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    <title>s6: the s6-ioconnect program</title>
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<p>
<a href="index.html">s6</a><br />
<a href="//skarnet.org/software/">Software</a><br />
<a href="//skarnet.org/">skarnet.org</a>
</p>

<h1> The <tt>s6-ioconnect</tt> program </h1>

<p>
<tt>s6-ioconnect</tt> performs full-duplex data transmission
between two sets of open file descriptors.
</p>

<h2> Interface </h2>

<pre>
     s6-ioconnect [ -t <em>millisecs</em> ] [ -r <em>fdr</em> ] [ -w <em>fdw</em> ] [ -0 ] [ -1 ] [ -6 ] [ -7 ]
</pre>

<ul>
 <li> s6-ioconnect reads data from its stdin and writes it as is to
file descriptor 7, which is assumed to be open. </li>
 <li> It also reads data from its file descriptor 6, which is assumed
to be open, and writes it as is to its stdout. </li>
 <li> When both sides have transmitted EOF and s6-ioconnect has
flushed its buffers, it exits 0. </li>
</ul>

<h2> Options </h2>

<ul>
 <li> <tt>-t&nbsp;<em>millisecs</em></tt>&nbsp;: if no activity on
either side happens for <em>millisecs</em> milliseconds, s6-ioconnect
closes the connection on both ends and exits 1. By default,
<em>millisecs</em> is 0, which means no such timeout. </li>
 <li> <tt>-r&nbsp;<em>fdr</em></tt>&nbsp;: Use fd <em>fdr</em> for
"remote" reading instead of fd 6. </li>
 <li> <tt>-w&nbsp;<em>fdw</em></tt>&nbsp;: Use fd <em>fdw</em> for
"remote" writing instead of fd 7. </li>
 <li> <tt>-0</tt>: assume stdin is a socket and needs to be shut down
for reading after an EOF. </li>
 <li> <tt>-1</tt>: assume stdout is a socket and needs to be shut down
for writing to correctly transmit an EOF. </li>
 <li> <tt>-6</tt>: assume the remote reading fd is a socket and needs to be shut down
for reading after an EOF. </li>
 <li> <tt>-7</tt>: assume the remote writing fd is a socket and needs to be shut down
for writing to correctly transmit  an EOF. </li>
</ul>

<h2> Notes </h2>

<ul>
 <li> Transmitting EOF across full-duplex sockets
<a href="http://cr.yp.to/tcpip/twofd.html">is ugly</a>. The right thing
in every case cannot be automatically determined, so it is up to the user
to mention that a socket must be shut down. Most of the time, though,
shutting down sockets after EOF <em>is</em> the right thing to do, so
<tt>s6-ioconnect -67</tt> should be the common use case. </li>
 <li> The point of s6-ioconnect is to be used together with
<a href="//skarnet.org/software/s6-networking/s6-tcpclient.html">s6-tcpclient</a> or
<a href="s6-ipcclient.html">s6-ipcclient</a> to establish a full-
duplex connection between the client and the server, for instance
for testing purposes. <tt>s6-ioconnect</tt> is to s6-tcpclient as
<tt>cat</tt> is to s6-tcpserver: a program that will just echo
what it gets. </li>
 <li> On modern Linux systems, s6-ioconnect will perform zero-copy
data transmission, via the
<a href="http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/splice.2.html">splice</a>
system call. </li>
 <li> The s6-ioconnect utility was once part of the
<a href="//skarnet.org/software/s6-networking/">s6-networking</a>
suite, which is why the
examples here involve TCP. Nevertheless, it can be used with connections
across Unix domain sockets as well, and has its place in the s6
package. </li>
</ul>

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