Inter Process Communication

What is Inter-Process Communication (IPC)?

Inter-process communication (IPC) is the set of mechanisms an operating system provides for separate processes — each with its own isolated address space — to…

What are Pipes in Operating Systems?

A pipe is a unidirectional, kernel-buffered byte stream that connects the standard output of one process directly to the standard input of another, letting rel…

What is a Named Pipe (FIFO)?

A named pipe, or FIFO, is a special filesystem entry that behaves like an anonymous pipe but has a persistent path name, allowing entirely unrelated processes…

What is Message Passing in Operating Systems?

Message passing is an IPC model where processes exchange discrete, self-contained messages through kernel-mediated send() and receive() primitives, rather than…

What is Shared Memory IPC?

Shared memory IPC is a technique where the OS maps the same physical memory frames into the address spaces of two or more processes, letting them read and writ…

What are Sockets as an IPC Mechanism?

A socket is a bidirectional communication endpoint, addressed by the kernel’s networking or Unix-domain stack, that lets two processes exchange data using the…

What Are Signals in an Operating System?

A signal is a limited, asynchronous notification the kernel delivers to a process to inform it of an event — such as a fault, a user interrupt, a timer expiry,…

Compare Different IPC Mechanisms (Pipes, Shared Memory, Message Queues)

Pipes offer simple, ordered byte-stream communication between related processes with kernel-managed buffering, shared memory offers the fastest raw throughput…

What is a Remote Procedure Call (RPC)?

A Remote Procedure Call (RPC) is an IPC mechanism that lets a program invoke a procedure running in a different address space — typically on another machine —…

What is Mailbox-Based (Message-Passing) Communication?

Mailbox-based communication is an indirect message-passing model in which processes send and receive messages through a shared, kernel-managed mailbox (also ca…

Microkernel vs Monolithic Kernel: Key Differences

A monolithic kernel runs the entire OS — scheduler, file system, device drivers, and networking — in one privileged address space for speed, while a microkerne…

What Are the Types of System Calls?

System calls are the controlled entry points through which a user-space program requests a privileged service from the kernel, and they fall into five broad ca…

What is a Hybrid Kernel Architecture?

A hybrid kernel is a design that keeps a microkernel-inspired modular structure — separating services conceptually and often loading drivers as dynamically loa…

How Do Threads and Processes Differ in Memory Sharing?

Threads within the same process share the same address space — code, heap, and global data — and each only gets its own private stack and register set, whereas…