On 2010-09-18, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <l...@geek-central.gen.new_zealand> wrote: > In message ><2f830099-4264-47bc-98ee-31950412a...@q21g2000prm.googlegroups.com>, cerr > wrote: > >> I get a socket error "[Errno 98] Address already in use" when i try to >> open a socket that got closed before with close(). How come close() >> doesn't close the socket properly? > > The usual case this happens is you have a client connection open at the > time, that was not properly terminated. Then the TCP stack goes through a > holdoff period (2 minutes, I believe it is), to make absolutely sure all > packets destined for the old connection have completely disappeared off the > entire Internet, before it will let you open a socket on the same port > again.
Even when the connection was properly terminated (from an application's POV), there's a TIME_WAIT period before the TCP stack considered the connection completely gone and will allow re-use of the port. IOW, the TIME_WAIT is actually part of the connection termination (from the TCP stack's POV), and it can takes place after the application considers the connection closed (and may have even exited): http://www.developerweb.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2941 -- Grant -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
