Took me about 20 minutes to figure out the proper arguments to supply for a AF_UNIX socket. Anything else, and I would get a PHP warning about the 'type' not being supported. I hope this saves someone else time.

<?php 
$socket = socket_create(AF_UNIX, SOCK_STREAM, 0);
// code
?>

Note that if you create a socket with AF_UNIX, a file will be created in the filesystem. This file is not removed when you call socket_close - you should unlink the file after you close the socket.

It took some time to understand how one PHP process can communicate with another by means of unix udp sockets. Examples of 'server' and 'client' code are given below. Server is assumed to run before client starts.

'Server' code
<?php
if (!extension_loaded('sockets')) {
    die('The sockets extension is not loaded.');
}
// create unix udp socket
$socket = socket_create(AF_UNIX, SOCK_DGRAM, 0);
if (!$socket)
        die('Unable to create AF_UNIX socket');

// same socket will be used in recv_from and send_to
$server_side_sock = dirname(__FILE__)."/server.sock";
if (!socket_bind($socket, $server_side_sock))
        die("Unable to bind to $server_side_sock");

while(1) // server never exits
{
// receive query
if (!socket_set_block($socket))
        die('Unable to set blocking mode for socket');
$buf = '';
$from = '';
echo "Ready to receive...\n";
// will block to wait client query
$bytes_received = socket_recvfrom($socket, $buf, 65536, 0, $from);
if ($bytes_received == -1)
        die('An error occured while receiving from the socket');
echo "Received $buf from $from\n";

$buf .= "->Response"; // process client query here

// send response
if (!socket_set_nonblock($socket))
        die('Unable to set nonblocking mode for socket');
// client side socket filename is known from client request: $from
$len = strlen($buf);
$bytes_sent = socket_sendto($socket, $buf, $len, 0, $from);
if ($bytes_sent == -1)
        die('An error occured while sending to the socket');
else if ($bytes_sent != $len)
        die($bytes_sent . ' bytes have been sent instead of the ' . $len . ' bytes expected');
echo "Request processed\n";
}
?>

'Client' code
<?php
if (!extension_loaded('sockets')) {
    die('The sockets extension is not loaded.');
}
// create unix udp socket
$socket = socket_create(AF_UNIX, SOCK_DGRAM, 0);
if (!$socket)
        die('Unable to create AF_UNIX socket');

// same socket will be later used in recv_from
// no binding is required if you wish only send and never receive
$client_side_sock = dirname(__FILE__)."/client.sock";
if (!socket_bind($socket, $client_side_sock))
        die("Unable to bind to $client_side_sock");

// use socket to send data
if (!socket_set_nonblock($socket))
        die('Unable to set nonblocking mode for socket');
// server side socket filename is known apriori
$server_side_sock = dirname(__FILE__)."/server.sock";
$msg = "Message";
$len = strlen($msg);
// at this point 'server' process must be running and bound to receive from serv.sock
$bytes_sent = socket_sendto($socket, $msg, $len, 0, $server_side_sock);
if ($bytes_sent == -1)
        die('An error occured while sending to the socket');
else if ($bytes_sent != $len)
        die($bytes_sent . ' bytes have been sent instead of the ' . $len . ' bytes expected');

// use socket to receive data
if (!socket_set_block($socket))
        die('Unable to set blocking mode for socket');
$buf = '';
$from = '';
// will block to wait server response
$bytes_received = socket_recvfrom($socket, $buf, 65536, 0, $from);
if ($bytes_received == -1)
        die('An error occured while receiving from the socket');
echo "Received $buf from $from\n";

// close socket and delete own .sock file
socket_close($socket);
unlink($client_side_sock);
echo "Client exits\n";
?>

Here is a ping function for PHP without using exec/system/passthrough/etc... Very useful to use to just test if a host is online before attempting to connect to it. Timeout is in seconds.

<?PHP
        function ping($host, $timeout = 1) {
                /* ICMP ping packet with a pre-calculated checksum */
                $package = "\x08\x00\x7d\x4b\x00\x00\x00\x00PingHost";
                $socket  = socket_create(AF_INET, SOCK_RAW, 1);
                socket_set_option($socket, SOL_SOCKET, SO_RCVTIMEO, array('sec' => $timeout, 'usec' => 0));
                socket_connect($socket, $host, null);

                $ts = microtime(true);
                socket_send($socket, $package, strLen($package), 0);
                if (socket_read($socket, 255))
                        $result = microtime(true) - $ts;
                else    $result = false;
                socket_close($socket);

                return $result;
        }
?>

I've written the ping() function using socket_create() with SOCK_RAW.
(on Unix System, you need to have the root acces to execute this function)

<?php

/// start ping.inc.php ///

$g_icmp_error = "No Error";

// timeout in ms
function ping($host, $timeout)
{
        $port = 0;
        $datasize = 64;
        global $g_icmp_error;
        $g_icmp_error = "No Error";
        $ident = array(ord('J'), ord('C'));
        $seq   = array(rand(0, 255), rand(0, 255));

     $packet = '';
     $packet .= chr(8); // type = 8 : request
     $packet .= chr(0); // code = 0

     $packet .= chr(0); // checksum init
     $packet .= chr(0); // checksum init

        $packet .= chr($ident[0]); // identifier
        $packet .= chr($ident[1]); // identifier

        $packet .= chr($seq[0]); // seq
        $packet .= chr($seq[1]); // seq

        for ($i = 0; $i < $datasize; $i++)
                $packet .= chr(0);

        $chk = icmpChecksum($packet);

        $packet[2] = $chk[0]; // checksum init
        $packet[3] = $chk[1]; // checksum init

        $sock = socket_create(AF_INET, SOCK_RAW,  getprotobyname('icmp'));
        $time_start = microtime();
    socket_sendto($sock, $packet, strlen($packet), 0, $host, $port);
    

    $read   = array($sock);
        $write  = NULL;
        $except = NULL;

        $select = socket_select($read, $write, $except, 0, $timeout * 1000);
        if ($select === NULL)
        {
                $g_icmp_error = "Select Error";
                socket_close($sock);
                return -1;
        }
        elseif ($select === 0)
        {
                $g_icmp_error = "Timeout";
                socket_close($sock);
                return -1;
        }

    $recv = '';
    $time_stop = microtime();
    socket_recvfrom($sock, $recv, 65535, 0, $host, $port);
        $recv = unpack('C*', $recv);
        
        if ($recv[10] !== 1) // ICMP proto = 1
        {
                $g_icmp_error = "Not ICMP packet";
                socket_close($sock);
                return -1;
        }

        if ($recv[21] !== 0) // ICMP response = 0
        {
                $g_icmp_error = "Not ICMP response";
                socket_close($sock);
                return -1;
        }

        if ($ident[0] !== $recv[25] || $ident[1] !== $recv[26])
        {
                $g_icmp_error = "Bad identification number";
                socket_close($sock);
                return -1;
        }
        
        if ($seq[0] !== $recv[27] || $seq[1] !== $recv[28])
        {
                $g_icmp_error = "Bad sequence number";
                socket_close($sock);
                return -1;
        }

        $ms = ($time_stop - $time_start) * 1000;
        
        if ($ms < 0)
        {
                $g_icmp_error = "Response too long";
                $ms = -1;
        }

        socket_close($sock);

        return $ms;
}

function icmpChecksum($data)
{
        $bit = unpack('n*', $data);
        $sum = array_sum($bit);

        if (strlen($data) % 2) {
                $temp = unpack('C*', $data[strlen($data) - 1]);
                $sum += $temp[1];
        }

        $sum = ($sum >> 16) + ($sum & 0xffff);
        $sum += ($sum >> 16);

        return pack('n*', ~$sum);
}

function getLastIcmpError()
{
        global $g_icmp_error;
        return $g_icmp_error;
}
/// end ping.inc.php ///
?>

On UNIX systems php needs /etc/protocols for constants like SOL_UDP and SOL_TCP.

This file was missing on my embedded platform.

Please be aware that RAW sockets (as used for the ping example) are restricted to root accounts on *nix systems. Since web servers hardly ever run as root, they won't work on webpages.

On Windows based servers it should work regardless.

Seems there aren't any examples of UDP clients out there.  This is a tftp client.  I hope this makes someone's life easier.

<?php
  function tftp_fetch($host, $filename)
  {
    $socket = socket_create(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, SOL_UDP);

    // create the request packet
    $packet = chr(0) . chr(1) . $filename . chr(0) . 'octet' . chr(0);
    // UDP is connectionless, so we just send on it.
    socket_sendto($socket, $packet, strlen($packet), 0x100, $host, 69);

    $buffer = '';
    $port = '';
    $ret = '';
    do
    {
      // $buffer and $port both come back with information for the ack
      // 516 = 4 bytes for the header + 512 bytes of data
      socket_recvfrom($socket, $buffer, 516, 0, $host, $port);

      // add the block number from the data packet to the ack packet
      $packet = chr(0) . chr(4) . substr($buffer, 2, 2);
      // send ack
      socket_sendto($socket, $packet, strlen($packet), 0, $host, $port);

      // append the data to the return variable
      // for large files this function should take a file handle as an arg
      $ret .= substr($buffer, 4);
    }
    while(strlen($buffer) == 516);  // the first non-full packet is the last.
    return $ret;
  }
?>

Here's a ping function that uses sockets instead of exec().  Note: I was unable to get socket_create() to work without running from CLI as root.  I've already calculated the package's checksum to simplify the code (the message is 'ping' but it doesn't actually matter).

<?php

function ping($host) {
    $package = "\x08\x00\x19\x2f\x00\x00\x00\x00\x70\x69\x6e\x67";

    /* create the socket, the last '1' denotes ICMP */    
    $socket = socket_create(AF_INET, SOCK_RAW, 1);
    
    /* set socket receive timeout to 1 second */
    socket_set_option($socket, SOL_SOCKET, SO_RCVTIMEO, array("sec" => 1, "usec" => 0));
    
    /* connect to socket */
    socket_connect($socket, $host, null);
    
    /* record start time */
    list($start_usec, $start_sec) = explode(" ", microtime());
    $start_time = ((float) $start_usec + (float) $start_sec);
    
    socket_send($socket, $package, strlen($package), 0);
    
    if(@socket_read($socket, 255)) {
        list($end_usec, $end_sec) = explode(" ", microtime());
        $end_time = ((float) $end_usec + (float) $end_sec);
    
        $total_time = $end_time - $start_time;
        
        return $total_time;
    } else {
        return false;
    }
    
    socket_close($socket);
}

?>

Okay I talked with Richard a little (via e-mail). We agree that getprotobyname() and using the constants should be the same in functionality and speed, the use of one or the other is merely coding style. Personally, we both think the constants are prettier :).

The eight different protocols are the ones implemented in PHP- not the total number in existance (RFC 1340 has 98).

All we disagree on is using 0- Richard says that "accordning to the official unix/bsd sockets 0 is more than fine." I think that since 0 is a reserved number according to RFC 1320, and when used usually refers to IP, not one of it's sub-protocols (TCP, UDP, etc.)

Here's a solution for icmpv6 ping with php, dropping it here in case if someone has problems with icmpv6 with php.

<?php
$host = "2a03:2880:f11b:83:face:b00c:0:25de";
$timeout = 100000;
$count = 3;
echo "Latency: ". round(1000 * pingv6($host,$timeout,$count),5) ." ms \n";

function pingv6($target,$timeout,$count) {
    echo "target is ipv6 address, ". getprotobyname('ipv6-icmp'). " \n";
    /* create the socket, the last '1' denotes ICMP */
    $socket = socket_create(AF_INET6, SOCK_RAW, getprotobyname('ipv6-icmp'));
    /* set socket receive timeout to 1 second */
    $sec=intval($timeout/1000);
    $usec=$timeout%1000*1000;
    socket_set_option($socket, SOL_SOCKET, SO_RCVTIMEO, array("sec"=>$sec, "usec"=>$usec));
    /* socket package parameters */
    $type = "\x80";
    $seqNumber = chr(floor($i/256)%256) . chr($i%256);
    $checksum= "\x00\x00";
    $code = "\x00";
    $identifier = chr(rand(0,255)) . chr(rand(0,255));
    $msg = "!\"#$%&'()*+,-./1234567";
    $package = $type.$code.$checksum.$identifier.$seqNumber.$msg;
        $checksum = icmpChecksum($package);
        $package = $type.$code.$checksum.$identifier.$seqNumber.$msg;
    /* socket connect */
    if(@socket_connect($socket, $target, null)){
        for($i = 0; $i < $count; $i++){
                list($start_usec, $start_sec) = explode(" ", microtime());
                $start_time = ((float) $start_usec + (float) $start_sec);
                $startTime = microtime(true);
                socket_send($socket, $package, strLen($package), 0);
                while ($startTime + $timeout*1000 > microtime(true)){
                        if(socket_read($socket, 255) !== false) {
                                list($end_usec, $end_sec) = explode(" ", microtime());
                                $end_time = ((float) $end_usec + (float) $end_sec);
                                $total_time = $end_time - $start_time;
                                echo "round trip time (".$i."): ". $total_time ."\n";
                                return $total_time;
                                break;
                        }else{
                                return "null";
                                echo "Timed out (".$i."), Got no echo reply\n";
                                break;
                        }
                }
            usleep($interval*1000);
        }
        socket_close($socket);
    }
}

function icmpChecksum($data){
if (strlen($data)%2) $data .= "\x00";
$bit = unpack('n*', $data);
$sum = array_sum($bit);
while ($sum >> 16)
  $sum = ($sum >> 16) + ($sum & 0xffff);
return pack('n*', ~$sum);
}

?>