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Semaphore, Shared Memory and IPC

Introduction

These modules provide wrappers for the System V IPC family of functions. It includes semaphores, shared memory and inter-process messaging (IPC).

Semaphores may be used to provide exclusive access to resources on the current machine, or to limit the number of processes that may simultaneously use a resource.

This module provides also shared memory functions using System V shared memory. Shared memory may be used to provide access to global variables. Different httpd-daemons and even other programs (such as Perl, C, ...) are able to access this data to provide a global data-exchange. Remember, that shared memory is NOT safe against simultaneous access. Use semaphores for synchronization.
Limits of Shared Memory by the Unix OS
SHMMAX max size of shared memory, normally 131072 bytes
SHMMIN minimum size of shared memory, normally 1 byte
SHMMNI max amount of shared memory segments on a system, normally 100
SHMSEG max amount of shared memory segments per process, normally 6

The messaging functions may be used to send and receive messages to/from other processes. They provide a simple and effective means of exchanging data between processes, without the need for setting up an alternative using Unix domain sockets.

Note: Only the shared memory functions and ftok() are available on Windows. Neither semaphores nor inter-process messaging functions are supported on that platform.