👉 Overview
👀 What ?
Linux IPC (Inter-Process Communication) Namespace is a feature provided by the Linux kernel that allows processes in different IPC namespaces to communicate with each other.
🧐 Why ?
The importance of the Linux IPC Namespace lies in its ability to isolate processes for security and modularity purposes. It provides a mechanism for processes to communicate with each other without interfering with other processes running on the same system. This is particularly useful in systems with multiple users or processes that need to run in isolation from each other.
⛏️ How ?
The IPC Namespace can be utilized by creating a new namespace using the 'unshare' or 'clone' system calls with the 'CLONE_NEWIPC' flag. Once the new IPC namespace is created, processes can communicate with each other using the usual IPC mechanisms such as message queues, semaphore sets, and shared memory segments, knowing that their communication is isolated from other processes.
⏳ When ?
The use of IPC Namespaces in Linux began with the introduction of namespace isolation features in the Linux kernel version 2.6.19, released in 2006.
⚙️ Technical Explanations
IPC namespaces isolate certain IPC resources, namely, System V IPC objects and POSIX message queues. Each IPC namespace has its own set of System V IPC identifiers and its own POSIX message queue filesystem. When a process creates a System V IPC object or POSIX message queue, the object or queue is visible to all other processes within the same IPC namespace, but is not visible to processes in other IPC namespaces. This isolation ensures that processes in different IPC namespaces cannot affect each other's IPC resources, providing an additional layer of security and modularity.