closing socket/port

halfcountplus has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I'm trying to write a server for doing some things remotely on another computer. I start the server, and it waits for me to connect, then use a continuous loop for the duration until a condition breaks it.

my $server = IO::Socket::INET->new(LocalPort => 666, 
    Type=> SOCK_STREAM, 
    Listen => 0, 
    Proto => "tcp");
die "Can't open socket" if (!$server);

[...the main loop...]

close($server);
log_msg("Connection lost.\n");
[download]

I added the close() because when the program ends by itself this way (as opposed to being terminated with ^C), the port is evidently left blocked -- when I try to restart

Can't open socket

Which I take that to mean the port is not available. This lasts about a minute then the port is free again. Why would it be freed by ^C but not by close()?

The OS is linux.

Comment on closing socket/port Download Code

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Re: closing socket/port by Fletch (Bishop) on Aug 14, 2009 at 17:44 UTC
You probably want to pass `ReuseAddr => 1` to the constructor (and if you want the why google for SO_REUSEADDR). The cake is a lie. The cake is a lie. The cake is a lie.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: closing socket/port by halfcountplus (Hermit) on Aug 15, 2009 at 20:33 UTC
Thanks!	[reply]
Re: closing socket/port by rcaputo (Chaplain) on Aug 14, 2009 at 18:15 UTC
Stop guessing why the socket won't open. Change your die message to `die "Can't open socket: $!" unless $server;` `-- Rocco Caputo - http://poe.perl.org/ - irc://irc.perl.org/poe`	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: closing socket/port by halfcountplus (Hermit) on Aug 15, 2009 at 20:32 UTC
Can't open socket: Address already in use	[reply]