Activating a domain

NETWORK statements in the BPXPRMxx parmlib member that is used to start z/OS UNIX assign socket domains, or address families, to the socket PFSs.

The NETWORK syntax is:

NETWORK TYPE(file_system_type)
        DOMAINNAME(domain_name)
        DOMAINNUMBER(domain_number)
        MAXSOCKETS(number)

where:

TYPE identifies the PFS that supports this domain. This operand must match the TYPE operand that is used on the FILESYSTYPE statement that defined the PFS.
DOMAINNAME specifies the domain, or address family, name. The AF_UNIX and AF_INET domains are supported by IBM-supplied socket PFSs.
DOMAINNUMBER specifies the numeric value of the domain that is passed by programs that call socket() The values that are supported for this field are defined in socket.h .
MAXSOCKETS specifies the maximum number of currently active sockets that are to be supported.

The parameters just described are passed to the PFS on the vfs_network operation.

During vfs_network the PFS is expected to:

Activate support for this domain.
Optionally return an 8-byte token that is saved by the LFS and used on all subsequent VFS and vnode operations. This token is typically the address of the PFS's domain block.

When a user calls socket(), the first parameter is a domain number. The LFS routes this request to the appropriate PFS with a call to vfs_socket.

The NETWORK statement is analogous to the MOUNT statement that is used by file-oriented PFSs.