sockets: a descriptor can cross between processes

sendmsg/recvmsg with SCM_RIGHTS. Item 1 of docs/plan/foundations.md and
mechanism 1 of docs/plan/hybrid.md, which are the same primitive seen from two
directions: Wayland's wl_shm_create_pool passes a file descriptor with no
integer-shaped alternative, and handing a driver process the device it is
allowed to touch is the same act. Both plans stopped here.

Linux's structures byte for byte -- msghdr, cmsghdr, the CMSG_ macros -- because
the programs that need this are not ours. libwayland and toybox both call
recvmsg with Linux's headers and would not notice a friendlier door.

The delivery rule is the whole design. A batch of descriptors is pinned to the
stream position of the first byte of the message that carried it, and that has
two halves: a reader arriving at that position is handed them, and a reader that
has not reached it is stopped SHORT of it. Leave out the second half and a
program asking for 4096 bytes swallows three messages and is handed one
message's descriptors, with nothing in the result saying which. socktest checks
exactly that: two one-byte messages, an eight-byte read, one byte back.

The kernel holds a reference to every descriptor in flight, so a sender may
close its own copy the moment sendmsg returns. Giving that reference back is the
part that leaks if it is not written down, and there are three ways a message
ends:

  - received with room            installed in the receiver's table
  - received without room, or by
    plain read(2)                 closed; MSG_CTRUNC for the first case
  - never received, socket closed closed by sockclose

The middle row looks like a choice and is not: holding kernel references for a
receiver that has proved it is not looking is a leak with extra steps.

No garbage collector. A socket descriptor sent over that same socket and never
received holds a reference to the socket that holds the reference to it, and
neither close reaches zero. Linux carries several hundred lines for this.
Nothing on either plan passes a socket over a socket -- Wayland passes memory,
the driver work passes devices -- so it is a bounded leak that is documented
rather than a silent one.

Fourteen checks in cmd/socktest, and every one moves data through the descriptor
rather than inspecting it. The descriptor passed is always a pipe end, because a
pipe announces its own lifetime: a read of a pipe whose writers are all gone
returns 0, which turns "was the kernel's reference released" -- otherwise
invisible from userspace -- into a value a test can compare.

Two bugs fell out, neither in the new code:

  - sockpair() never set the socket's domain, so every socketpair() socket
    claimed domain 0. Invisible while the data paths asked only whether a socket
    was AF_INET or AF_NETLINK, since zero answers "neither" correctly.
    SCM_RIGHTS asks "is this AF_UNIX", and zero is wrong for that one.

  - pipe_poll() reports POLLHUP but not POLLIN at end of file, so a non-blocking
    read of a pipe whose writers had all gone returned EAGAIN forever instead of
    0 -- a program that polls and reads spins waiting for an end that already
    happened. sockreadable() always had the equivalent condition; the pipe path
    did not. Found because the test helper for "is this descriptor closed" is a
    non-blocking read of a pipe.

projects/schcom/README.md said SCM_RIGHTS was done for a long time while nothing
in the kernel implemented it, and an entire GUI plan was drawn on that line.
It is true now, which is not the same as it having been right, and the README
says so.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01VQ7Qx8E1q1M1bbCq8QLHS2

docs/architecture/networking.md

@@ -176,6 +176,53 @@ server by a name agreed in advance — and what is lost is `ls -l` showing an `s
 and `unlink()` of a socket path working. Both want a VFS change rather than a
 socket change.
 
+### Descriptor passing
+
+`sendmsg`/`recvmsg` with `SCM_RIGHTS`, which is the one thing a socket can carry
+that a pipe cannot: a reference to an object the kernel already knows, rather
+than a copy of its contents. Wayland's `wl_shm_create_pool` passes a descriptor
+and has no integer-shaped alternative, and
+[hybrid.md](../plan/hybrid.md)'s mechanism 1 is how a driver process is handed
+the device it is allowed to touch. Both wanted the same primitive.
+
+**A batch of descriptors is pinned to the stream position of the first byte of
+the message that carried it.** That single rule is the whole delivery model, and
+it has two halves that are easy to get half-right:
+
+- a reader that arrives at that position is handed the descriptors, and
+- a reader that has not reached it yet is **stopped short of it**.
+
+Without the second half, a program that asked for 4096 bytes would swallow three
+messages in one call and be handed one message's descriptors, with nothing in
+the result saying which message they belonged to. `socktest` checks exactly
+this: two messages, each one byte and one descriptor, read with an eight-byte
+buffer, and the first read must return one byte.
+
+The kernel holds a reference on every descriptor in flight, so a sender may
+close its own copy the moment `sendmsg` returns. That reference is also the
+thing that has to be given back, and there are three ways a message ends:
+
+| | |
+|---|---|
+| received by `recvmsg` with room | installed in the receiver's table |
+| received by `recvmsg` without room, or by plain `read(2)` | **closed**, and `MSG_CTRUNC` set for the first case |
+| never received — the socket is closed | **closed** by `sockclose` |
+
+The second row is the one that looks like a choice and is not. Holding kernel
+references for a receiver that has already proved it is not looking is a leak
+with extra steps, and it is what Linux does for the same reason.
+
+Descriptors need at least one byte to ride on; `sendmsg` refuses a message of
+pure ancillary data with `EINVAL` rather than accepting it and pinning the
+descriptors to a position that never arrives.
+
+**There is no garbage collector.** An AF_UNIX socket descriptor, sent over that
+same socket and never received, holds a reference to the socket that holds the
+reference to it, and neither close can reach zero. Linux carries several hundred
+lines to break these cycles. Nothing on either plan passes a socket over a
+socket — Wayland passes memory, the driver work passes devices — so this is a
+known and bounded leak (thirty-two sockets) rather than a silent one.
+
 ### AF_INET
 
 `kernel/net/inet.c`, on lwIP's **raw** API rather than lwIP's own sockets layer,
@@ -296,11 +343,18 @@ be fixed before `recvfrom` could report a source address at all.
 
 ## What it does not do
 
-- **`ping` is a first-party program**, `cmd/ping`, not toybox's. toybox's reads
-  replies with `recvmsg(2)` and asks for the TTL through an `IP_RECVTTL` control
-  message, and neither exists — `recvmsg` is item 1 of
-  [../plan/foundations.md](../plan/foundations.md), where it is wanted for
-  `SCM_RIGHTS` anyway. Ours has no `-I`, no flood mode and no TTL display.
+- **`ping` is a first-party program**, `cmd/ping`, not toybox's. `recvmsg` now
+  exists, so half of what stopped toybox's is gone; what remains is
+  `IP_RECVTTL`, an `IPPROTO_IP` control message that would have to be generated
+  on the receive path rather than merely carried. Ours has no `-I`, no flood
+  mode and no TTL display.
+- **`SCM_RIGHTS` is the only control message.** `SCM_CREDENTIALS` is refused
+  with `EINVAL` rather than ignored: a caller told its credentials were passed
+  would have the receiver read a uid out of uninitialised memory and act on it.
+- **A message may carry eight descriptors, and a socket eight such messages.**
+  Past that `sendmsg` answers `ENOBUFS`. The cap exists because the kernel holds
+  a reference to each one until it is received; a sender eight unreceived
+  messages ahead of its receiver is not rescued by a ninth slot.
 - **No resolver reachable from userland.** lwIP's DNS client is compiled but
   nothing exposes it, so `ping` takes a dotted quad. `localhost` is special-cased
   in the program rather than resolved.