Man Setsockopt

Setsockopt: Controlling Socket Behavior

Introduction

What is setsockopt?

The setsockopt function allows an application program to control the behavior of a socket. It provides a way to set or retrieve options for a socket, such as enabling or disabling certain features, specifying the protocol to use, or setting timeout values.

Options and Arguments

Most socket-level options utilize an int argument for optval. For setsockopt, the argument should be nonzero to enable a boolean option or zero if the option should be disabled.

Alternatives

In addition to setsockopt, there are other functions that can be used to set or get socket options. These include getsockopt2, setsockopt2, ioctl2, and ioctl.

Return Value

On success, setsockopt returns 0. On error, it returns -1 and sets errno to indicate the error.