CONNECT(3SOCKET)

Sockets Library Functions

CONNECT(3SOCKET)

NAME

connect - initiate a connection on a socket

SYNOPSIS

cc [ flag ... ] file ... -lsocket -lnsl [ library ... ]
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>

int connect(int s, const struct sockaddr *name, int namelen);

DESCRIPTION

The parameter s is a socket. If it is of type SOCK_DGRAM, connect() specifies the peer with which the socket is to be associated. This address is the address to which datagrams are to be sent if a receiver is not explicitly designated. This address is the only address from which datagrams are to be received. If the socket s is of type SOCK_STREAM, connect() attempts to make a connection to another socket. The other socket is specified by name. name is an address in the communication space of the socket. Each communication space interprets the name parameter in its own way. If s is not bound, then s will be bound to an address selected by the underlying transport provider. Generally, stream sockets can successfully connect() only once. Datagram sockets can use connect() multiple times to change their association. Datagram sockets can dissolve the association by connecting to a null address.

Non-blocking Sockets

When a socket is created, it is by default a blocking socket. A socket may be configured to be non-blocking either at socket creation time or through the use of fcntl(2). When a socket is set to be non-blocking, a call to connect initiates an asynchronous connection. If the connection cannot be completed without blocking, such as when making a TCP connection to a remote server, then the connection attempt is made in the background and connect returns -1 and errno is set to EINPROGRESS.

Applications can obtain the state of this connection attempt by polling the socket's file descriptor for POLLOUT. The event ports facility is the preferred means of polling on the file descriptor, see port_create(3C) and port_get(3C) for more information on event ports; however, applications may also use traditional portable routines like poll(2) and select(3C).

When an asynchronous connection has completed, the application must call getsockopt(3SOCKET) using the macro SOL_SOCKET as the level argument and the macro SO_ERROR as the value of the option argument. If the value of the SO_ERROR socket option is zero, then the connect was successfully established. Otherwise, the connection could not be established and the value is the corresponding error code that would be commonly found in errno.

Even when a socket is in non-blocking mode, a call to connect may fail synchronously. If any error other EINPROGRESS or EINTR occurs, then there is no need for the application to poll for asynchronous completion. Similarly, if a call to connect returns successfully, then the socket connection will be established and there is no need to poll for completion.

EXAMPLES

Example 1 Performing an asynchronous connection

The following sample C program shows how to create and connect to a remote host using TCP. The program should be compiled and linked against libnsl and libsocket. For example, if the contents of this example where in a file called example.c, one would run cc example.c -lnsl -lsocket.

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <arpa/inet.h>
#include <inttypes.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <strings.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <port.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <assert.h>

int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
char *eptr;
long port;
int sock, ret, eport;
struct sockaddr_in6 sin6;

if (argc != 3) {
fprintf(stderr, "connect: <IP> <port>\n");
return (1);
}

bzero(&sin6, sizeof (struct sockaddr_in6));
sin6.sin6_family = AF_INET6;

/*
* Try to parse as an IPv6 address and then try v4.
*/
ret = inet_pton(AF_INET6, argv[1], &sin6.sin6_addr);
if (ret == -1) {
perror("inet_pton");
return (1);
} else if (ret == 0) {
struct in_addr v4;
ret = inet_pton(AF_INET, argv[1], &v4);
if (ret == -1) {
perror("inet_pton");
return (1);
} else if (ret == 0) {
fprintf(stderr, "connect: %s is not a valid "
"IPv4 or IPv6 address\n", argv[1]);
return (1);
}
/* N.B. Not a portable macro */
IN6_INADDR_TO_V4MAPPED(&v4, &sin6.sin6_addr);
}

errno = 0;
port = strtol(argv[2], &eptr, 10);
if (errno != 0 || *eptr != '\0') {
fprintf(stderr, "failed to parse port %s\n", argv[2]);
return (1);
}
if (port <= 0 || port > UINT16_MAX) {
fprintf(stderr, "invalid port: %ld\n", port);
return (1);
}
sin6.sin6_port = htons(port);

sock = socket(AF_INET6, SOCK_STREAM | SOCK_NONBLOCK, 0);
if (sock < 0) {
perror("socket");
return (1);
}

eport = port_create();
if (eport < 0) {
perror("port_create");
(void) close(sock);
return (1);
}

ret = connect(sock, (struct sockaddr *)&sin6,
sizeof (struct sockaddr_in6));
if (ret != 0 && errno != EINPROGRESS && errno != EINTR) {
perror("connect");
(void) close(sock);
(void) close(eport);
return (1);
}

if (ret != 0) {
port_event_t pe;
int err;
socklen_t sz = sizeof (err);
if (port_associate(eport, PORT_SOURCE_FD, sock, POLLOUT,
NULL) != 0) {
perror("port_associate");
(void) close(sock);
(void) close(eport);
return (1);
}
if (port_get(eport, &pe, NULL) != 0) {
perror("port_get");
(void) close(sock);
(void) close(eport);
return (1);
}
assert(pe.portev_source == PORT_SOURCE_FD);
assert(pe.portev_object == (uintptr_t)sock);
if (getsockopt(sock, SOL_SOCKET, SO_ERROR, &err, &sz) != 0) {
perror("getsockopt");
(void) close(sock);
(void) close(eport);
return (1);
}
if (err != 0) {
/* Asynch connect failed */
fprintf(stderr, "asynchronous connect: %s\n",
strerror(err));
(void) close(sock);
(void) close(eport);
return (1);
}
}

/* Read and write to the socket and then clean up */

return (0);
}

RETURN VALUES

If the connection or binding succeeds, 0 is returned. Otherwise, −1 is returned and sets errno to indicate the error.

ERRORS

The call fails if:

EACCES

Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix of the pathname in name.

EADDRINUSE

The address is already in use.

EADDRNOTAVAIL

The specified address is not available on the remote machine.

EAFNOSUPPORT

Addresses in the specified address family cannot be used with this socket.

EALREADY

The socket is non-blocking, and a previous connection attempt has not yet been completed.

EBADF

s is not a valid descriptor.

ECONNREFUSED

The attempt to connect was forcefully rejected. The calling program should close(2) the socket descriptor, and issue another socket(3SOCKET) call to obtain a new descriptor before attempting another connect() call.

EINPROGRESS

The socket is non-blocking, and the connection cannot be completed immediately. See the section on Non-blocking Sockets for more information.

EINTR

The connection attempt was interrupted before any data arrived by the delivery of a signal. The connection, however, will be established asynchronously.

EINVAL

namelen is not the size of a valid address for the specified address family.

EIO

An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.

EISCONN

The socket is already connected.

ELOOP

Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname in name.

ENETUNREACH

The network is not reachable from this host.

EHOSTUNREACH

The remote host is not reachable from this host.

ENOENT

A component of the path prefix of the pathname in name does not exist.

ENOENT

The socket referred to by the pathname in name does not exist.

ENOSR

There were insufficient STREAMS resources available to complete the operation.

ENXIO

The server exited before the connection was complete.

ETIMEDOUT

Connection establishment timed out without establishing a connection.

EWOULDBLOCK

The socket is marked as non-blocking, and the requested operation would block.

The following errors are specific to connecting names in the UNIX domain. These errors might not apply in future versions of the UNIX IPC domain.

ENOTDIR

A component of the path prefix of the pathname in name is not a directory.

ENOTSOCK

s is not a socket.

ENOTSOCK

name is not a socket.

EPROTOTYPE

The file that is referred to by name is a socket of a type other than type s. For example, s is a SOCK_DGRAM socket, while name refers to a SOCK_STREAM socket.

ATTRIBUTES

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

ATTRIBUTE TYPE	ATTRIBUTE VALUE

MT-Level	Safe