Interprocess Communication (IPC) is a mechanism by which two or more processes communicate with each other to exchange data by synchronizing their activities. This communication is achieved by calling system functions, such as read() and write() and some Input/Output (I/O) routines. In Unix, IPC is implemented using the C programming language. IPC provides a programming interface that allows you to create and manage processes, which can run concurrently in an Operating System (OS).
IPC Types
In Unix, IPC enables communication between processes either on the same computer or on different computers. The different types of IPC available are:
- Local IPC: Allows one or more processes to communicate with each other on a single system as follows:
- Pipe: Passes information from one process to another process. There are two types of pipes, named pipes and unnamed pipes.An unnamed pipe is a one-way communication IPC whereas a named pipe is a two-way communication IPC.
- Signals: Are software-generated interrupts sent to a process when an event occurs.
- Message queuing: Allows processes to exchange data by using a message queue.
- Semaphores: Synchronizes the processes activities concurrently competing for the same system resource.
- Shared memory: Allows memory segments to be shared among processes communicating with each other to exchange data between them. This method of IPC is used for faster communication between processes than the reading and writing of data by other operating system services.
- Sockets: Are end-points for communication between processes. They allow communication between a client program and a server program.
- Pipe: Passes information from one process to another process. There are two types of pipes, named pipes and unnamed pipes.An unnamed pipe is a one-way communication IPC whereas a named pipe is a two-way communication IPC.
- Remote IPC: Allows more than two processes to communicate with each other on different systems. Some networking protocols are implemented in remote IPC. Remote IPC uses:
- Internet-domain-specific sockets
- The Transport Layer Interface (TLI)
- Remote procedure calls (RPCs)
- Internet-domain-specific sockets
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