What is a Socket?

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Recently, while reviewing the FAQ, I came across the question “What’s a Socket?” For those who are not familiar, I shall explain.

In brief, a Unix Socket (technically, the correct name is Unix domain socket, UDS) allows communication between two different processes on either the same machine or different machines in client-server application frameworks. To be more precise, it’s a way of communicating among computers using a standard Unix descriptors file.

Every UNIX systems Input/Output action is executed by writing or reading the descriptor file. A Descriptor file is an open file, which is associated with an integer. It can be a network connection, text file, terminal or something else. It looks and behaves much like a low-level file descriptor. This happens because the commands like read () and write () works with the same way they do with the files and pipes.

Read more at Red Hat