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Full Discussion: UNIX domain sockets vs FIFOs
Top Forums UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users UNIX domain sockets vs FIFOs Post 302179466 by Perderabo on Thursday 27th of March 2008 08:11:32 PM
Old 03-27-2008
They are not interchangable the way pipe() and socketpair() are. Compared to FIFO's, Unix domain sockets are a minor nightmare to use. Two programs can just open a FIFO and then they are talking. With Unix domain sockets, a server has to set up one unix domain socket and go through all the networking business. A client creates a temporary unix domain socket of its own and connects to the servers socket. The server then forks() and starts a conversation with the client. There is a lot of overhead including a fork() just to get the ball rolling. Ignoring the startup overhead, I'm not sure which can send data the fastest. I would go with the FIFO anyway.

But it's good to use Unix domain sockets at least once, so maybe you should do that. That will cure you forever from considering them again.
 

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SOCKSTAT(1)						    BSD General Commands Manual 					       SOCKSTAT(1)

NAME
sockstat -- list open sockets SYNOPSIS
sockstat [-46cLlu] [-j jid] [-p ports] [-P protocols] DESCRIPTION
The sockstat command lists open Internet or UNIX domain sockets. The following options are available: -4 Show AF_INET (IPv4) sockets. -6 Show AF_INET6 (IPv6) sockets. -c Show connected sockets. -j jid Show only sockets belonging to the specified jail ID. -L Only show Internet sockets if the local or foreign addresses are not in the loopback network prefix 127.0.0.0/8, or do not con- tain the IPv6 loopback address ::1. -l Show listening sockets. -p ports Only show Internet sockets if either the local or foreign port number is on the specified list. The ports argument is a comma- separated list of port numbers and ranges specified as first and last port separated by a dash. -P protocols Only show sockets of the specified protocols. The protocols argument is a comma-separated list of protocol names, as they are defined in protocols(5). -u Show AF_LOCAL (UNIX) sockets. If neither -4, -6 or -u is specified, sockstat will list sockets in all three domains. If neither -c or -l is specified, sockstat will list both listening and connected sockets. The information listed for each socket is: USER The user who owns the socket. COMMAND The command which holds the socket. PID The process ID of the command which holds the socket. FD The file descriptor number of the socket. PROTO The transport protocol associated with the socket for Internet sockets, or the type of socket (stream or datagram) for UNIX sockets. LOCAL ADDRESS For Internet sockets, this is the address the local end of the socket is bound to (see getsockname(2)). For bound UNIX sockets, it is the socket's filename. For other UNIX sockets, it is a right arrow followed by the endpoint's filename, or ``??'' if the endpoint could not be determined. FOREIGN ADDRESS (Internet sockets only) The address the foreign end of the socket is bound to (see getpeername(2)). If a socket is associated with more than one file descriptor, it is shown multiple times. If a socket is not associated with any file descriptor, the first four columns have no meaning. SEE ALSO
fstat(1), netstat(1), procstat(1), inet(4), inet6(4), protocols(5) HISTORY
The sockstat command appeared in FreeBSD 3.1. AUTHORS
The sockstat command and this manual page were written by Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@FreeBSD.org>. BSD
May 16, 2012 BSD
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