Connection-oriented communications

Sockets which communicate with each other are connected via an assignment. An assignment in the Internet domain consists of a locale address and port number and a remote address and port number.

<local address, local port, foreign address, foreign port>

When setting up a socket, you must initially specify both address pairs. The bind() call specifies the local half of the assignment:

<local address, local port>

The calls of the connect() and accept() functions described below, complete the socket assignment during connection setup.

The connection setup between two processes is generally asymmetric, with one process assuming the role of the client and the other the role of the server.