The accept() system call initiates communications between a connection-oriented server and the client.

int accept(int sockfd, struct sockaddr *cli_addr, int addrlen);

■	The first parameter is the socket descriptor from the socket() call, sockfd.
■	The second parameter is the client’s sockaddr address, to be filled in.
■	The third parameter is the length of the client’s sockaddr structure.

Generally programs call accept() inside an infinite loop, forking a new process for each accepted connection. After accept() returns with client address, the server is ready to accept data.

For example:

for( ; ; ) {
     newsockfd = accept(sockfd, (struct sockaddr *) &cli_addr, sizeof(cli_addr));
     if (fork() = 0)  {
          close(sockfd);
										/*
										* read and write data over the network
										* (code missing)
										*/
          exit (0);
     }
     close(newsockfd);
}