[MPICH] Mixing MPI

[andy]

I am writing a server program using MPI and other packages which use sockets and pipes and the like. I have had a ponder and a google but cannot see how to introduce MPI to the server using something like the unix select() to avoid polling. Can I get hold of file descriptors? Or am I simply looking at what must be a fairly common task in the wrong way? Thanks for any suggestions.