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IPC stands for inter-process communication.
On [[Unix]], inter-process communication can be achieved using pipes. This is inefficient for large amounts of data as the data must be copied. This is generally not a problem as most services are provided by the Unix kernel and Unix is not designed to be [[extensible|extensibility]].
[[Microkernel]] systems, on the other hand, are generally composed of many components. As components are separated by their respective [[address_space]] boundaries, unlike the kernel, they cannot arbitrarily examine and modify the caller's state. The advantage is that if the protocol is carefully designed, the callee cannot cause the caller any [[destructive_interference]] thereby removing the need for the caller to [[trust]] the callee thus reducing the former's [[TCB]]. When done systematically, this can increase the system's [[robustness]]. To this end, microkernels provide richer IPC semantics that include the ability to transfer [[capabilities|capability]] and to use [[virtual_memory]] [[mechanism]]s to copy data.
Continue reading about [[Mach's IPC system|microkernel/mach/IPC]].
- {{$performance_irrelevance}}
- [[RPC]]
[[!ymlfront data="""
performance_irrelevance:
"Brian N. Bershad, 1992: The Increasing Irrelevance of IPC Performance for Microkernel-Based Operating Systems (doc, ps, CiteSeerX)"
"""]]