" .
382.It Er 68 EUSERS Em "Too many users" .
383The quota system ran out of table entries.
384.It Er 69 EDQUOT Em "Disc quota exceeded" .
385A
386.Xr write 2
387to an ordinary file, the creation of a
388directory or symbolic link, or the creation of a directory
389entry failed because the user's quota of disk blocks was
390exhausted, or the allocation of an inode for a newly
391created file failed because the user's quota of inodes
392was exhausted.
393.It Er 70 ESTALE Em "Stale NFS file handle" .
394An attempt was made to access an open file (on an
395.Tn NFS
396file system)
397which is now unavailable as referenced by the file descriptor.
398This may indicate the file was deleted on the
399.Tn NFS
400server or some
401other catastrophic event occurred.
402.It Er 72 EBADRPC Em "RPC struct is bad" .
403Exchange of
404.Tn RPC
405information was unsuccessful.
406.It Er 73 ERPCMISMATCH Em "RPC version wrong" .
407The version of
408.Tn RPC
409on the remote peer is not compatible with
410the local version.
411.It Er 74 EPROGUNAVAIL Em "RPC prog. not avail" .
412The requested program is not registered on the remote host.
413.It Er 75 EPROGMISMATCH Em "Program version wrong" .
414The requested version of the program is not available
415on the remote host
416.Pq Tn RPC .
417.It Er 76 EPROCUNAVAIL Em "Bad procedure for program" .
418An
419.Tn RPC
420call was attempted for a procedure which does not exist
421in the remote program.
422.It Er 77 ENOLCK Em "No locks available" .
423A system-imposed limit on the number of simultaneous file
424locks was reached.
425.It Er 78 ENOSYS Em "Function not implemented" .
426Attempted a system call that is not available on this
427system.
428.It Er 79 EFTYPE Em "Inappropriate file type or format" .
429The file was the wrong type for the operation, or a data file had
430the wrong format.
431.It Er 80 EAUTH Em "Authentication error" .
432Attempted to use an invalid authentication ticket to mount a
433.Tn NFS
434file system.
435.It Er 81 ENEEDAUTH Em "Need authenticator" .
436An authentication ticket must be obtained before the given
437.Tn NFS
438file system may be mounted.
439.It Er 82 EIDRM Em "Identifier removed" .
440An IPC identifier was removed while the current process was waiting on it.
441.It Er 83 ENOMSG Em "No message of desired type" .
442An IPC message queue does not contain a message of the desired type, or a
443message catalog does not contain the requested message.
444.It Er 84 EOVERFLOW Em "Value too large to be stored in data type" .
445A numerical result of the function was too large to be stored in the caller
446provided space.
447.It Er 85 ECANCELED Em "Operation canceled" .
448The scheduled operation was canceled.
449.It Er 86 EILSEQ Em "Illegal byte sequence" .
450While decoding a multibyte character the function came along an
451invalid or an incomplete sequence of bytes or the given wide
452character is invalid.
453.It Er 87 ENOATTR Em "Attribute not found" .
454The specified extended attribute does not exist.
455.It Er 88 EDOOFUS Em "Programming error" .
456A function or API is being abused in a way which could only be detected
457at run-time.
458.It Er 89 EBADMSG Em "Bad message" .
459A corrupted message was detected.
460.It Er 90 EMULTIHOP Em "Multihop attempted" .
461This error code is unused, but present for compatibility with other systems.
462.It Er 91 ENOLINK Em "Link has been severed" .
463This error code is unused, but present for compatibility with other systems.
464.It Er 92 EPROTO Em "Protocol error" .
465A device or socket encountered an unrecoverable protocol error.
466.It Er 93 ENOTCAPABLE Em "Capabilities insufficient" .
467An operation on a capability file descriptor requires greater privilege than
468the capability allows.
469.It Er 94 ECAPMODE Em "Not permitted in capability mode" .
470The system call or operation is not permitted for capability mode processes.
471.It Er 95 ENOTRECOVERABLE Em "State not recoverable" .
472The state protected by a robust mutex is not recoverable.
473.It Er 96 EOWNERDEAD Em "Previous owner died" .
474The owner of a robust mutex terminated while holding the mutex lock.
475.El
476.Sh DEFINITIONS
477.Bl -tag -width Ds
478.It Process ID .
479Each active process in the system is uniquely identified by a non-negative
480integer called a process ID.
481The range of this ID is from 0 to 99999.
482.It Parent process ID
483A new process is created by a currently active process (see
484.Xr fork 2 ) .
485The parent process ID of a process is initially the process ID of its creator.
486If the creating process exits,
487the parent process ID of each child is set to the ID of a system process,
488.Xr init 8 .
489.It Process Group
490Each active process is a member of a process group that is identified by
491a non-negative integer called the process group ID.
492This is the process
493ID of the group leader.
494This grouping permits the signaling of related
495processes (see
496.Xr termios 4 )
497and the job control mechanisms of
498.Xr csh 1 .
499.It Session
500A session is a set of one or more process groups.
501A session is created by a successful call to
502.Xr setsid 2 ,
503which causes the caller to become the only member of the only process
504group in the new session.
505.It Session leader
506A process that has created a new session by a successful call to
507.Xr setsid 2 ,
508is known as a session leader.
509Only a session leader may acquire a terminal as its controlling terminal (see
510.Xr termios 4 ) .
511.It Controlling process
512A session leader with a controlling terminal is a controlling process.
513.It Controlling terminal
514A terminal that is associated with a session is known as the controlling
515terminal for that session and its members.
516.It "Terminal Process Group ID"
517A terminal may be acquired by a session leader as its controlling terminal.
518Once a terminal is associated with a session, any of the process groups
519within the session may be placed into the foreground by setting
520the terminal process group ID to the ID of the process group.
521This facility is used
522to arbitrate between multiple jobs contending for the same terminal;
523(see
524.Xr csh 1
525and
526.Xr tty 4 ) .
527.It "Orphaned Process Group"
528A process group is considered to be
529.Em orphaned
530if it is not under the control of a job control shell.
531More precisely, a process group is orphaned
532when none of its members has a parent process that is in the same session
533as the group,
534but is in a different process group.
535Note that when a process exits, the parent process for its children
536is changed to be
537.Xr init 8 ,
538which is in a separate session.
539Not all members of an orphaned process group are necessarily orphaned
540processes (those whose creating process has exited).
541The process group of a session leader is orphaned by definition.
542.It "Real User ID and Real Group ID"
543Each user on the system is identified by a positive integer
544termed the real user ID.
545.Pp
546Each user is also a member of one or more groups.
547One of these groups is distinguished from others and
548used in implementing accounting facilities.
549The positive
550integer corresponding to this distinguished group is termed
551the real group ID.
552.Pp
553All processes have a real user ID and real group ID.
554These are initialized from the equivalent attributes
555of the process that created it.
556.It "Effective User Id, Effective Group Id, and Group Access List"
557Access to system resources is governed by two values:
558the effective user ID, and the group access list.
559The first member of the group access list is also known as the
560effective group ID.
561(In POSIX.1, the group access list is known as the set of supplementary
562group IDs, and it is unspecified whether the effective group ID is
563a member of the list.)
564.Pp
565The effective user ID and effective group ID are initially the
566process's real user ID and real group ID respectively.
567Either
568may be modified through execution of a set-user-ID or set-group-ID
569file (possibly by one its ancestors) (see
570.Xr execve 2 ) .
571By convention, the effective group ID (the first member of the group access
572list) is duplicated, so that the execution of a set-group-ID program
573does not result in the loss of the original (real) group ID.
574.Pp
575The group access list is a set of group IDs
576used only in determining resource accessibility.
577Access checks
578are performed as described below in ``File Access Permissions''.
579.It "Saved Set User ID and Saved Set Group ID"
580When a process executes a new file, the effective user ID is set
581to the owner of the file if the file is set-user-ID, and the effective
582group ID (first element of the group access list) is set to the group
583of the file if the file is set-group-ID.
584The effective user ID of the process is then recorded as the saved set-user-ID,
585and the effective group ID of the process is recorded as the saved set-group-ID.
586These values may be used to regain those values as the effective user
587or group ID after reverting to the real ID (see
588.Xr setuid 2 ) .
589(In POSIX.1, the saved set-user-ID and saved set-group-ID are optional,
590and are used in setuid and setgid, but this does not work as desired
591for the super-user.)
592.It Super-user
593A process is recognized as a
594.Em super-user
595process and is granted special privileges if its effective user ID is 0.
596.It Descriptor
597An integer assigned by the system when a file is referenced
598by
599.Xr open 2
600or
601.Xr dup 2 ,
602or when a socket is created by
603.Xr pipe 2 ,
604.Xr socket 2
605or
606.Xr socketpair 2 ,
607which uniquely identifies an access path to that file or socket from
608a given process or any of its children.
609.It File Name
610Names consisting of up to
611.Brq Dv NAME_MAX
612characters may be used to name
613an ordinary file, special file, or directory.
614.Pp
615These characters may be arbitrary eight-bit values,
616excluding
617.Dv NUL
618.Tn ( ASCII
6190) and the
620.Ql \&/
621character (slash,
622.Tn ASCII
62347).
624.Pp
625Note that it is generally unwise to use
626.Ql \&* ,
627.Ql \&? ,
628.Ql \&[
629or
630.Ql \&]
631as part of
632file names because of the special meaning attached to these characters
633by the shell.
634.It Path Name
635A path name is a
636.Dv NUL Ns -terminated
637character string starting with an
638optional slash
639.Ql \&/ ,
640followed by zero or more directory names separated
641by slashes, optionally followed by a file name.
642The total length of a path name must be less than
643.Brq Dv PATH_MAX
644characters.
645(On some systems, this limit may be infinite.)
646.Pp
647If a path name begins with a slash, the path search begins at the
648.Em root
649directory.
650Otherwise, the search begins from the current working directory.
651A slash by itself names the root directory.
652An empty
653pathname refers to the current directory.
654.It Directory
655A directory is a special type of file that contains entries
656that are references to other files.
657Directory entries are called links.
658By convention, a directory
659contains at least two links,
660.Ql .\&
661and
662.Ql \&.. ,
663referred to as
664.Em dot
665and
666.Em dot-dot
667respectively.
668Dot refers to the directory itself and
669dot-dot refers to its parent directory.
670.It "Root Directory and Current Working Directory"
671Each process has associated with it a concept of a root directory
672and a current working directory for the purpose of resolving path
673name searches.
674A process's root directory need not be the root
675directory of the root file system.
676.It File Access Permissions
677Every file in the file system has a set of access permissions.
678These permissions are used in determining whether a process
679may perform a requested operation on the file (such as opening
680a file for writing).
681Access permissions are established at the
682time a file is created.
683They may be changed at some later time
684through the
685.Xr chmod 2
686call.
687.Pp
688File access is broken down according to whether a file may be: read,
689written, or executed.
690Directory files use the execute
691permission to control if the directory may be searched.
692.Pp
693File access permissions are interpreted by the system as
694they apply to three different classes of users: the owner
695of the file, those users in the file's group, anyone else.
696Every file has an independent set of access permissions for
697each of these classes.
698When an access check is made, the system
699decides if permission should be granted by checking the access
700information applicable to the caller.
701.Pp
702Read, write, and execute/search permissions on
703a file are granted to a process if:
704.Pp
705The process's effective user ID is that of the super-user.
706(Note:
707even the super-user cannot execute a non-executable file.)
708.Pp
709The process's effective user ID matches the user ID of the owner
710of the file and the owner permissions allow the access.
711.Pp
712The process's effective user ID does not match the user ID of the
713owner of the file, and either the process's effective
714group ID matches the group ID
715of the file, or the group ID of the file is in
716the process's group access list,
717and the group permissions allow the access.
718.Pp
719Neither the effective user ID nor effective group ID
720and group access list of the process
721match the corresponding user ID and group ID of the file,
722but the permissions for ``other users'' allow access.
723.Pp
724Otherwise, permission is denied.
725.It Sockets and Address Families
726A socket is an endpoint for communication between processes.
727Each socket has queues for sending and receiving data.
728.Pp
729Sockets are typed according to their communications properties.
730These properties include whether messages sent and received
731at a socket require the name of the partner, whether communication
732is reliable, the format used in naming message recipients, etc.
733.Pp
734Each instance of the system supports some
735collection of socket types; consult
736.Xr socket 2
737for more information about the types available and
738their properties.
739.Pp
740Each instance of the system supports some number of sets of
741communications protocols.
742Each protocol set supports addresses
743of a certain format.
744An Address Family is the set of addresses
745for a specific group of protocols.
746Each socket has an address
747chosen from the address family in which the socket was created.
748.El
749.Sh SEE ALSO
750.Xr intro 3 ,
751.Xr perror 3
752