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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | ERRORS | VERSIONS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
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vsock(7) Miscellaneous Information Manual vsock(7)
vsock - Linux VSOCK address family
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <linux/vm_sockets.h>
stream_socket = socket(AF_VSOCK, SOCK_STREAM, 0);
datagram_socket = socket(AF_VSOCK, SOCK_DGRAM, 0);
The VSOCK address family facilitates communication between virtual
machines and the host they are running on. This address family is
used by guest agents and hypervisor services that need a
communications channel that is independent of virtual machine
network configuration.
Valid socket types are SOCK_STREAM and SOCK_DGRAM. SOCK_STREAM
provides connection-oriented byte streams with guaranteed, in-
order delivery. SOCK_DGRAM provides a connectionless datagram
packet service with best-effort delivery and best-effort ordering.
Availability of these socket types is dependent on the underlying
hypervisor.
A new socket is created with
socket(AF_VSOCK, socket_type, 0);
When a process wants to establish a connection, it calls
connect(2) with a given destination socket address. The socket is
automatically bound to a free port if unbound.
A process can listen for incoming connections by first binding to
a socket address using bind(2) and then calling listen(2).
Data is transmitted using the send(2) or write(2) families of
system calls and data is received using the recv(2) or read(2)
families of system calls.
Address format
A socket address is defined as a combination of a 32-bit Context
Identifier (CID) and a 32-bit port number. The CID identifies the
source or destination, which is either a virtual machine or the
host. The port number differentiates between multiple services
running on a single machine.
struct sockaddr_vm {
sa_family_t svm_family; /* Address family: AF_VSOCK */
unsigned short svm_reserved1;
unsigned int svm_port; /* Port # in host byte order */
unsigned int svm_cid; /* Address in host byte order */
unsigned char svm_zero[sizeof(struct sockaddr) -
sizeof(sa_family_t) -
sizeof(unsigned short) -
sizeof(unsigned int) -
sizeof(unsigned int)];
};
svm_family is always set to AF_VSOCK. svm_reserved1 is always set
to 0. svm_port contains the port number in host byte order. The
port numbers below 1024 are called privileged ports. Only a
process with the CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE capability may bind(2) to
these port numbers. svm_zero must be zero-filled.
There are several special addresses: VMADDR_CID_ANY (-1U) means
any address for binding; VMADDR_CID_HYPERVISOR (0) is reserved for
services built into the hypervisor; VMADDR_CID_LOCAL (1) is the
well-known address for local communication (loopback);
VMADDR_CID_HOST (2) is the well-known address of the host.
The special constant VMADDR_PORT_ANY (-1U) means any port number
for binding.
Live migration
Sockets are affected by live migration of virtual machines.
Connected SOCK_STREAM sockets become disconnected when the virtual
machine migrates to a new host. Applications must reconnect when
this happens.
The local CID may change across live migration if the old CID is
not available on the new host. Bound sockets are automatically
updated to the new CID.
Ioctls
The following ioctls are available on the /dev/vsock device.
IOCTL_VM_SOCKETS_GET_LOCAL_CID
Get the CID of the local machine. The argument is a
pointer to an unsigned int.
ioctl(fd, IOCTL_VM_SOCKETS_GET_LOCAL_CID, &cid);
Consider using VMADDR_CID_ANY when binding instead of
getting the local CID with IOCTL_VM_SOCKETS_GET_LOCAL_CID.
Local communication
VMADDR_CID_LOCAL (1) directs packets to the same host that
generated them. This is useful for testing applications on a
single host and for debugging.
The local CID obtained with IOCTL_VM_SOCKETS_GET_LOCAL_CID can be
used for the same purpose, but it is preferable to use
VMADDR_CID_LOCAL.
EACCES Unable to bind to a privileged port without the
CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE capability.
EADDRINUSE
Unable to bind to a port that is already in use.
EADDRNOTAVAIL
Unable to find a free port for binding or unable to bind to
a nonlocal CID.
EINVAL Invalid parameters. This includes: attempting to bind a
socket that is already bound, providing an invalid struct
sockaddr_vm, and other input validation errors.
ENOPROTOOPT
Invalid socket option in setsockopt(2) or getsockopt(2).
ENOTCONN
Unable to perform operation on an unconnected socket.
EOPNOTSUPP
Operation not supported. This includes: the MSG_OOB flag
that is not implemented for the send(2) family of syscalls
and MSG_PEEK for the recv(2) family of syscalls.
EPROTONOSUPPORT
Invalid socket protocol number. The protocol should always
be 0.
ESOCKTNOSUPPORT
Unsupported socket type in socket(2). Only SOCK_STREAM and
SOCK_DGRAM are valid.
Support for VMware (VMCI) has been available since Linux 3.9. KVM
(virtio) is supported since Linux 4.8. Hyper-V is supported since
Linux 4.14.
VMADDR_CID_LOCAL is supported since Linux 5.6. Local
communication in the guest and on the host is available since
Linux 5.6. Previous versions supported only local communication
within a guest (not on the host), and with only some transports
(VMCI and virtio).
bind(2), connect(2), listen(2), recv(2), send(2), socket(2),
capabilities(7)
This page is part of the man-pages (Linux kernel and C library
user-space interface documentation) project. Information about
the project can be found at
⟨https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/⟩. If you have a bug report
for this manual page, see
⟨https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/docs/man-pages/man-pages.git/tree/CONTRIBUTING⟩.
This page was obtained from the tarball man-pages-6.15.tar.gz
fetched from
⟨https://mirrors.edge.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/man-pages/⟩ on
2025-08-11. If you discover any rendering problems in this HTML
version of the page, or you believe there is a better or more up-
to-date source for the page, or you have corrections or
improvements to the information in this COLOPHON (which is not
part of the original manual page), send a mail to
man-pages@man7.org
Linux man-pages 6.15 2025-05-17 vsock(7)
Pages that refer to this page: lsfd(1), systemd-ssh-issue(1), systemd-ssh-proxy(1), trace-cmd-agent(1), socket(2), org.freedesktop.hostname1(5), address_families(7), systemd-ssh-generator(8)
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HTML rendering created 2025-09-06 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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