Strategies For Multi-Client Servers

Multiplexing - one process uses select() or poll() to handle many clients.

Advantage - uses few system resources; rather simple to program; portable; does not require extra context switches; makes it easy to forward data between different clients;

Disadvantages - slow response to new connections; not comfortable for "conversation-oriented" protocols; not scalable to large number of clients; fails when servicing a client request packet is slow;

Notes - used to be the normal way of writing servers until 6-7 years ago.