Releasing bound ports on process exit

Question

How do I make sure that a socket bound to a port is properly released on process exit such that the port can be reused without bind() failing with EADDRINUSE? I

Answer 1

TCP/IP stack keeps port busy for sometime even after close() - socket will stay in TIME_WAIT and TIME_WAIT2 state.

If I'm not mistaken, usually it takes 2 minutes so if you need to use the same port immediately set SO_REUSEADDR option on your socket before binding, just like Ivo Bosticky suggested.

Answer 2

Using SO_REUSEADDR socket option will allow you to re-start the program without delay.

int iSetOption = 1;
...
sockfd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP);
setsockopt(_sockfd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_REUSEADDR, (char*)&iSetOption,
        sizeof(iSetOption))
...         

Answer 3

Not exactly an answer to your question, but for completeness:

On Windows you can set the TcpTimedWaitDelay registry value to set the timeout for releasing closed TCP connections to as low as 30 seconds.