Chapter 1. Introducing Sockets

Friday, October 4, 1957, marked the beginning of a startling new era. The Soviet Union had launched the world's first artificial satellite into the Earth's orbit, known as Sputnik. Approximately the size of a basketball, this satellite took 98 minutes to orbit the Earth. Anyone with a shortwave radio was able to hear it during overhead passes, at a frequency of approximately 40.002Mhz. Who would have imagined at that time, that this would later spawn the beginnings of TCP/IP and the Internet?

In this chapter you will be introduced to

• A brief history of how sockets were developed

• The essence of sockets

• How sockets are referenced by the Linux kernel and application programs

• An introductory example of a socket C program