Each notification record that the application receives over the socket represents a buffer that the TCP⁄IP stack stores. The actual real-time data is not part of this notification record. After the application receives the entire notification record from the AF_UNIX socket, it must pass this record, along with a user-allocated storage buffer, to the TMI copy buffer interface. For more information about the TMI copy buffer interface, see Real-time NMI: Copying the real-time data.

The TMI copy buffer interface populates the provided storage buffer with the output records. The output records are related to the real-time interface that the input notification record defines. After the application receives the notification over the AF_UNIX socket, it must call the TMI copy buffer interface immediately because the TCP⁄IP stack stores the buffers in a circular queue and the buffers might be eventually overwritten and invalidated. The network management application also needs to run at a relatively high priority to ensure that it gets dispatched by the system quickly enough to obtain the data before those buffers are overwritten.

For information about the format of these buffers and the records that the buffers contain, see Real-time NMI: Processing the output records.