streams(4)

NAME

streams - System V STREAMS networking ABI support

SYNOPSIS

To link System V Release 4 (SVR4) STREAMS interprocess  communication ABI
support into the kernel:
device streams
To load the SVR4 STREAMS interprocess communication ABI support kernel
module:
      kldload streams

DESCRIPTION

The streams module provides limited System V Release 4

STREAMS interprocess communication ABI (application binary interface) com

patibility for
userland applications.

Internally, streams provides STREAMS handles by using socket

creation
kernel routines, and adding state-tracking information to

the socket to
permit manipulation by STREAMS emulation code in svr4(4).

Hence, opening
a stream device produces a result similar to what would be

obtained by
calling socket(2).

Applications should never use this interface directly:

STREAMS emulation
is only provided as a service to support ABI requirements in

the SVR4
environment which svr4(4) needs to present to client bina

ries.

SEE ALSO

svr4(4)

HISTORY

System V Release 4 ABI support first appeared in FreeBSD

4.0. The ABI
was ported from an equivalent facility present in NetBSD 1.3

written by
Christos Zoulas.

BUGS

This whole interface is a crude hack to produce STREAMS se

mantics through
emulation over sockets.

Programmers who hope to be able to use this interface to

provide SVR4
STREAMS services to BSD applications will be sorely disap

pointed.

BSD November 6, 2000

BSD