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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 [-46clnu] [-f address_family] [-p ports] 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. -f address_family Limit listed sockets to those of the specified address_family. The following address families are recognized: inet, for AF_INET; inet6, for AF_INET6; and local or unix, for AF_LOCAL. -l Show listening sockets. -n Numeric output only. No attempt will be made to look up symbolic names for addresses and ports. -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. -u Show AF_LOCAL (UNIX) sockets. If neither -4, -6, nor -u are specified, sockstat will list sockets in all three domains. If neither -c nor -l are specified, sockstat will list both listening and connected sockets, as well as those sockets that are in neither state. 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, seqpacket or data- gram) for UNIX sockets. LOCAL ADDRESS For Internet sockets, this is the address to which the local end of the socket is bound (see getsockname(2)). For bound UNIX sockets, it is the socket's filename or ``-''. FOREIGN ADDRESS The address to which the foreign end of the socket is bound (see getpeername(2)) or ``-'' for unconnected UNIX sockets. SEE ALSO
fstat(1), netstat(1), inet(4), inet6(4), unix(4) HISTORY
The sockstat command appeared in FreeBSD 3.1. It was then rewritten for NetBSD 3.0. AUTHORS
This version of the sockstat command was written by Andrew Brown <atatat@NetBSD.org>. This manual page was written by Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@FreeBSD.org> and was adapted to match the NetBSD implementation by Andrew Brown <atatat@NetBSD.org>. BSD
July 14, 2006 BSD
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