diff --git a/ixwebsocket/IXSocket.cpp b/ixwebsocket/IXSocket.cpp
index b4982b41..27bd8128 100644
--- a/ixwebsocket/IXSocket.cpp
+++ b/ixwebsocket/IXSocket.cpp
@@ -128,6 +128,10 @@ namespace ix
                 optval != 0)
             {
                 pollResult = PollResultType::Error;
+
+                // set errno to optval so that external callers can have an
+                // appropriate error description when calling strerror
+                errno = optval;
             }
 #endif
         }