xref: /netbsd-src/lib/libc/sys/intro.2 (revision 37b34d511dea595d3ba03a661cf3b775038ea5f8)
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34.\"     @(#)intro.2	8.5 (Berkeley) 2/27/95
35.\"
36.Dd March 14, 2000
37.Dt INTRO 2
38.Os
39.Sh NAME
40.Nm intro ,
41.Nm errno
42.Nd introduction to system calls and error numbers
43.Sh SYNOPSIS
44.Fd #include \*[Lt]errno.h\*[Gt]
45.Sh DESCRIPTION
46This section provides an overview of the system calls,
47their error returns, and other common definitions and concepts.
48.\".Pp
49.\".Sy System call restart
50.\".Pp
51.\"<more later...>
52.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
53Nearly all of the system calls provide an error number in the external
54variable
55.Va errno .
56.Va errno
57is implemented as a macro which expands to a modifiable lvalue of type
58.Fa int .
59.Pp
60When a system call detects an error,
61it returns an integer value
62indicating failure (usually -1)
63and sets the variable
64.Va errno
65accordingly.
66\*[Lt]This allows interpretation of the failure on receiving
67a -1 and to take action accordingly.\*[Gt]
68Successful calls never set
69.Va errno ;
70once set, it remains until another error occurs.
71It should only be examined after an error.
72Note that a number of system calls overload the meanings of these
73error numbers, and that the meanings must be interpreted according
74to the type and circumstances of the call.
75.Pp
76The manual page for each system call will list some of the common
77errno codes that system call can return, but that should not be
78considered an exhaustive list, i.e.
79a properly written program should be able to gracefully recover from
80any error that a system call might return.
81Documenting all the error codes that a system call can return in
82a more specification-like manner would take more resources than
83this project has available.
84.Pp
85The following is a complete list of the errors and their
86names as given in
87.Aq Pa errno.h .
88.Bl -hang -width Ds
89.It Er 0 Em "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 function 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 function 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 "\&No such device or address" .
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 "Arg list too long" .
122The number of bytes used for the argument and environment
123list of the new process exceeded the current limit of
124.if t 2\u\s-218\s+2\d
125.if n 2**18
126bytes
127.Pf ( Dv ARG_MAX
128in
129.Aq Pa sys/syslimits.h ) .
130.It Er 8 ENOEXEC Em "Exec format error" .
131A request was made to execute a file
132that, although it has the appropriate permissions,
133was not in the format required for an
134executable file.
135.It Er 9 EBADF Em "Bad file descriptor" .
136A file descriptor argument was out of range, referred to no open file,
137had been revoked by
138.Xr revoke 2 ,
139or a
140.Xr read 2
141(or
142.Xr write 2 )
143request was made to a file that was
144only open for writing (or reading).
145.It Er 10 ECHILD Em "\&No child processes" .
146A
147.Xr wait 2
148or
149.Xr waitpid 2
150function was executed by a process that had no existing or unwaited-for
151child processes.
152.It Er 11 EDEADLK Em "Resource deadlock avoided" .
153An attempt was made to lock a system resource that
154would have resulted in a deadlock situation.
155.It Er 12 ENOMEM Em "Cannot allocate memory" .
156The new process image required more memory than was allowed by the hardware
157or by system-imposed memory management constraints.
158A lack of swap space is normally temporary; however,
159a lack of core is not.
160Soft limits may be increased to their corresponding hard limits.
161.It Er 13 EACCES Em "Permission denied" .
162An attempt was made to access a file in a way forbidden
163by its file access permissions.
164.It Er 14 EFAULT Em "Bad address" .
165The system detected an invalid address in attempting to
166use an argument of a call.
167The reliable detection of this error cannot be guaranteed and when not detected
168may result in the generation of a signal, indicating an address violation,
169which is sent to the process.
170.It Er 15 ENOTBLK Em "Not a block device" .
171A block device operation was attempted on a non-block device or file.
172.It Er 16 EBUSY Em "Resource busy" .
173An attempt to use a system resource which was in use at the time
174in a manner which would have conflicted with the request.
175.It Er 17 EEXIST Em "File exists" .
176An existing file was mentioned in an inappropriate context,
177for instance, as the new link name in a
178.Xr link 2
179function.
180.It Er 18 EXDEV Em "Improper link" .
181A hard link to a file on another file system
182was attempted.
183.It Er 19 ENODEV Em "Operation not supported by device" .
184An attempt was made to apply an inappropriate
185function to a device,
186for example,
187trying to read a write-only device such as a printer.
188.It Er 20 ENOTDIR Em "Not a directory" .
189A component of the specified pathname existed, but it was
190not a directory, when a directory was expected.
191.It Er 21 EISDIR Em "Is a directory" .
192An attempt was made to open a directory with write mode specified.
193.It Er 22 EINVAL Em "Invalid argument" .
194Some invalid argument was supplied.
195(For example, specifying an undefined signal to a
196.Xr signal 3
197or
198.Xr kill 2
199function).
200.It Er 23 ENFILE Em "Too many open files in system" .
201Maximum number of file descriptors allowable on the system
202has been reached and a requests for an open cannot be satisfied
203until at least one has been closed.
204.It Er 24 EMFILE Em "Too many open files" .
205\*[Lt]As released, the limit on the number of
206open files per process is 64.\*[Gt]
207The
208.Xr getrlimit 2
209call with the
210.Ar RLIMIT_NOFILE
211resource will obtain the current limit.
212.It Er 25 ENOTTY Em "Inappropriate ioctl for device" .
213A control function (see
214.Xr ioctl 2 )
215was attempted for a file or
216special device for which the operation was inappropriate.
217.It Er 26 ETXTBSY Em "Text file busy" .
218The new process was a pure procedure (shared text) file
219which was open for writing by another process, or
220while the pure procedure file was being executed an
221.Xr open 2
222call requested write access.
223.It Er 27 EFBIG Em "File too large" .
224The size of a file exceeded the maximum.
225(The system-wide maximum file size is
226.if t 2\u\s-263\s+2\d
227.if n 2**63
228bytes.
229Each file system may impose a lower limit for files contained within it).
230.It Er 28 ENOSPC Em "Device out of space" .
231A
232.Xr write 2
233to an ordinary file, the creation of a
234directory or symbolic link, or the creation of a directory
235entry failed because no more disk blocks were available
236on the file system, or the allocation of an inode for a newly
237created file failed because no more inodes were available
238on the file system.
239.It Er 29 ESPIPE Em "Illegal seek" .
240An
241.Xr lseek 2
242function was issued on a socket, pipe or
243.Tn FIFO .
244.It Er 30 EROFS Em "Read-only file system" .
245An attempt was made to modify a file or directory
246was made
247on a file system that was read-only at the time.
248.It Er 31 EMLINK Em "Too many links" .
249The number of hard links to a single file has exceeded the maximum.
250(The system-wide maximum number of hard links is 32767.
251Each file system may impose a lower limit for files contained within it).
252.It Er 32 EPIPE Em "Broken pipe" .
253A write on a pipe, socket or
254.Tn FIFO
255for which there is no process
256to read the data.
257.It Er 33 EDOM Em "Numerical argument out of domain" .
258A numerical input argument was outside the defined domain of the mathematical
259function.
260.It Er 34 ERANGE Em "Numerical result out of range" .
261A numerical result of the function was too large to fit in the
262available space (perhaps exceeded precision).
263.It Er 35 EAGAIN Em "Resource temporarily unavailable" .
264This is a temporary condition and later calls to the
265same routine may complete normally.
266.It Er 36 EINPROGRESS Em "Operation now in progress" .
267An operation that takes a long time to complete (such as
268a
269.Xr connect 2 )
270was attempted on a non-blocking object (see
271.Xr fcntl 2 ) .
272.It Er 37 EALREADY Em "Operation already in progress" .
273An operation was attempted on a non-blocking object that already
274had an operation in progress.
275.It Er 38 ENOTSOCK Em "Socket operation on non-socket" .
276Self-explanatory.
277.It Er 39 EDESTADDRREQ Em "Destination address required" .
278A required address was omitted from an operation on a socket.
279.It Er 40 EMSGSIZE Em "Message too long" .
280A message sent on a socket was larger than the internal message buffer
281or some other network limit.
282.It Er 41 EPROTOTYPE Em "Protocol wrong type for socket" .
283A protocol was specified that does not support the semantics of the
284socket type requested.
285For example, you cannot use the
286.Tn ARPA
287Internet
288.Tn UDP
289protocol with type
290.Dv SOCK_STREAM .
291.It Er 42 ENOPROTOOPT Em "Protocol not available" .
292A bad option or level was specified in a
293.Xr getsockopt 2
294or
295.Xr setsockopt 2
296call.
297.It Er 43 EPROTONOSUPPORT Em "Protocol not supported" .
298The protocol has not been configured into the
299system or no implementation for it exists.
300.It Er 44 ESOCKTNOSUPPORT Em "Socket type not supported" .
301The support for the socket type has not been configured into the
302system or no implementation for it exists.
303.It Er 45 EOPNOTSUPP Em "Operation not supported" .
304The attempted operation is not supported for the type of object referenced.
305Usually this occurs when a file descriptor refers to a file or socket
306that cannot support this operation,
307for example, trying to
308.Em accept
309a connection on a datagram socket.
310.It Er 46 EPFNOSUPPORT Em "Protocol family not supported" .
311The protocol family has not been configured into the
312system or no implementation for it exists.
313.It Er 47 EAFNOSUPPORT Em "Address family not supported by protocol family" .
314An address incompatible with the requested protocol was used.
315For example, you shouldn't necessarily expect to be able to use
316.Tn NS
317addresses with
318.Tn ARPA
319Internet protocols.
320.It Er 48 EADDRINUSE Em "Address already in use" .
321Only one usage of each address is normally permitted.
322.It Er 49 EADDRNOTAVAIL Em "Cannot assign requested address" .
323Normally results from an attempt to create a socket with an
324address not on this machine.
325.It Er 50 ENETDOWN Em "Network is down" .
326A socket operation encountered a dead network.
327.It Er 51 ENETUNREACH Em "Network is unreachable" .
328A socket operation was attempted to an unreachable network.
329.It Er 52 ENETRESET Em "Network dropped connection on reset" .
330The host you were connected to crashed and rebooted.
331.It Er 53 ECONNABORTED Em "Software caused connection abort" .
332A connection abort was caused internal to your host machine.
333.It Er 54 ECONNRESET Em "Connection reset by peer" .
334A connection was forcibly closed by a peer.
335This normally results from a loss of the connection on the remote
336socket due to a timeout or a reboot.
337.It Er 55 ENOBUFS Em "\&No buffer space available" .
338An operation on a socket or pipe was not performed because
339the system lacked sufficient buffer space or because a queue was full.
340.It Er 56 EISCONN Em "Socket is already connected" .
341A
342.Xr connect 2
343request was made on an already connected socket; or,
344a
345.Xr sendto 2
346or
347.Xr sendmsg 2
348request on a connected socket specified a destination
349when already connected.
350.It Er 57 ENOTCONN Em "Socket is not connected" .
351An request to send or receive data was disallowed because
352the socket was not connected and (when sending on a datagram socket)
353no address was supplied.
354.It Er 58 ESHUTDOWN Em "Cannot send after socket shutdown" .
355A request to send data was disallowed because the socket
356had already been shut down with a previous
357.Xr shutdown 2
358call.
359.It Er 60 ETIMEDOUT Em "Operation timed out" .
360A
361.Xr connect 2
362or
363.Xr send 2
364request failed because the connected party did not
365properly respond after a period of time.
366(The timeout period is dependent on the communication protocol).
367.It Er 61 ECONNREFUSED Em "Connection refused" .
368No connection could be made because the target machine actively
369refused it.
370This usually results from trying to connect
371to a service that is inactive on the foreign host.
372.It Er 62 ELOOP Em "Too many levels of symbolic links" .
373A path name lookup involved more than 32
374.Pq Dv MAXSYMLINKS
375symbolic links.
376.It Er 63 ENAMETOOLONG Em "File name too long" .
377A component of a path name exceeded 255
378.Pq Dv MAXNAMELEN
379characters, or an entire
380path name exceeded 1023
381.Pq Dv MAXPATHLEN Ns -1
382characters.
383.It Er 64 EHOSTDOWN Em "Host is down" .
384A socket operation failed because the destination host was down.
385.It Er 65 EHOSTUNREACH Em "No route to host" .
386A socket operation was attempted to an unreachable host.
387.It Er 66 ENOTEMPTY Em "Directory not empty" .
388A directory with entries other than
389.Ql \&.
390and
391.Ql \&..
392was supplied to a remove directory or rename call.
393.It Er 67 EPROCLIM Em "Too many processes" .
394.It Er 68 EUSERS Em "Too many users" .
395The quota system ran out of table entries.
396.It Er 69 EDQUOT Em "Disc quota exceeded" .
397A
398.Xr write 2
399to an ordinary file, the creation of a
400directory or symbolic link, or the creation of a directory
401entry failed because the user's quota of disk blocks was
402exhausted, or the allocation of an inode for a newly
403created file failed because the user's quota of inodes
404was exhausted.
405.It Er 70 ESTALE Em "Stale NFS file handle" .
406An attempt was made to access an open file (on an
407.Tn NFS
408filesystem)
409which is now unavailable as referenced by the file descriptor.
410This may indicate the file was deleted on the
411.Tn NFS
412server or some other catastrophic event occurred.
413.It Er 72 EBADRPC Em "RPC struct is bad" .
414Exchange of
415.Tn RPC
416information was unsuccessful.
417.It Er 73 ERPCMISMATCH Em "RPC version wrong" .
418The version of
419.Tn RPC
420on the remote peer is not compatible with
421the local version.
422.It Er 74 EPROGUNAVAIL Em "RPC prog. not avail" .
423The requested program is not registered on the remote host.
424.It Er 75 EPROGMISMATCH Em "Program version wrong" .
425The requested version of the program is not available
426on the remote host
427.Pq Tn RPC .
428.It Er 76 EPROCUNAVAIL Em "Bad procedure for program" .
429An
430.Tn RPC
431call was attempted for a procedure which doesn't exist
432in the remote program.
433.It Er 77 ENOLCK Em "No locks available" .
434A system-imposed limit on the number of simultaneous file
435locks was reached.
436.It Er 78 ENOSYS Em "Function not implemented" .
437Attempted a system call that is not available on this
438system.
439.It Er 79 EFTYPE Em "Inappropriate file type or format" .
440Attempted a file operation on a file of a type for which it was invalid.
441.It Er 80 EAUTH Em "Authentication error" .
442Attempted to use an invalid authentication ticket to mount an
443.Tn NFS
444filesystem.
445.It Er 81 ENEEDAUTH Em "Need authenticator" .
446An authentication ticket must be obtained before the given
447.Tn NFS
448filesystem may be mounted.
449.It Er 82 EIDRM Em "Identifier removed" .
450An IPC identifier was removed while the current process was waiting on it.
451.It Er 83 ENOMSG Em "No message of the desired type" .
452An IPC message queue does not contain a message of the desired type,
453or a message catalog does not contain the requested message.
454.It Er 84 EOVERFLOW Em "Value too large to be stored in data type" .
455A numerical result of the function was too large to be stored in the
456caller-provided space.
457.It Er 85 EILSEQ Em "Illegal byte sequence" .
458A wide character/multibyte character encoding error occurred.
459.El
460.Sh DEFINITIONS
461.Bl -tag -width Ds
462.It  Process ID .
463Each active process in the system is uniquely identified by a non-negative
464integer called a process ID.
465The range of this ID is from 0 to 30000.
466.It  Parent process ID
467A new process is created by a currently active process; (see
468.Xr fork 2 ) .
469The parent process ID of a process is initially the process ID of its creator.
470If the creating process exits,
471the parent process ID of each child is set to the ID of a system process,
472.Xr init 8 .
473.It  Process Group
474Each active process is a member of a process group that is identified by
475a non-negative integer called the process group ID.
476This is the process ID of the group leader.
477This grouping permits the signaling of related processes (see
478.Xr termios 4 )
479and the job control mechanisms of
480.Xr csh 1 .
481.It Session
482A session is a set of one or more process groups.
483A session is created by a successful call to
484.Xr setsid 2 ,
485which causes the caller to become the only member of the only process
486group in the new session.
487.It Session leader
488A process that has created a new session by a successful call to
489.Xr setsid 2 ,
490is known as a session leader.
491Only a session leader may acquire a terminal as its controlling terminal (see
492.Xr termios 4 ) .
493.It Controlling process
494A session leader with a controlling terminal is a controlling process.
495.It Controlling terminal
496A terminal that is associated with a session is known as the controlling
497terminal for that session and its members.
498.It  "Terminal Process Group ID"
499A terminal may be acquired by a session leader as its controlling terminal.
500Once a terminal is associated with a session, any of the process groups
501within the session may be placed into the foreground by setting
502the terminal process group ID to the ID of the process group.
503This facility is used
504to arbitrate between multiple jobs contending for the same terminal.
505(See
506.Xr csh 1
507and
508.Xr tty 4
509for more information on job control.)
510.It  "Orphaned Process Group"
511A process group is considered to be
512.Em orphaned
513if it is not under the control of a job control shell.
514More precisely, a process group is orphaned
515when none of its members has a parent process that is in the same session
516as the group,
517but is in a different process group.
518Note that when a process exits, the parent process for its children
519is changed to be
520.Xr init 8 ,
521which is in a separate session.
522Not all members of an orphaned process group are necessarily orphaned
523processes (those whose creating process has exited).
524The process group of a session leader is orphaned by definition.
525.It "Real User ID and Real Group ID"
526Each user on the system is identified by a positive integer
527termed the real user ID.
528.Pp
529Each user is also a member of one or more groups.
530One of these groups is distinguished from others and
531used in implementing accounting facilities.
532The positive integer corresponding to this distinguished group is
533termed the real group ID.
534.Pp
535All processes have a real user ID and real group ID.
536These are initialized from the equivalent attributes
537of the process that created it.
538.It "Effective User Id, Effective Group Id, and Group Access List"
539Access to system resources is governed by two values:
540the effective user ID, and the group access list.
541The first member of the group access list is also known as the
542effective group ID.
543(In POSIX.1, the group access list is known as the set of supplementary
544group IDs, and it is unspecified whether the effective group ID is
545a member of the list.)
546.Pp
547The effective user ID and effective group ID are initially the
548process's real user ID and real group ID respectively.
549Either may be modified through execution of a set-user-ID or
550set-group-ID file (possibly by one its ancestors) (see
551.Xr execve 2 ) .
552By convention, the effective group ID (the first member of the group access
553list) is duplicated, so that the execution of a set-group-ID program
554does not result in the loss of the original (real) group ID.
555.Pp
556The group access list is a set of group IDs
557used only in determining resource accessibility.
558Access checks are performed as described below in
559.Qq File Access Permissions .
560.It  "Saved Set User ID and Saved Set Group ID"
561When a process executes a new file, the effective user ID is set
562to the owner of the file if the file is set-user-ID, and the effective
563group ID (first element of the group access list) is set to the group
564of the file if the file is set-group-ID.
565The effective user ID of the process is then recorded as the saved set-user-ID,
566and the effective group ID of the process is recorded as the saved set-group-ID.
567These values may be used to regain those values as the effective user
568or group ID after reverting to the real ID (see
569.Xr setuid 2 ) .
570(In POSIX.1, the saved set-user-ID and saved set-group-ID are optional,
571and are used in setuid and setgid, but this does not work as desired
572for the super-user.)
573.It  Super-user
574A process is recognized as a
575.Em super-user
576process and is granted special privileges if its effective user ID is 0.
577.It  Special Processes
578The processes with process IDs of 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 are special.
579Process 0 is the scheduler.
580Process 1 is the initialization process
581.Xr init 8 ,
582and is the ancestor (parent) of every other process in the system.
583It is used to control the process structure.
584Process 2 is the paging daemon.
585Process 3 is the
586.Sy reaper ,
587which handles deallocating resources for exiting processes.
588Process 4 is
589.Sy ioflush ,
590which replaces the old
591.Sy update
592program that periodically flushes the disk buffer cache.
593.It  Descriptor
594An integer assigned by the system when a file is referenced
595by
596.Xr open 2
597or
598.Xr dup 2 ,
599or when a socket is created by
600.Xr pipe 2 ,
601.Xr socket 2 ,
602or
603.Xr socketpair 2 ,
604which uniquely identifies an access path to that file or socket from
605a given process or any of its children.
606.It  File Name
607Names consisting of up to 255
608.Pq Dv MAXNAMELEN
609characters may be used to name
610an ordinary file, special file, or directory.
611.Pp
612These characters may be selected from the set of all
613.Tn ASCII
614character
615excluding 0 (NUL) and the
616.Tn ASCII
617code for
618.Ql \&/
619(slash).
620(The parity bit, bit 7, must be 0).
621.Pp
622Note that it is generally unwise to use
623.Ql \&* ,
624.Ql \&? ,
625.Ql \&[
626or
627.Ql \&]
628as part of
629file names because of the special meaning attached to these characters
630by the shell.
631.It  Path Name
632A path name is a
633.Tn NUL Ns -terminated
634character string starting with an
635optional slash
636.Ql \&/ ,
637followed by zero or more directory names separated
638by slashes, optionally followed by a file name.
639The total length of a path name must be less than 1024
640.Pq Dv MAXPATHLEN
641characters.
642.Pp
643If a path name begins with a slash, the path search begins at the
644.Em root
645directory.
646Otherwise, the search begins from the current working directory.
647A slash by itself names the root directory.
648An empty pathname refers to the current directory.
649.It  Directory
650A directory is a special type of file that contains entries
651that are references to other files.
652Directory entries are called links.
653By convention, a directory contains at least two links,
654.Ql \&.
655and
656.Ql \&.. ,
657referred to as
658.Em dot
659and
660.Em dot-dot
661respectively.
662Dot refers to the directory itself and dot-dot refers to its parent directory.
663.It "Root Directory and Current Working Directory"
664Each process has associated with it a concept of a root directory
665and a current working directory for the purpose of resolving path
666name searches.
667A process's root directory need not be the root
668directory of the root file system.
669.It  File Access Permissions
670Every file in the file system has a set of access permissions.
671These permissions are used in determining whether a process
672may perform a requested operation on the file (such as opening
673a file for writing).
674Access permissions are established at the time a file is created.
675They may be changed at some later time through the
676.Xr chmod 2
677call.
678.Pp
679File access is broken down according to whether a file may be: read,
680written, or executed.
681Directory files use the execute permission to control if the
682directory may be searched.
683.Pp
684File access permissions are interpreted by the system as
685they apply to three different classes of users: the owner
686of the file, those users in the file's group, anyone else.
687Every file has an independent set of access permissions for
688each of these classes.
689When an access check is made, the system decides if permission should be
690granted by checking the access information applicable to the caller.
691.Pp
692Read, write, and execute/search permissions on
693a file are granted to a process if:
694.Pp
695The process's effective user ID is that of the super-user.
696(Note: even the super-user cannot execute a non-executable file).
697.Pp
698The process's effective user ID matches the user ID of the owner
699of the file and the owner permissions allow the access.
700.Pp
701The process's effective user ID does not match the user ID of the
702owner of the file, and either the process's effective
703group ID matches the group ID
704of the file, or the group ID of the file is in
705the process's group access list,
706and the group permissions allow the access.
707.Pp
708Neither the effective user ID nor effective group ID
709and group access list of the process
710match the corresponding user ID and group ID of the file,
711but the permissions for ``other users'' allow access.
712.Pp
713Otherwise, permission is denied.
714.It  Sockets and Address Families
715A socket is an endpoint for communication between processes.
716Each socket has queues for sending and receiving data.
717.Pp
718Sockets are typed according to their communications properties.
719These properties include whether messages sent and received
720at a socket require the name of the partner, whether communication
721is reliable, the format used in naming message recipients, etc.
722.Pp
723Each instance of the system supports some
724collection of socket types; consult
725.Xr socket 2
726for more information about the types available and
727their properties.
728.Pp
729Each instance of the system supports some number of sets of
730communications protocols.
731Each protocol set supports addresses of a certain format.
732An Address Family is the set of addresses for a specific group of protocols.
733Each socket has an address
734chosen from the address family in which the socket was created.
735.El
736.Sh SEE ALSO
737.Xr intro 3 ,
738.Xr perror 3
739.Sh HISTORY
740An
741.Nm intro
742manual page appeared in
743.At v6 .
744