TCP loopback connection vs Unix Domain Socket performance

sockets unix tcp loopback unix-socket
Rohit picture Rohit · Feb 20, 2013 · Viewed 75.4k times · Source

Working on an Android and iOS based application which require communication with a server running in the same device. Currently using TCP loopback connection for communicating with App and Server (App written in user layer, server written in C++ using Android NDK)

I was wondering if replacing inter communication with Unix Domain socket would improve the performance?

Or in-general is there any evidence/theory that proves that Unix Domain socket would give better performance then TCP loopback connection?

Answer

0x4a6f4672 picture 0x4a6f4672 · Apr 11, 2013

Yes, local interprocess communication by unix domain sockets should be faster than communication by loopback localhost connections because you have less TCP overhead, see here.

Related questions

Difference between UNIX domain STREAM and DATAGRAM sockets?

This question is NOT for the difference between STREAM type and DATAGRAM type INTERNET sockets. I know that STREAM sockets use TCP, Datagram sockets use UDP and all the TCP,UDP stuff, packets arriving in order, ACK, NACK etc. I …

Read More
How do SO_REUSEADDR and SO_REUSEPORT differ?

The man pages and programmer documentations for the socket options SO_REUSEADDR and SO_REUSEPORT are different for different operating systems and often highly confusing. Some operating systems don't even have the option SO_REUSEPORT. The WEB is full of …

Read More
What can cause a “Resource temporarily unavailable” on sock send() command

What can cause a Resource temporarily unavailable error on a socket send() command? The socket is setup as AF_UNIX, SOCK_STREAM. It works most of the time, but occasionally gets this error. The receiving end of the socket appears …

Read More