Re: [TUHS] Sockets and the true UNIX

[I said] That's independent of this issue. The problem is that when you call bind(), the system does not know if you are doing it as the first half of bind()/connect(), or as the first half of bind()/listen( (followed by an accept() loop). If you are going to do the latter, you are declaring that you want to serve *new* SYN requests. This is when you (currently) must set SO_REUSEADDR, because bind() checks your local address against the universe of all local/remote pairs. But if the system knows that your call (which, remember, isn't bind() anymore) is your declaration of intent to be a server, the OS can just check whether there's already someone declared as "the server". If you intend to "serve" one specific foreign address (FTP): bind_and_connect(fd, local, remote); the test is: "does <local,remote> specify a unique address" (and possibly "does <local> match what we already suggested to you and reserved for you). If you intend to serve "*": bind_and_connect(fd, local, NULL); the test is: "is there already a <local,*>". In the server case any existing 2MSL timeouts are irrelevant; what matters is whether you are competing with another server. (Note that libc will probably have various convenience wrappers atop the system call, kind of like libc has system() atop fork/exec. Most programs just want to create and bind_and_connect a socket in one pass.) Chris