sock_alloc(9)

✨ sock_alloc(9) ✨ — from the Kernel API Manual, bestie 💅

Okay so picture this: you're deep in kernel land, you need a socket, and you don't have one yet. That's literally the whole plot of this page. Let's go 🫶

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

struct socket * sock_alloc (void );

🎀 ARGUMENTS 🎀

• void — no arguments, bestie. Nothing. Zero. Nada. It takes no input whatsoever, so don't come for it with parameters, it's not that kind of function 🙈

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

So what it does is: it allocates a brand new inode and a brand new socket object, and the two of them are bound together and initialised. Like, they're a matched set now. Iconic duo behaviour 👑

Then the socket gets returned to you. That's it, that's the gift 🎁

⚠️ But listen — if we're all out of inodes, you get NULL back. Not a socket. Nothing. So please, for the love of everything, check your return value, bestie 😭

Also, lowkey important: this function uses GFP_KERNEL internally. That's just facts, no cap.

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

Like, go read the whole friend group honestly — they're all in Kernel file ./net/socket.c:

• move_addr_to_kernel(9)
• move_addr_to_user(9)
• sock_read_xattr(9)
• sock_alloc_file(9)
• sock_from_file(9)
• sockfd_lookup(9)
• sock_release(9)
• sock_sendmsg(9)
• kernel_sendmsg(9)
• sock_recvmsg(9)
• kernel_recvmsg(9)
• sock_create_lite(9)
• __sock_create(9)
• sock_create(9)
• sock_create_kern(9)
• sock_register(9)
• sock_unregister(9)
• kernel_bind(9)
• kernel_listen(9)
• kernel_accept(9)
• kernel_connect(9)
• kernel_getsockname(9)
• kernel_getpeername(9)
• kernel_sock_shutdown(9)
• kernel_sock_ip_overhead(9)

✨ k bye ily, this page lives in ./net and it's timestamped October 2026 — signed, sealed, delivered, sock_alloc(9) 💜✨