A '''Unix ___domain socket (UDS)''' or '''IPC socket''' (inter-process communication socket) is a virtual socket, similar to an [[internet socket]] that is used in [[POSIX]] [[operating system]]s for [[inter-process communication]]. The correct standard POSIX term is '''POSIX Local IPC Sockets'''.
TheseUnix ___domain connections appear as [[byte stream]]s, much like network connections, but all data remains within the local computer. UNIX ___domain sockets use the file system as their address name space, i.e. they are viewedreferenced by processes as files[[inodes]] in athe file system. This allows two distinct processes to reference and open the same socket in order to communicate. However, the actual communication (the data exchange) does not use the file system, but buffers in kernel memory.
In addition to sending data, processes can send [[file descriptor]]s across a Unix ___domain socket connection using the sendmsg() and recvmsg() system calls.
==External links==
*{{man|2|socketpair||create a pair of connected sockets}}
