NAME    [Toc]    [Back]

     streams -- System V STREAMS networking ABI support

SYNOPSIS    [Toc]    [Back]

     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    [Toc]    [Back]

     The streams module provides limited System V Release 4 STREAMS interprocess
 communication ABI (application binary interface) compatibility 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 binaries.

BUGS    [Toc]    [Back]

     This whole interface is a crude hack to produce STREAMS semantics 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 disappointed.

SEE ALSO    [Toc]    [Back]

     svr4(4)

HISTORY    [Toc]    [Back]

     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.


FreeBSD 5.2.1		       November 6, 2000 		 FreeBSD 5.2.1