Berkeley socket interface
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The Berkeley socket interface is an API that allows communications between hosts or between processes on one computer, using the concept of a socket. It is able to work with many different I/O devices and drivers, although support for this is dependent on the operating system implementation. This interface implementation is implicit for TCP/IP, and it is therefore one of the fundamental technologies underlying the internet. It was first developed at the University of California at Berkeley for use on UNIX systems. All modern operating systems now have some implementation of the Berkeley socket interface, as it is necessary for connecting to the internet.
There are three different levels at which the socket interface can be made accessible, the most powerful and fundamental of which is RAW sockets. Very few applications need the degree of control over outgoing communications that this provides, so RAW sockets support was intended to be available only on computers used for developing internet-related technologies. In recent years, most operating systems have implemented support for it anyway, including Windows XP.