What are .sock files and how to communicate with them

Question

• What are .sock files?
• How can I communicate with a .sock file?

Elaborating on the 2nd bullet, I understand that .sock files are for Inter-process communication. How can I 'communicate' with them? Let us say a sock file is designed to respond in a specific way (For ex: it takes the input 'time' and prints out the current time).

I prefer higher level programming languages (python) more than C/C++ . It'd also be better if someone can point me to some application (like nc maybe?) that I can use to communicate with .sock files in a quick and dirty way?

Thanks

Answer 1

Sock files are socket files they are endpoints in communication pipes.

how to create socket files:

• let uwsgi create them when interacting with servers(e.g. nginx) sudo uwsgi --ini /path/to/ini/file/ In the ini file you need to have passed a path to where you want to add the socket file .ini files will on unix sysytems live at /etc/uwsgi/sites/*.ini

• create socket files using a high level language try python: python -c "import socket as s; sock = s.socket(s.AF_UNIX); sock.bind('/tmp/test.sock')"

• use nc Server side have: nc -l -p 1234 Client side have: nc -l -p 1234 That way you have a open socket that can communicate. I leave this here