UDP(7)							     Linux Programmer's Manual							    UDP(7)

NAME

       udp - User Datagram Protocol for IPv4

SYNOPSIS

       #include <sys/socket.h>
       #include <netinet/in.h>

       udp_socket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, 0);

DESCRIPTION

       This  is  an implementation of the User Datagram Protocol described in RFC 768.	It implements a connectionless, unreliable datagram packet
       service.  Packets may be reordered or duplicated before they arrive.  UDP generates and checks checksums to catch transmission errors.

       When a UDP socket is created, its local and remote addresses are unspecified.   Datagrams  can  be  sent  immediately  using  sendto(2)	or
       sendmsg(2)  with  a  valid destination address as an argument.  When connect(2) is called on the socket, the default destination address is
       set and datagrams can now be sent using send(2) or write(2) without specifying a destination address.  It is  still  possible  to  send	to
       other  destinations  by	passing  an  address  to sendto(2) or sendmsg(2).  In order to receive packets, the socket can be bound to a local
       address first by using bind(2).	Otherwise the socket layer will automatically assign a free  local  port  out  of  the	range  defined	by
       /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_local_port_range and bind the socket to INADDR_ANY.

       All receive operations return only one packet.  When the packet is smaller than the passed buffer, only that much data is returned; when it
       is bigger, the packet is truncated and the MSG_TRUNC flag is set.  MSG_WAITALL is not supported.

       IP options may be sent or received using the socket options described in ip(7).	They are only processed by the kernel when the appropriate
       /proc parameter is enabled (but still passed to the user even when it is turned off).  See ip(7).

       When  the MSG_DONTROUTE flag is set on sending, the destination address must refer to a local interface address and the packet is only sent
       to that interface.

       By default, Linux UDP does path MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) discovery.  This means the kernel will keep track of the MTU to a  specific
       target  IP  address  and return EMSGSIZE when a UDP packet write exceeds it.  When this happens, the application should decrease the packet
       size.  Path MTU discovery can be also turned off using the IP_MTU_DISCOVER socket option or  the  /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_no_pmtu_disc  file;
       see  ip(7)  for	details.  When turned off, UDP will fragment outgoing UDP packets that exceed the interface MTU.  However, disabling it is
       not recommended for performance and reliability reasons.

   Address Format
       UDP uses the IPv4 sockaddr_in address format described in ip(7).

   Error Handling
       All fatal errors will be passed to the user as an error return even when the socket is not connected.  This  includes  asynchronous  errors
       received  from  the network.  You may get an error for an earlier packet that was sent on the same socket.  This behavior differs from many
       other BSD socket implementations which don't pass any errors unless the socket is connected.  Linux's behavior is mandated by RFC 1122.

       For compatibility with legacy code, in Linux 2.0 and 2.2 it was possible to set the SO_BSDCOMPAT SOL_SOCKET option to receive remote errors
       only  when  the	socket has been connected (except for EPROTO and EMSGSIZE).  Locally generated errors are always passed.  Support for this
       socket option was removed in later kernels; see socket(7) for further information.

       When the IP_RECVERR option is enabled, all errors are stored in the socket error  queue,  and  can  be  received  by  recvmsg(2)  with  the
       MSG_ERRQUEUE flag set.

   /proc interfaces
       System-wide UDP parameter settings can be accessed by files in the directory /proc/sys/net/ipv4/.

       udp_mem (since Linux 2.6.25)
	      This is a vector of three integers governing the number of pages allowed for queueing by all UDP sockets.

	      min	Below  this  number  of  pages, UDP is not bothered about its memory appetite.	When the amount of memory allocated by UDP
			exceeds this number, UDP starts to moderate memory usage.

	      pressure	This value was introduced to follow the format of tcp_mem (see tcp(7)).

	      max	Number of pages allowed for queueing by all UDP sockets.

	      Defaults values for these three items are calculated at boot time from the amount of available memory.

       udp_rmem_min (integer; default value: PAGE_SIZE; since Linux 2.6.25)
	      Minimal size, in bytes, of receive buffers used by UDP sockets in moderation.  Each UDP socket is able to use the size for receiving
	      data, even if total pages of UDP sockets exceed udp_mem pressure.

       udp_wmem_min (integer; default value: PAGE_SIZE; since Linux 2.6.25)
	      Minimal size, in bytes, of send buffer used by UDP sockets in moderation.  Each UDP socket is able to use the size for sending data,
	      even if total pages of UDP sockets exceed udp_mem pressure.

   Socket Options
       To set or get a UDP socket option, call getsockopt(2) to read or setsockopt(2) to write the option with the option level  argument  set	to
       IPPROTO_UDP.

       UDP_CORK (since Linux 2.5.44)
	      If  this	option	is enabled, then all data output on this socket is accumulated into a single datagram that is transmitted when the
	      option is disabled.  This option should not be used in code intended to be portable.

   Ioctls
       These ioctls can be accessed using ioctl(2).  The correct syntax is:

	      int value;
	      error = ioctl(udp_socket, ioctl_type, &value);

       FIONREAD (SIOCINQ)
	      Gets a pointer to an integer as argument.  Returns the size of the next pending datagram in the integer in bytes, or 0 when no data-
	      gram is pending.	Warning: Using FIONREAD, it is impossible to distinguish the case where no datagram is pending from the case where
	      the next pending datagram contains zero bytes of data.  It is safer to use select(2), poll(2),  or  epoll(7)  to	distinguish  these
	      cases.

       TIOCOUTQ (SIOCOUTQ)
	      Returns the number of data bytes in the local send queue.  Only supported with Linux 2.4 and above.

       In addition all ioctls documented in ip(7) and socket(7) are supported.

ERRORS

       All errors documented for socket(7) or ip(7) may be returned by a send or receive on a UDP socket.

       ECONNREFUSED
	      No receiver was associated with the destination address.	This might be caused by a previous packet sent over the socket.

VERSIONS

       IP_RECVERR is a new feature in Linux 2.2.

SEE ALSO

       ip(7), raw(7), socket(7), udplite(7)

       RFC 768 for the User Datagram Protocol.
       RFC 1122 for the host requirements.
       RFC 1191 for a description of path MTU discovery.

COLOPHON

       This  page is part of release 3.25 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								    2010-06-13								    UDP(7)