diff --git a/perl-xCAT/xCAT/Client.pm b/perl-xCAT/xCAT/Client.pm
index 04890a4d2..fd4aeeed8 100644
--- a/perl-xCAT/xCAT/Client.pm
+++ b/perl-xCAT/xCAT/Client.pm
@@ -224,8 +224,7 @@ if (ref($request) eq 'HASH') { # the request is an array, not pure XML
   my $massresponse="<massresponse>";
   my $nextcoalescetime=time()+1;
   my $coalescenow=0;
-  my $flags;
-  fcntl($client,F_GETFL,$flags);
+  my $flags=fcntl($client,F_GETFL,0);
   $flags |= O_NONBLOCK; #select can be a bit.. fickle, make sysread work more easily...
   fcntl($client,F_SETFL,$flags);
   my $clientsel = new IO::Select;
diff --git a/xCAT-server/sbin/xcatd b/xCAT-server/sbin/xcatd
index 4b11c551e..142c69663 100755
--- a/xCAT-server/sbin/xcatd
+++ b/xCAT-server/sbin/xcatd
@@ -1688,8 +1688,7 @@ sub service_connection {
     my $request;
     my $req=undef;
     my $line;
-    my $flags;
-    fcntl($sock,F_GETFL,$flags);
+    my $flags=fcntl($sock,F_GETFL,0);
     $flags |= O_NONBLOCK; #we want sysread to bail on us, select seems to be evil to us still..
     fcntl($sock,F_SETFL,$flags);
     my $clientsel = new IO::Select;