Soket

Soket, a variant spelling of socket, refers to a software abstraction used in networking and inter-process communication, as well as to physical connectors in hardware. In computing, it is the endpoint for communication and provides an interface for sending and receiving data.

In network programming, a socket is created by a process and associated with an address consisting of an IP address and a port number. Two endpoints with complementary addresses can establish a communication channel. Sockets can be of different types, most notably stream sockets using TCP, which provide reliable, connection-oriented delivery, and datagram sockets using UDP, which are message-based and may lose data.

Sockets are implemented by the operating system using a network stack. The typical lifecycle includes creating a socket, binding it to a local address, and for servers, listening and accepting connections; clients initiate connections with connect. Once connected, applications use send and receive calls to exchange data, and finally close the socket.

Common address families include IPv4, IPv6, and UNIX domain sockets (interprocess on same host). On Unix-like systems, sockets appear as file descriptors; on Windows, as handles, accessed via the Winsock API. BSD sockets are a widely used API standard; Windows uses Winsock with some differences.

In hardware contexts, a soket can also refer to a physical socket, such as a CPU socket or memory socket, which provides a mechanical and electrical interface between components.

Security and best practices: Use encryption (TLS) at the application layer, validate peer identities, limit binding to localhost when appropriate, and employ firewalls and access controls to reduce exposure.