How to create special files of type socket?

Question

I need to create serial port socket for kgdb-gdb remote connection.

Just as mkfifo creates a FIFO on your system, how can we create socket files?

Answer 1

The link in the accepted answer by @cidermonkey is great if you're trying to write an app that uses sockets. If you literally just want to create one you can do it in python:

~]# python -c "import socket as s; sock = s.socket(s.AF_UNIX); sock.bind('/tmp/somesocket')" ~]# ll /tmp/somesocket  srwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 0 Mar  3 19:30 /tmp/somesocket 

Or with a tiny C program, e.g., save the following to create-a-socket.c:

#include <fcntl.h> #include <sys/un.h> #include <sys/socket.h> #include <sys/stat.h> #include <sys/types.h> #include <unistd.h>  int main(int argc, char **argv) {     // The following line expects the socket path to be first argument     char * mysocketpath = argv[1];     // Alternatively, you could comment that and set it statically:     //char * mysocketpath = "/tmp/mysock";     struct sockaddr_un namesock;     int fd;     namesock.sun_family = AF_UNIX;     strncpy(namesock.sun_path, (char *)mysocketpath, sizeof(namesock.sun_path));     fd = socket(AF_UNIX, SOCK_DGRAM, 0);     bind(fd, (struct sockaddr *) &namesock, sizeof(struct sockaddr_un));     close(fd);     return 0; } 

Then install gcc, compile it, and ta-da:

~]# gcc -o create-a-socket create-a-socket.c ~]# ./create-a-socket mysock ~]# ll mysock srwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 0 Mar  3 17:45 mysock