inet(4f)inet(4f)Nameinet - Internet protocol family
Syntax
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
Description
The Internet protocol family is a collection of protocols that is lay‐
ered on the Internet Protocol (IP) transport layer and that uses the
Internet address format. The Internet family provides protocol support
for the SOCK_STREAM, SOCK_DGRAM, and SOCK_RAW socket types. The
SOCK_RAW interface provides access to the IP protocol.
Addressing
Internet addresses are 4-byte quantities, stored in network standard
format. The include file defines this address as a discriminated
union.
Sockets bound to the Internet protocol family use the following
addressing structure:
struct sockaddr_in {
short sin_family;
u_short sin_port;
struct in_addr sin_addr;
char sin_zero[8];
};
Sockets may be created with the address INADDR_ANY to effect ``wild‐
card'' matching on incoming messages.
Protocols
The Internet protocol family comprises the IP transport protocol,
Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP), Transmission Control Protocol
(TCP), and User Datagram Protocol (UDP). TCP is used to support the
SOCK_STREAM abstraction, while UDP is used to support the SOCK_DGRAM
abstraction. A raw interface to IP and ICMP is available by creating
an Internet socket of type SOCK_RAW.
See Alsotcp(4p), udp(4p), ip(4p)inet(4f)
