diff --git a/connect/src/receive/connect.rs b/connect/src/receive/connect.rs
index b4e102c..516a182 100644
--- a/connect/src/receive/connect.rs
+++ b/connect/src/receive/connect.rs
@@ -16,9 +16,30 @@ use std::path::PathBuf;
 ///
 /// The sockets are returned in nonblocking mode.
 pub fn open_sockets(ip_addr: IpAddr, port: u16, source_peers: usize) -> Result<Vec<Option<TcpStream>>, ConnectError> {
+    let listener = bind(ip_addr, port)?;
+    await_sockets(listener, source_peers)
+}
+
+/// Wraps `TcpListener::bind` to return `ConnectError`s.
+pub fn bind(ip_addr: IpAddr, port: u16) -> Result<TcpListener, ConnectError> {
     let socket_addr = (ip_addr, port).to_socket_addrs()?
         .next().ok_or(ConnectError::Other("Invalid listening address".to_string()))?;
-    let listener = TcpListener::bind(socket_addr)?;
+
+    match TcpListener::bind(socket_addr) {
+        Err(err) => Err(ConnectError::Other(err.to_string())),
+        Ok(listener) => Ok(listener)
+    }
+}
+
+/// Listens on the provided socket until `source_peers` connections
+/// from the computations we're examining have been established (one
+/// socket for every worker on the examined computation).
+///
+/// The sockets are wrapped in `Some(_)` because the result is
+/// commonly used as a an argument to `make_readers` in this module.
+///
+/// The sockets are returned in nonblocking mode.
+pub fn await_sockets(listener: TcpListener, source_peers: usize) -> Result<Vec<Option<TcpStream>>, ConnectError> {
     Ok((0..source_peers).map(|_| {
         let socket = listener.incoming().next().expect("Socket unexpectedly unavailable");
         if let Ok(ref s) = &socket {