From 13600496d347ec95a1afe67bd67530ff74563316 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Michael Kerrisk Date: Sun, 8 Jul 2018 10:57:27 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] unix.7: Enhance the description of SCM_RIGHTS The existing description is rather thin. More can be said. Signed-off-by: Michael Kerrisk --- man7/unix.7 | 12 ++++++++++-- 1 file changed, 10 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/man7/unix.7 b/man7/unix.7 index 46b1914b8..0850ebc1b 100644 --- a/man7/unix.7 +++ b/man7/unix.7 @@ -369,8 +369,16 @@ For more information see .B SCM_RIGHTS Send or receive a set of open file descriptors from another process. The data portion contains an integer array of the file descriptors. -The passed file descriptors behave as though they have been created with -.BR dup (2). +Commonly, this operation is referred to as "passing a file descriptor" +to another process. +However, more accurately, +what is being passed is a reference to an open file description (see +.BR open (2)), +and in the receiving process it is likely that a different +file descriptor number will be used. +Semantically, this operation is equivalent to duplicating +.RB ( dup (2)) +a file descriptor into the file descriptor table of another process. .IP The kernel constant .BR SCM_MAX_FD