inet(7P) Protocols inet(7P)NAMEinet - Internet protocol family
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
DESCRIPTION
The Internet protocol family implements a collection of protocols which
are centered around the Internet Protocol ("IP") and which share a com‐
mon address format. The Internet family protocols can be accessed using
the socket interface, where they support the SOCK_STREAM, SOCK_DGRAM,
and SOCK_RAW socket types, or the Transport Level Interface (TLI),
where they support the connectionless (T_CLTS) and connection oriented
(T_COTS_ORD) service types.
PROTOCOLS
The Internet protocol family is comprised of the Internet Protocol
("IP"), the Address Resolution Protocol ("ARP"), the Internet Control
Message Protocol ("ICMP"), the Transmission Control Protocol ("TCP"),
and the User Datagram Protocol ("UDP").
TCP supports the socket interface's SOCK_STREAM abstraction and TLI's
T_COTS_ORD service type. UDP supports the SOCK_DGRAM socket abstraction
and the TLI T_CLTS service type. See tcp(7P) and udp(7P). A direct
interface to IP is available using both TLI and the socket interface
(see ip(7P)). ICMP is used by the kernel to handle and report errors in
protocol processing. It is also accessible to user programs (see
icmp(7P)). ARP is used to translate 32-bit IP addresses into 48-bit
Ethernet addresses. See arp(7P).
The 32-bit IP address is divided into network number and host number
parts. It is frequency-encoded. The most-significant bit is zero in
Class A addresses, in which the high-order 8 bits represent the network
number. Class B addresses have their high order two bits set to 10 and
use the high-order 16 bits as the network number field. Class C
addresses have a 24-bit network number part of which the high order
three bits are 110. Sites with a cluster of IP networks may chose to
use a single network number for the cluster; this is done by using sub‐
net addressing. The host number portion of the address is further sub‐
divided into subnet number and host number parts. Within a subnet, each
subnet appears to be an individual network. Externally, the entire
cluster appears to be a single, uniform network requiring only a single
routing entry. Subnet addressing is enabled and examined by the follow‐
ing ioctl(2) commands. They have the same form as the SIOCSIFADDR com‐
mand.
SIOCSIFNETMASK Set interface network mask. The network mask
defines the network part of the address; if it
contains more of the address than the address
type would indicate, then subnets are in use.
SIOCGIFNETMASK Get interface network mask.
ADDRESSING
IP addresses are four byte quantities, stored in network byte order. IP
addresses should be manipulated using the byte order conversion rou‐
tines. See byteorder(3SOCKET).
Addresses in the Internet protocol family use the sockaddr_in struc‐
ture, which has that following members:
short sin_family;
ushort_t sin_port;
struct in_addr sin_addr;
char sin_zero[8];
Library routines are provided to manipulate structures of this form;
See inet(3SOCKET).
The sin_addr field of the sockaddr_in structure specifies a local or
remote IP address. Each network interface has its own unique IP
address. The special value INADDR_ANY may be used in this field to
effect "wildcard" matching. Given in a bind(3SOCKET) call, this value
leaves the local IP address of the socket unspecified, so that the
socket will receive connections or messages directed at any of the
valid IP addresses of the system. This can prove useful when a process
neither knows nor cares what the local IP address is or when a process
wishes to receive requests using all of its network interfaces. The
sockaddr_in structure given in the bind(3SOCKET) call must specify an
in_addr value of either INADDR_ANY or one of the system's valid IP
addresses. Requests to bind any other address will elicit the error
EADDRNOTAVAIL. When a connect(3SOCKET) call is made for a socket that
has a wildcard local address, the system sets the sin_addr field of the
socket to the IP address of the network interface that the packets for
that connection are routed through.
The sin_port field of the sockaddr_in structure specifies a port number
used by TCP or UDP. The local port address specified in a bind(3SOCKET)
call is restricted to be greater than IPPORT_RESERVED (defined in
<<netinet/in.h>>) unless the creating process is running as the supe‐
ruser, providing a space of protected port numbers. In addition, the
local port address must not be in use by any socket of same address
family and type. Requests to bind sockets to port numbers being used by
other sockets return the error EADDRINUSE. If the local port address is
specified as 0, then the system picks a unique port address greater
than IPPORT_RESERVED. A unique local port address is also picked when a
socket which is not bound is used in a connect(3SOCKET) or sendto (see
send(3SOCKET)) call. This allows programs which do not care which local
port number is used to set up TCP connections by simply calling
socket(3SOCKET) and then connect(3SOCKET), and to send UDP datagrams
with a socket(3SOCKET) call followed by a sendto() call.
Although this implementation restricts sockets to unique local port
numbers, TCP allows multiple simultaneous connections involving the
same local port number so long as the remote IP addresses or port num‐
bers are different for each connection. Programs may explicitly over‐
ride the socket restriction by setting the SO_REUSEADDR socket option
with setsockopt (see getsockopt(3SOCKET)).
TLI applies somewhat different semantics to the binding of local port
numbers. These semantics apply when Internet family protocols are used
using the TLI.
SEE ALSOioctl(2), bind(3SOCKET), byteorder(3SOCKET), connect(3SOCKET), gethost‐
byname(3NSL), getnetbyname(3SOCKET), getprotobyname(3SOCKET), get‐
servbyname(3SOCKET), getsockopt(3SOCKET), send(3SOCKET),
socket(3SOCKET), arp(7P), icmp(7P), ip(7P), tcp(7P), udp(7P)
Network Information Center, DDN Protocol Handbook (3 vols.), Network
Information Center, SRI International, Menlo Park, Calif., 1985.
NOTES
The Internet protocol support is subject to change as the Internet pro‐
tocols develop. Users should not depend on details of the current
implementation, but rather the services exported.
SunOS 5.10 3 Aug 2000 inet(7P)
