How to find the socket buffer size of linux

Question

What\'s the default socket buffer size of linux? Is there any command to see it?

Answer 1

Whilst, as has been pointed out, it is possible to see the current default socket buffer sizes in /proc, it is also possible to check them using sysctl (Note: Whilst the name includes ipv4 these sizes also apply to ipv6 sockets - the ipv6 tcp_v6_init_sock() code just calls the ipv4 tcp_init_sock() function):

 sysctl net.ipv4.tcp_rmem
 sysctl net.ipv4.tcp_wmem

However, the default socket buffers are just set when the sock is initialised but the kernel then dynamically sizes them (unless set using setsockopt() with SO_SNDBUF). The actual size of the buffers for currently open sockets may be inspected using the ss command (part of the iproute package), which can also provide a bunch more info on sockets like congestion control parameter etc. E.g. To list the currently open TCP (t option) sockets and associated memory (m) information:

ss -tm

Here's some example output:

State       Recv-Q Send-Q        Local Address:Port        Peer Address:Port
ESTAB       0      0             192.168.56.102:ssh        192.168.56.1:56328
skmem:(r0,rb369280,t0,tb87040,f0,w0,o0,bl0,d0)

Here's a brief explanation of skmem (socket memory) - for more info you'll need to look at the kernel sources (e.g. sock.h):

r:sk_rmem_alloc
rb:sk_rcvbuf          # current receive buffer size
t:sk_wmem_alloc
tb:sk_sndbuf          # current transmit buffer size
f:sk_forward_alloc
w:sk_wmem_queued      # persistent transmit queue size
o:sk_omem_alloc
bl:sk_backlog
d:sk_drops