LISTEN(2) Linux Programmer's Manual LISTEN(2)
NAME
listen - listen for connections on a socket
SYNOPSIS
#include<sys/socket.h>
intlisten(int s,int backlog);
DESCRIPTION
To accept connections, a socket is first created with socket(2), a
willingness to accept incoming connections and a queue limit for incom-
ing connections are specified with listen, and then the connections are
accepted with accept(2). The listen call applies only to sockets of
type SOCK_STREAM or SOCK_SEQPACKET.
The backlog parameter defines the maximum length the queue of pending
connections may grow to. If a connection request arrives with the
queue full the client may receive an error with an indication of ECON-
NREFUSED or, if the underlying protocol supports retransmission, the
request may be ignored so that retries succeed.
NOTES
The behaviour of the backlog parameter on TCP sockets changed with
Linux 2.2. Now it specifies the queue length for completely estab-
lished sockets waiting to be accepted, instead of the number of incom-
plete connection requests. The maximum length of the queue for incom-
plete sockets can be set using the tcp_max_syn_backlog sysctl. When
syncookies are enabled there is no logical maximum length and this
sysctl setting is ignored. See tcp(7) for more information.
RETURNVALUE
On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is
set appropriately.
ERRORS
EADDRINUSE
Another socket is already listening on the same port.
EBADF The argument s is not a valid descriptor.
ENOTSOCK
The argument s is not a socket.
EOPNOTSUPP
The socket is not of a type that supports the listen operation.
CONFORMINGTO
Single Unix, 4.4BSD, POSIX 1003.1g draft. The listen function call
first appeared in 4.2BSD.
BUGS
If the socket is of type AF_INET, and the backlog argument is greater
than the constant SOMAXCONN (128 in Linux 2.0 & 2.2), it is silently
truncated to SOMAXCONN. Don't rely on this value in portable applica-
tions since BSD (and some BSD-derived systems) limit the backlog to 5.
SEEALSO
accept(2), connect(2), socket(2)
BSD Man Page 1993-07-23 LISTEN(2)
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