CODEWITHSUNDEEP
cnetwork-programmingsockets
JesperE
JesperE

Reputation: 64414

Releasing bound ports on process exit

How do I make sure that a socket bound to a port is properly released on process exit such that the port can be reused without bind() failing with EADDRINUSE? I've written a tiny program which just creates a socket, binds it to a fixed port, waits for a connection and then immediately terminates. When I rerun the program, the bind() call fails with EADDRINUSE, but if I wait a few minutes, it succeeds.

Is there a way I can explicitly "unbind" the socket, thereby freeing the port number?

Upvotes: 22

Views: 14280

Answers (3)

Amnon
Amnon

Reputation: 7772

Not exactly an answer to your question, but for completeness:

On Windows you can set the TcpTimedWaitDelay registry value to set the timeout for releasing closed TCP connections to as low as 30 seconds.

Upvotes: 4

qrdl
qrdl

Reputation: 34968

TCP/IP stack keeps port busy for sometime even after close() - socket will stay in TIME_WAIT and TIME_WAIT2 state.

If I'm not mistaken, usually it takes 2 minutes so if you need to use the same port immediately set SO_REUSEADDR option on your socket before binding, just like Ivo Bosticky suggested.

Upvotes: 5

Ivo Bosticky
Ivo Bosticky

Reputation: 6408

Using SO_REUSEADDR socket option will allow you to re-start the program without delay.

int iSetOption = 1;
...
sockfd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP);
setsockopt(_sockfd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_REUSEADDR, (char*)&iSetOption,
        sizeof(iSetOption))
...

Upvotes: 32

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