vmsock

This is a Linux kernel device driver module that provides datagram and stream socket interfaces to the underlying VMCI device. The module implements a Linux socket family and one of the files in the module, vmci_sockets.h, provides the various constants and functions necessary to create and, in the case of streams, connect sockets.

When the module is loaded, /dev/vsock will be created with restricted permissions. Access to /dev/vsock is required to use VMCI sockets, so it's recommended that permissions be relaxed via a udev policy file. For reference, the VMware Tools init script changes the permissions of /dev/vsock to 666.

Normally, issuing a socket(2) system call will automatically load the kernel module providing that socket family, but as the vsock module is out-of-tree, there is no in-tree socket family reservation for VMCI sockets. Before sockets are created, userspace applications must call VMCISock_GetAFValue (defined in vmci_sockets.h) which will instruct the vsock module to dynamically acquire a socket family reservation from the kernel. This function is implemented via ioctl(2) into the vsock module, so the vsock module must be manually loaded by the user (perhaps using /etc/modules).

The vmci_sockets.h header should be installed in a system-wide location. We recommend /usr/include/vmci.

The vsock module depends on symbols from the vmci module, and so the vmci module must be loaded first.

2010-04-08

2010.03.20-243334

vmsock

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

OPTIONS

SEE ALSO

HOMEPAGE

AUTHOR

Recommended readings

Questions & Answers