Glossary of Data Communications TermsCourtesy Enterprise-Wide Computing, Inc. |
Term:
socket
Definition: the abstraction provided by Berkeley 4.3 BSD UNIX that allows a process to access the Internet. A process opens a socket, specifies the service desired (e.g., reliable stream delivery), binds the socket to a specific destination, and then sends or receives data. While the functional characteristics remain as defined, the concept has been generalized to include processes that access networks other than Internet. |