Linux/UNIX IPC Programming course outline

1. Course Introduction
2. IPC: Introduction and Overview
   • Categorizing IPC
   • Choosing an IPC mechanism
3. Fundamentals
   • Error handling
   • Notes on code examples
4. Pipes and FIFOs
   • Preamble: file descriptors and file descriptor duplication
   • Creating and using pipes
   • Connecting filters with pipes
   • FIFOs
5. Sockets: Concepts and UNIX Domain
   • Socket types and domains
   • Creating and binding a socket
   • System calls: stream sockets
   • UNIX domain stream sockets
   • System calls: datagram sockets
   • UNIX domain datagram sockets
   • Further details of UNIX domain sockets
6. UNIX Domain Sockets: Ancillary Data (*)
   • Ancillary data
   • Ancillary message types
   • Example: passing a file descriptor over a socket
   • Further details
7. Sockets: Internet Domain
   • Internet domain sockets
   • Data-representation issues
   • Loopback and wildcard addresses
   • Host addresses and port numbers
   • Host and service conversion
   • Internet domain sockets example
   • Additional sockets system calls
8. Alternative I/O Models
   • Nonblocking I/O
   • Signal-driven I/O
   • I/O multiplexing: poll()
   • Event-loop programming
9. Alternative I/O Models: epoll
   • Problems with poll() and select()
   • The epoll API
   • epoll events
   • Edge-triggered notification
   • epoll API quirks
10. eventfd
    • Overview of eventfd
    • eventfd operations
    • Semaphore semantics for eventfd
11. POSIX IPC
12. POSIX Semaphores
    • Named semaphores
    • Semaphore operations
    • Unnamed semaphores
13. POSIX Shared Memory
    • Overview
    • Creating and opening shared memory objects
    • Using shared memory objects
    • Synchronizing access to shared memory
14. POSIX Message Queues
    • Opening, closing, and unlinking a message queue
    • Message queue attributes
    • Sending and receiving messages
    • The mqueue filesystem
    • Message queue limits and defaults
    • Message notification (*)
    • Message notification via a signal (*)
    • Message notification via a thread (*)
15. Other IPC methods (*)
    • Pseudoterminals
    • File locks
    • Cross-memory attach
    • Shared file mappings

(*) Topics marked with an asterisk will be covered subject to time constraints.

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