Named pipes are represented as a file on the local file system. They are described in detail in Beginning Linux Programming and in Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment . To work with a named pipe, first create the file. This is not a regular file, it requires a specific system call to create. Then the server can write to the pipe and clients can read from the pipe.
Pipes have one drawback and that is that they have an allocated size that they are unable to exceed.
This means that your server will freeze if the pipe is full and it tries to write. There are solutions to this, you should try to find one. Sockets One of the most used IPC methods currently is sockets. Unlike pipes, sockets work across file systems and operating systems. The primary disadvantage of sockets is that they are substantially slower than pipes.