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RECV(2)			   Linux Programmer's Manual		       RECV(2)

NAME
       recv, recvfrom, recvmsg - receive a message from a socket

SYNOPSIS
       #include <sys/types.h>
       #include <sys/socket.h>

       ssize_t recv(int sockfd, void *buf, size_t len, int flags);

       ssize_t recvfrom(int sockfd, void *buf, size_t len, int flags,
			struct sockaddr *src_addr, socklen_t *addrlen);

       ssize_t recvmsg(int sockfd, struct msghdr *msg, int flags);

DESCRIPTION
       The  recvfrom() and recvmsg() calls are used to receive messages from a
       socket, and may be used to receive data on a socket whether or  not  it
       is connection-oriented.

       If  src_addr  is	 not  NULL,  and  the underlying protocol provides the
       source address, this source address is filled  in.   When  src_addr  is
       NULL,  nothing  is  filled  in;	in this case, addrlen is not used, and
       should also be NULL.  The argument addrlen is a value-result  argument,
       which  the  caller should initialize before the call to the size of the
       buffer associated with src_addr, and modified on return to indicate the
       actual  size  of the source address.  The returned address is truncated
       if the buffer provided is too small; in this case, addrlen will	return
       a value greater than was supplied to the call.

       The  recv()  call is normally used only on a connected socket (see con‐
       nect(2)) and is identical to recvfrom() with a NULL src_addr argument.

       All three routines return the length of the message on successful  com‐
       pletion.	  If  a	 message  is  too  long to fit in the supplied buffer,
       excess bytes may be discarded depending on the type of socket the  mes‐
       sage is received from.

       If  no messages are available at the socket, the receive calls wait for
       a message to arrive, unless the socket is nonblocking  (see  fcntl(2)),
       in  which case the value -1 is returned and the external variable errno
       is set to EAGAIN or EWOULDBLOCK.	 The receive calls normally return any
       data  available,	 up  to	 the requested amount, rather than waiting for
       receipt of the full amount requested.

       The select(2) or poll(2) call may be used to determine when  more  data
       arrives.

       The  flags argument to a recv() call is formed by OR'ing one or more of
       the following values:

       MSG_CMSG_CLOEXEC (recvmsg() only; since Linux 2.6.23)
	      Set the close-on-exec flag for the file descriptor received  via
	      a	 Unix  domain  file  descriptor using the SCM_RIGHTS operation
	      (described in unix(7)).  This flag is useful for the  same  rea‐
	      sons as the O_CLOEXEC flag of open(2).

       MSG_DONTWAIT (since Linux 2.2)
	      Enables nonblocking operation; if the operation would block, the
	      call fails with the error EAGAIN or EWOULDBLOCK (this  can  also
	      be enabled using the O_NONBLOCK flag with the F_SETFL fcntl(2)).

       MSG_ERRQUEUE (since Linux 2.2)
	      This  flag  specifies that queued errors should be received from
	      the socket error queue.  The error is  passed  in	 an  ancillary
	      message  with  a	type  dependent	 on  the  protocol  (for  IPv4
	      IP_RECVERR).  The user should  supply  a	buffer	of  sufficient
	      size.   See cmsg(3) and ip(7) for more information.  The payload
	      of the original packet that caused the error is passed as normal
	      data  via	 msg_iovec.   The  original destination address of the
	      datagram that caused the error is supplied via msg_name.

	      For local errors, no address is passed (this can be checked with
	      the  cmsg_len  member  of the cmsghdr).  For error receives, the
	      MSG_ERRQUEUE is set in the msghdr.   After  an  error  has  been
	      passed,  the  pending  socket  error is regenerated based on the
	      next queued error and will be passed on the next	socket	opera‐
	      tion.

	      The error is supplied in a sock_extended_err structure:

		  #define SO_EE_ORIGIN_NONE    0
		  #define SO_EE_ORIGIN_LOCAL   1
		  #define SO_EE_ORIGIN_ICMP    2
		  #define SO_EE_ORIGIN_ICMP6   3

		  struct sock_extended_err
		  {
		      uint32_t ee_errno;   /* error number */
		      uint8_t  ee_origin;  /* where the error originated */
		      uint8_t  ee_type;	   /* type */
		      uint8_t  ee_code;	   /* code */
		      uint8_t  ee_pad;	   /* padding */
		      uint32_t ee_info;	   /* additional information */
		      uint32_t ee_data;	   /* other data */
		      /* More data may follow */
		  };

		  struct sockaddr *SO_EE_OFFENDER(struct sock_extended_err *);

	      ee_errno contains the errno number of the queued error.  ee_ori‐
	      gin is the origin code of where the error originated.  The other
	      fields   are   protocol-specific.	  The  macro  SOCK_EE_OFFENDER
	      returns a pointer to the address of the network object where the
	      error  originated from given a pointer to the ancillary message.
	      If this address is not known, the sa_family member of the	 sock‐
	      addr contains AF_UNSPEC and the other fields of the sockaddr are
	      undefined.  The payload of the packet that caused the  error  is
	      passed as normal data.

	      For local errors, no address is passed (this can be checked with
	      the cmsg_len member of the cmsghdr).  For	 error	receives,  the
	      MSG_ERRQUEUE  is	set  in	 the  msghdr.  After an error has been
	      passed, the pending socket error is  regenerated	based  on  the
	      next  queued  error and will be passed on the next socket opera‐
	      tion.

       MSG_OOB
	      This flag requests receipt of out-of-band data that would not be
	      received	in the normal data stream.  Some protocols place expe‐
	      dited data at the head of the normal data queue, and  thus  this
	      flag cannot be used with such protocols.

       MSG_PEEK
	      This  flag  causes the receive operation to return data from the
	      beginning of the receive queue without removing that  data  from
	      the queue.  Thus, a subsequent receive call will return the same
	      data.

       MSG_TRUNC (since Linux 2.2)
	      For   raw	  (AF_PACKET),	 Internet   datagram   (since	 Linux
	      2.4.27/2.6.8),  and netlink (since Linux 2.6.22) sockets: return
	      the real length of the packet or	datagram,  even	 when  it  was
	      longer  than the passed buffer.  Not implemented for Unix domain
	      (unix(7)) sockets.

	      For use with Internet stream sockets, see tcp(7).

       MSG_WAITALL (since Linux 2.2)
	      This flag requests that  the  operation  block  until  the  full
	      request  is  satisfied.  However, the call may still return less
	      data than requested if a signal is caught, an error  or  discon‐
	      nect  occurs,  or the next data to be received is of a different
	      type than that returned.

       The recvmsg() call uses a msghdr structure to minimize  the  number  of
       directly	 supplied  arguments.  This structure is defined as follows in
       <sys/socket.h>:

	   struct iovec {		     /* Scatter/gather array items */
	       void  *iov_base;		     /* Starting address */
	       size_t iov_len;		     /* Number of bytes to transfer */
	   };

	   struct msghdr {
	       void	    *msg_name;	     /* optional address */
	       socklen_t     msg_namelen;    /* size of address */
	       struct iovec *msg_iov;	     /* scatter/gather array */
	       size_t	     msg_iovlen;     /* # elements in msg_iov */
	       void	    *msg_control;    /* ancillary data, see below */
	       size_t	     msg_controllen; /* ancillary data buffer len */
	       int	     msg_flags;	     /* flags on received message */
	   };

       Here msg_name and msg_namelen specify the source address if the	socket
       is unconnected; msg_name may be given as a null pointer if no names are
       desired or required.  The fields msg_iov and msg_iovlen describe	 scat‐
       ter-gather locations, as discussed in readv(2).	The field msg_control,
       which has length msg_controllen, points to a buffer for other  protocol
       control-related	 messages   or	miscellaneous  ancillary  data.	  When
       recvmsg() is called, msg_controllen should contain the  length  of  the
       available  buffer in msg_control; upon return from a successful call it
       will contain the length of the control message sequence.

       The messages are of the form:

	   struct cmsghdr {
	       socklen_t     cmsg_len;	   /* data byte count, including hdr */
	       int	     cmsg_level;   /* originating protocol */
	       int	     cmsg_type;	   /* protocol-specific type */
	   /* followed by
	       unsigned char cmsg_data[]; */
	   };

       Ancillary data should  only  be	accessed  by  the  macros  defined  in
       cmsg(3).

       As  an  example,	 Linux	uses  this  ancillary  data  mechanism to pass
       extended errors, IP options, or file descriptors over Unix sockets.

       The msg_flags field in the msghdr is set on return  of  recvmsg().   It
       can contain several flags:

       MSG_EOR
	      indicates	 end-of-record;	 the  data returned completed a record
	      (generally used with sockets of type SOCK_SEQPACKET).

       MSG_TRUNC
	      indicates that the trailing portion of a datagram was  discarded
	      because the datagram was larger than the buffer supplied.

       MSG_CTRUNC
	      indicates	 that  some control data were discarded due to lack of
	      space in the buffer for ancillary data.

       MSG_OOB
	      is returned to indicate that expedited or out-of-band data  were
	      received.

       MSG_ERRQUEUE
	      indicates	 that  no data was received but an extended error from
	      the socket error queue.

RETURN VALUE
       These calls return the number of bytes received,	 or  -1	 if  an	 error
       occurred.   The	return	value will be 0 when the peer has performed an
       orderly shutdown.

ERRORS
       These are some standard errors generated by the	socket	layer.	 Addi‐
       tional  errors may be generated and returned from the underlying proto‐
       col modules; see their manual pages.

       EAGAIN or EWOULDBLOCK
	      The socket is marked nonblocking and the receive operation would
	      block, or a receive timeout had been set and the timeout expired
	      before data was received.	 POSIX.1-2001 allows either  error  to
	      be  returned for this case, and does not require these constants
	      to have the same value, so a portable application	 should	 check
	      for both possibilities.

       EBADF  The argument sockfd is an invalid descriptor.

       ECONNREFUSED
	      A remote host refused to allow the network connection (typically
	      because it is not running the requested service).

       EFAULT The  receive  buffer  pointer(s)	point  outside	the  process's
	      address space.

       EINTR  The  receive  was interrupted by delivery of a signal before any
	      data were available; see signal(7).

       EINVAL Invalid argument passed.

       ENOMEM Could not allocate memory for recvmsg().

       ENOTCONN
	      The socket is associated with a connection-oriented protocol and
	      has not been connected (see connect(2) and accept(2)).

       ENOTSOCK
	      The argument sockfd does not refer to a socket.

CONFORMING TO
       4.4BSD (these function calls first appeared in 4.2BSD), POSIX.1-2001.

       POSIX.1-2001  only  describes  the  MSG_OOB,  MSG_PEEK, and MSG_WAITALL
       flags.

NOTES
       The prototypes given above follow glibc2.  The Single  Unix  Specifica‐
       tion  agrees,  except  that it has return values of type ssize_t (while
       4.x BSD and libc4 and libc5 all have int).  The flags argument  is  int
       in  4.x	BSD, but unsigned int in libc4 and libc5.  The len argument is
       int in 4.x BSD, but size_t in libc4 and libc5.  The addrlen argument is
       int *  in  4.x  BSD,  libc4  and	 libc5.	  The present  socklen_t * was
       invented by POSIX.  See also accept(2).

       According to POSIX.1-2001,  the	msg_controllen	field  of  the	msghdr
       structure should be typed as socklen_t, but glibc currently types it as
       size_t.

EXAMPLE
       An example of the use of recvfrom() is shown in getaddrinfo(3).

SEE ALSO
       fcntl(2), getsockopt(2), read(2),  select(2),  shutdown(2),  socket(2),
       cmsg(3), sockatmark(3), socket(7)

COLOPHON
       This  page  is  part of release 3.27 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
       description of the project, and information about reporting  bugs,  can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Linux				  2010-08-29			       RECV(2)
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