Introduction to Socket programming using C

Goal: learn how to build client/server application that communicate using sockets

Vinay Narasimhamurthy [email protected]

CLIENT SERVER MODEL

Sockets are used for interprocess communication. Most of the interprocess communication follow a Client-Server Model, where client and server are two separate processes in itself. Server and Client exchange messages over the network through a common Socket API ports

Server TCP / UDP IP

Network Interface

Client Socket API TCP / UDP IP

Network Interface

user space kernel space

hardware

* Port numbers: 1,024 -- 65,535 (216 - 1)

Server Examples
Web server (port 80) FTP server (20, 21) Telnet server (23) Mail server (25)

Client Examples
Examples of client programs
Web browsers, ftp, telnet, ssh

How does a client find the server?

The IP address in the server socket address identifies the host The (well-known) port in the server socket address identifies the service, and thus implicitly identifies the server process that performs that service. Examples of well know ports
Port 7: Echo server Port 23: Telnet server Port 25: Mail server Port 80: Web server

What is an API ? API expands as Application Programming Interface. A set of routines that an application uses to request and carry out lower-level services performed by a computer's operating system.

What is a socket?
An interface between application and network which is used for communication between processes Once configured the application can
pass data to the socket for network transmission receive data from the socket (transmitted through the network by some other host)

To the kernel, a socket is an endpoint of communication. To an application, a socket is a file descriptor that lets the application read/write from/to the network. Clients and servers communicate with each by reading from and writing to socket descriptors.
Remember: All Unix I/O devices, including networks, are modeled as files.

Two essential types of sockets

SOCK_STREAM TCP connection-oriented reliable delivery in-order guaranteed bidirectional SOCK_DGRAM UDP no notion of connection app indicates dest. for each packet unreliable delivery no order guarantees can send or receive

What is a Port? A Port Number?

Port numbers are used to identify services on a host Port numbers can be well-known (port 0-1023) dynamic or private (port 1024-65535) Servers/daemons usually use well-known ports any client can identify the server/service HTTP = 80, FTP = 21, Telnet = 23, ... /etc/service defines well-known ports Clients usually use dynamic ports assigned by the kernel at run time
Web Server Server X

80 TCP / UDP IP
Network Interface

123

Connectionless sockets
With connectionless sockets, it is possible for multiple processes to simultaneously send datagrams to the same socket established by a receiving process.

Application 1 Gateway Server

Application 2

datagram socket

Creating a Socket
int socket(int family,int type,int proto);

family specifies the protocol family (AF_INET for Internet, PF_INET for TCP/IP). type specifies the type of service (SOCK_STREAM, SOCK_DGRAM). protocol specifies the specific protocol (usually 0, which means the default).

socket()
The socket() system call returns a socket descriptor (small integer) or -1 on error. socket() allocates resources needed for a communication endpoint - but it does not deal with endpoint addressing.

Generic socket addresses

struct sockaddr uint8_t sa_family_t char }; { sa_len; sa_family; sa_data[14];

sa_family specifies the address type. sa_data specifies the address value.

struct sockaddr_in (IPv4)

struct sockaddr_in { uint8_t sin_len; sa_family_t sin_family; in_port_t sin_port; struct in_addr sin_addr; char sin_zero[8]; }; A special kind of sockaddr structure

struct in_addr
struct in_addr { in_addr_t s_addr; }; in_addr just provides a name for the C type associated with IP addresses.

Network Byte Order

All values stored in a sockaddr_in must be in network byte order.
sin_port sin_addr a TCP/IP port number. an IP address.

Byte Ordering
Big Endian Sun Solaris, PowerPC, ... Little Endian i386, alpha, ... Network byte order = Big Endian

128 95

2 194

194 2

95 128

c[0] c[1] c[2] c[3]

Assigning an address to a socket

The bind() system call is used to assign an address to an existing socket.
int bind( int sockfd, const struct sockaddr *myaddr, int addrlen);

bind returns 0 if successful or -1 on error.

bind()
calling bind() assigns the address specified by the sockaddr structure to the socket descriptor. You can give bind() a sockaddr_in structure:
bind( mysock, (struct sockaddr*) &myaddr, sizeof(myaddr) );

Uses for bind()

There are a number of uses for bind():
Server would like to bind to a well known address (port number). Client can bind to a specific port. Client can ask the O.S. to assign any available port number.

What is my IP address ?
How can you find out what your IP address is so you can tell bind() ? There is no realistic way for you to know the right IP address to give bind() - what if the computer has multiple network interfaces? specify the IP address as: INADDR_ANY, this tells the OS to take care of things.

Other socket system calls

Connection-oriented Connectionless (TCP) (UDP)
connect() listen() accept() read() write() close() connect()* send() recv() sendto() recvfrom()

* -optional but sometimes recommended

Methods :
socket()
Creates a new socket and returns its descriptor

bind()
Associates a socket with a port and address

connect()
Establish queue for connection requests

listen()
Accepts a connection request

accept()
Initiates a connection to a remote host

recv()
Receive data from a socket descriptor

send()
Sends data to a socket descriptor

Socket programming with TCP

Client
socket

Server
socket

bind

listen

connect

Connection request

accept

write

read

read

write

Await connection request from next client

close

close

Socket programming with UDP

Client Server

socket

socket

bind

sendto

recvfrom

This is a blocking call and waits till it receives a request from the client

recvfrom

sendto

close

close

Example: C client (UDP)

/* UDP client in the internet domain */ #include <sys/types.h> #include <sys/socket.h> #include <netinet/in.h> #include <arpa/inet.h> #include <netdb.h> #include <stdio.h> void error(char *); int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { int sock, length, n; //socket structures struct sockaddr_in server, client; //hostent datastructure struct hostent *hp; char buffer[256]; if (argc != 3) { printf("Usage: server port\n"); exit(1); }

//specifies that it is a datagram socket //and the socket belongs to the INTERNET family sock= socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, 0); if (sock < 0) error("socket"); //We initialize the individual fields of the sockaddr_in structure //to fill sin_family which takes AF_INET as the value server.sin_family = AF_INET; //returns the hostname in the form of a hostent structure hp = gethostbyname(argv[1]); if (hp==0) error("Unknown host"); //The below function can also be replaced with memcopy //but please never use strcpy() it wont work! bcopy((char *)hp->h_addr, (char *)&server.sin_addr, hp->h_length); //We initialize the individual fields of the sockaddr_in structure //to fill sin_port which takes the port number as the value //which was given as a command line parameter, remember to convert //this value into host to network byte order, it is very important! server.sin_port = htons(atoi(argv[2])); length=sizeof(struct sockaddr_in); printf("Please enter the message: "); //This initializes the buffer with 0, we can also use memset as a replacement function

bzero(buffer,256); //reads the value from the keyboard, stdin = keyboard fgets(buffer,255,stdin); //sends the buffer, to the server, the fourth parameter is by default zero. n=sendto(sock,buffer, strlen(buffer),0,&server,length); if (n < 0) error("Sendto"); //receives the packet from the server which is stored in the buffer n = recvfrom(sock,buffer,256,0,&client, &length); if (n < 0) error("recvfrom"); write(1,"Got an ack: ",12); write(1,buffer,n); //closes the socket descriptor close(sock); } void error(char *msg) { perror(msg); exit(0); }

Example: C server (UDP)

/* Creates a datagram server. The port number is passed as an argument. This server runs forever */ #include #include #include #include #include <sys/types.h> <sys/socket.h> <netinet/in.h> <netdb.h> <stdio.h>

void error(char *msg) { perror(msg); exit(0); } int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { int sock, length, clientlen, n; ///Declare the sockaddr_in structures for the client and the server struct sockaddr_in server; struct sockaddr_in client; char buf[1024];

if (argc < 2) { fprintf(stderr, "ERROR, no port provided\n"); exit(0); } ///The socket call which returns a file descriptor sock=socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, 0); if (sock < 0) error("Opening socket"); length = sizeof(server); ///Initializes the server socket structure to zero, as a replacement we can also ///use memset bzero(&server,length); ///We initialize the values for all the individual fields of the server socket ///structure remember to make use of the INADDR_ANY to assign the ///sin_addr.s_addr field and please convert the port number obtained from the ///command line to network byte order server.sin_family=AF_INET; server.sin_addr.s_addr=INADDR_ANY; server.sin_port=htons(atoi(argv[1])); ///bind system call if (bind(sock,(struct sockaddr *)&server,length)<0) error("binding"); clientlen = sizeof(struct sockaddr_in);

while (1) { ///ready to receive a packet from the client, the fourth parameter is by ///default zero n = recvfrom(sock,buf,1024,0,(struct sockaddr *)&client,&clientlen); if (n < 0) error("recvfrom"); //writes output to the screen write(1,"Received a datagram: ",21); write(1,buf,n); //writes output to the screen ///sends a packet to the client acknowledging it n = sendto(sock,"Got your message\n",17, 0,(struct sockaddr *)&client,clientlen); if (n < 0) error("sendto"); } ///closes the file descriptor close(sock); }

How to use Compile/Make ?

CC = gcc all: udpserver udpclient udpclient: udpclient.c $(CC) -o udpclient udpclient.c lnsl -<other compiler options> udpserver: udpserver.c $(CC) -o udpserver udpserver.c lnsl -<other compiler options> clean: rm udpserver udpclient

Usage

make f file_name <all> / clean

Suggestions
Make sure to #include the header files that define used functions Check man-pages and course web-site for additional info Sometimes, a rough exit from a program (e.g., ctrl-c) does not properly free up a port Eventually (after a few minutes), the port will be freed To reduce the likelihood of this problem, include the following code: #include <signal.h> And, please keep backing up your files periodically! void cleanExit(){exit(0);}
in socket code: signal(SIGTERM, cleanExit); signal(SIGINT, cleanExit);

Resources
LINUX WORKSTATIONS ARE AVAILABLE AT THE UNIVERSITY COMPUTING LABS IN AT OR JCMB

For More Information

Unix Man Pages Douglas Comer, "Computer Networks and Internets (4/e)", Pearson Education, 2004 W. Richard Stevens, Unix Network Programming: Networking APIs: Sockets and XTI, Volume 1, Second Edition, Prentice Hall, 1998.
THE network programming bible.

For More Information

The C Programming Language by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie, <http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/cbook/> . C for Java programmers http://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs414/2001SP/tutorials/cforjava.htm

For C programming FAQ s check <http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html>

Web site which lists the differences between Java and C <http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/users/ss/java2c/diffs.html>

Some of these pointers to C are from Prof. Nigel Topham.