What is socket in API?

The socket API is a collection of socket calls that enable you to perform the following primary communication functions between application programs: Set up and establish connections to other users on the network. Send and receive data to and from other users.

What is a UNIX socket connection?

A Unix domain socket or IPC socket (inter-process communication socket) is a data communications endpoint for exchanging data between processes executing on the same host operating system. Valid socket types in the UNIX domain are: SOCK_STREAM (compare to TCP) – for a stream-oriented socket.

What are UNIX sockets used for?

Unix sockets are a form of communication between two processes that appears as a file on disk. This file can be used by other programs to establish very fast connections between two or more processes without any network overhead.

How does a socket API work?

The socket() API creates an endpoint for communications and returns a socket descriptor that represents the endpoint. The client application uses a connect() API on a stream socket to establish a connection to the server. The server application uses the accept() API to accept a client connection request.

What is a socket connection?

Definition: A socket is one endpoint of a two-way communication link between two programs running on the network. A socket is bound to a port number so that the TCP layer can identify the application that data is destined to be sent to. Every TCP connection can be uniquely identified by its two endpoints.

What is the difference between a socket and a connection?

Socket connection implies two peer connected with each other,Protocol can be TCP or UDP.So connection does not specify type of connection.it is generic term for connection. When you say TCP connection it implies two nodes are connected using TCP protocol. Thanks for the clarification.

Does Unix socket need port?

When a client process wants to a connect a server, the client must have a way of identifying the server that it wants to connect. You should make sure that this port should not be assigned to any other server. Normally it is a practice to assign any port number more than 5000.

Are UNIX sockets faster than TCP?

Depending on the platform, unix domain sockets can achieve around 50% more throughput than the TCP/IP loopback (on Linux for instance). The default behavior of redis-benchmark is to use the TCP/IP loopback.

Why does UNIX require a domain socket?

Since pipes have these limitations, UNIX domain sockets should be used if there are multiple clients that need to be distinguishable or which write long messages to the server. Method of creating and opening. Sockets are created using socket and assigned their identity via bind . Named pipes are created using mkfifo .

How are sockets implemented?

On the Internet, stream sockets are typically implemented using TCP so that applications can run across any networks using TCP/IP protocol. Raw sockets. Allow direct sending and receiving of IP packets without any protocol-specific transport layer formatting.

What is the use of socket API?

The application programming interface (API) that programs use to communicate with the protocol stack, using network sockets, is called a socket API. Development of application programs that utilize this API is called socket programming or network programming. Internet socket APIs are usually based on the Berkeley sockets standard.

What is the use of socket in Linux?

socket () creates an endpoint for communication and returns a file descriptor that refers to that endpoint. The file descriptor returned by a successful call will be the lowest-numbered file descriptor not currently open for the process.

What is socket file in Linux?

A Unix /Linux socket file is basically a two-way FIFO. Since sockets were originally created as a way to manage network communications, it is possible to manipulate them using the send() and recv() system calls. However, in the Unix spirit of “everything is a file”, you can also use write() and read().

What is Linux socket?

Linux. One definition of the socket interface is that it is the interface between the transport layer protocols in the TCP/IP stack and all protocols above. However, the socket interface is also the interface between the kernel and the application layer for all network programming functions.