13.7. ClientServer Model

A common use for a daemon process is as a server process. Indeed, in Figure 13.2, we can call the syslogd process a server that has messages sent to it by user processes (clients) using a UNIX domain datagram socket.

In general, a server is a process that waits for a client to contact it, requesting some type of service. In Figure 13.2, the service being provided by the syslogd server is the logging of an error message.

In Figure 13.2, the communication between the client and the server is one-way. The client sends its service request to the server; the server sends nothing back to the client. In the upcoming chapters, we'll see numerous examples of two-way communication between a client and a server. The client sends a request to the server, and the server sends a reply back to the client.