sock_create_lite(9)

💖 sock_create_lite 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to the Kernel API Manual, and today's main character is sock_create_lite(9) — yes she's a function, yes she makes a socket, and yes she's a little bit of a lite version (the name is literally telling you something, keep reading 👀).

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✨ NAME ✨

sock_create_lite — creates a socket 🫶

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

int sock_create_lite (int family , int type , int protocol , struct
socket **res );

like. four args. all int except the last one which is a double-pointer to a struct socket because we're doing the assign-it-for-you thing 💅

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✨ ARGUMENTS ✨

• family — the protocol family, aka the vibe of the address world you're living in (AF_INET, ...)
• type — the communication type, aka how this socket talks (SOCK_STREAM, ...)
• protocol — the protocol, and honestly you can pass 0 a lot of the time (0, ...)
• res — the new socket 🎀 this is where the freshly made socket gets dropped off

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

okay so here's the tea 🍓: sock_create_lite creates a brand-new socket and assigns it to res, passing through LSM on the way. very demure, very security-conscious.

But — and this is the important part, don't skip it — the new socket's initialization is not complete. like, she's not finished getting ready. for the rest of the story you gotta look at kernel_accept.

she returns 0 or an error. that's it, that's the contract. on failure, res is set to NULL (so like, don't go dereferencing it, bestie 😭).

also, fun fact: this function internally uses GFP_KERNEL ✨

ngl the "initialization is not complete" bit is the one you actually have to remember. a lite socket is lite for a reason — check kernel_accept before you assume she's fully cooked 🔥

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✨ SEE ALSO ✨

the whole group chat, fr fr — go read these next:

• 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_alloc(9)
• sock_release(9)
• sock_sendmsg(9)
• kernel_sendmsg(9)
• sock_recvmsg(9)
• kernel_recvmsg(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)

and the kernel file she actually lives in: ./net/socket.c 👑

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k that's the whole page, ily, go write some kernel code responsibly 💜

shoutout to the ./net source and the October 2026 date stamp — that's the footer energy, periodt. 🌈⭐