Beejs Guide to Network Programming

Using Internet Sockets

Brian "Beej" Hall
[email protected]

Copyright 1995-2001 by Brian "Beej" Hall Revision History

Revision Version 1.0.0 August, 1995 Revised by: beej Initial version. Revision Version 1.5.5 January 13, 1999 Revised by: beej Latest HTML version. Revision Version 2.0.0 March 6, 2001 Revised by: beej Converted to DocBook XML, corrections, additions. Revision Version 2.3.1 October 8, 2001 Revised by: beej Fixed typos, syntax error in client.c, added some stuff to the Q&A section.

Table of Contents
1. Intro............................................................................................................................................................................3 1.1. Audience.........................................................................................................................................................3 1.2. Platform and Compiler ...................................................................................................................................3 1.3. Ofcial Homepage .........................................................................................................................................3 1.4. Note for Solaris/SunOS Programmers ...........................................................................................................3 1.5. Note for Windows Programmers....................................................................................................................4 1.6. Email Policy ...................................................................................................................................................5 1.7. Mirroring ........................................................................................................................................................5 1.8. Note for Translators........................................................................................................................................5 1.9. Copyright and Distribution.............................................................................................................................5 2. What is a socket?.......................................................................................................................................................6 2.1. Two Types of Internet Sockets .......................................................................................................................6 2.2. Low level Nonsense and Network Theory .....................................................................................................7 3. structs and Data Handling ....................................................................................................................................9 3.1. Convert the Natives! .....................................................................................................................................10 3.2. IP Addresses and How to Deal With Them..................................................................................................11 4. System Calls or Bust ...............................................................................................................................................12 4.1. socket()Get the File Descriptor!.............................................................................................................12 4.2. bind()What port am I on?........................................................................................................................13 4.3. connect()Hey, you!.................................................................................................................................15 4.4. listen()Will somebody please call me?.................................................................................................16 4.5. accept()"Thank you for calling port 3490." ...........................................................................................16 4.6. send() and recv()Talk to me, baby! ......................................................................................................18

4.7. sendto() and recvfrom()Talk to me, DGRAM-style ..........................................................................19 4.8. close() and shutdown()Get outta my face!..........................................................................................19 4.9. getpeername()Who are you? .................................................................................................................20 4.10. gethostname()Who am I? ....................................................................................................................20 4.11. DNSYou say "whitehouse.gov", I say "198.137.240.92".........................................................................21 5. Client-Server Background .....................................................................................................................................22 5.1. A Simple Stream Server ...............................................................................................................................23 5.2. A Simple Stream Client................................................................................................................................25 5.3. Datagram Sockets.........................................................................................................................................26 6. Slightly Advanced Techniques ...............................................................................................................................29 6.1. Blocking .......................................................................................................................................................29 6.2. select()Synchronous I/O Multiplexing..................................................................................................30 6.3. Handling Partial send()s ............................................................................................................................35 6.4. Son of Data Encapsulation ...........................................................................................................................36 7. More References......................................................................................................................................................38 7.1. man Pages ....................................................................................................................................................38 7.2. Books............................................................................................................................................................39 7.3. Web References............................................................................................................................................40 7.4. RFCs.............................................................................................................................................................40 8. Common Questions.................................................................................................................................................40 9. Disclaimer and Call for Help .................................................................................................................................46

1. Intro
Hey! Socket programming got you down? Is this stuff just a little too difcult to gure out from the man pages? You want to do cool Internet programming, but you dont have time to wade through a gob of structs trying to gure out if you have to call bind() before you connect(), etc., etc. Well, guess what! Ive already done this nasty business, and Im dying to share the information with everyone! Youve come to the right place. This document should give the average competent C programmer the edge s/he needs to get a grip on this networking noise.

1.1. Audience
This document has been written as a tutorial, not a reference. It is probably at its best when read by individuals who are just starting out with socket programming and are looking for a foothold. It is certainly not the complete guide to sockets programming, by any means. Hopefully, though, itll be just enough for those man pages to start making sense... :-)

1.2. Platform and Compiler

The code contained within this document was compiled on a Linux PC using Gnus gcc compiler. It should, however, build on just about any platform that uses gcc. Naturally, this doesnt apply if youre programming for Windowssee the section on Windows programming, below.

1.3. Ofcial Homepage

This ofcial location of this document is at California State University, Chico, at http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~beej/guide/net/1.

1.4. Note for Solaris/SunOS Programmers

When compiling for Solaris or SunOS, you need to specify some extra command-line switches for linking in the proper libraries. In order to do this, simply add "-lnsl -lsocket -lresolv" to the end of the compile command, like so:
$ cc -o server server.c -lnsl -lsocket -lresolv

If you still get errors, you could try further adding a "-lxnet" to the end of that command line. I dont know what that does, exactly, but some people seem to need it. Another place that you might nd problems is in the call to setsockopt(). The prototype differs from that on my Linux box, so instead of:
int yes=1;

Beejs Guide to Network Programming enter this:

char yes=1;

As I dont have a Sun box, I havent tested any of the above informationits just what people have told me through email.

1.5. Note for Windows Programmers

I have a particular dislike for Windows, and encourage you to try Linux, BSD, or Unix instead. That being said, you can still use this stuff under Windows. First, ignore pretty much all of the system header les I mention in here. All you need to include is:
#include <winsock.h>

Wait! You also have to make a call to WSAStartup() before doing anything else with the sockets library. The code to do that looks something like this:
#include <winsock.h> { WSADATA wsaData; // if this doesnt work //WSAData wsaData; // then try this instead if (WSAStartup(MAKEWORD(1, 1), &wsaData) != 0) { fprintf(stderr, "WSAStartup failed.\n"); exit(1); }

You also have to tell your compiler to link in the Winsock library, usually called wsock32.lib or winsock32.lib or somesuch. Under VC++, this can be done through the Project menu, under Settings.... Click the Link tab, and look for the box titled "Object/library modules". Add "wsock32.lib" to that list. Or so I hear. Finally, you need to call WSACleanup() when youre all through with the sockets library. See your online help for details. Once you do that, the rest of the examples in this tutorial should generally apply, with a few exceptions. For one thing, you cant use close() to close a socketyou need to use closesocket(), instead. Also, select() only works with socket descriptors, not le descriptors (like 0 for stdin). There is also a socket class that you can use, CSocket. Check your compilers help pages for more information. To get more information about Winsock, read the Winsock FAQ2 and go from there. Finally, I hear that Windows has no fork() system call which is, unfortunately, used in some of my examples. Maybe you have to link in a POSIX library or something to get it to work, or you can use CreateProcess() instead. fork() takes no arguments, and CreateProcess() takes about 48 billion arguments. If youre not up to

Beejs Guide to Network Programming that, the CreateThread() is a little easier to digest...unfortunately a discussion about multithreading is beyond the scope of this document. I can only talk about so much, you know!

1.6. Email Policy

Im generally available to help out with email questions so feel free to write in, but I cant guarantee a response. I lead a pretty busy life and there are times when I just cant answer a question you have. When thats the case, I usually just delete the message. Its nothing personal; I just wont ever have the time to give the detailed answer you require. As a rule, the more complex the question, the less likely I am to respond. If you can narrow down your question before mailing it and be sure to include any pertinent information (like platform, compiler, error messages youre getting, and anything else you think might help me troubleshoot), youre much more likely to get a response. For more pointers, read ESRs document, How To Ask Questions The Smart Way3. If you dont get a response, hack on it some more, try to nd the answer, and if its still elusive, then write me again with the information youve found and hopefully it will be enough for me to help out. Now that Ive badgered you about how to write and not write me, Id just like to let you know that I fully appreciate all the praise the guide has received over the years. Its a real morale boost, and it gladdens me to hear that it is being used for good! :-) Thank you!

1.7. Mirroring
You are more than welcome to mirror this site, whether publically or privately. If you publically mirror the site and want me to link to it from the main page, drop me a line at <[email protected]>.

1.8. Note for Translators

If you want to translate the guide into another language, write me at <[email protected]> and Ill link to your translation from the main page. Feel free to add your name and email address to the translation. Sorry, but due to space constraints, I cannot host the translations myself.

1.9. Copyright and Distribution

Beejs Guide to Network Programming is Copyright 1995-2001 Brian "Beej" Hall. This guide may be freely reprinted in any medium provided that its content is not altered, it is presented in its entirety, and this copyright notice remains intact. Educators are especially encouraged to recommend or supply copies of this guide to their students.

Beejs Guide to Network Programming This guide may be freely translated into any language, provided the translation is accurate, and the guide is reprinted in its entirety. The translation may also include the name and contact information for the translator. The C source code presented in this document is hereby granted to the public domain. Contact <[email protected]> for more information.

2. What is a socket?
You hear talk of "sockets" all the time, and perhaps you are wondering just what they are exactly. Well, theyre this: a way to speak to other programs using standard Unix le descriptors. What? Okyou may have heard some Unix hacker state, "Jeez, everything in Unix is a le!" What that person may have been talking about is the fact that when Unix programs do any sort of I/O, they do it by reading or writing to a le descriptor. A le descriptor is simply an integer associated with an open le. But (and heres the catch), that le can be a network connection, a FIFO, a pipe, a terminal, a real on-the-disk le, or just about anything else. Everything in Unix is a le! So when you want to communicate with another program over the Internet youre gonna do it through a le descriptor, youd better believe it. "Where do I get this le descriptor for network communication, Mr. Smarty-Pants?" is probably the last question on your mind right now, but Im going to answer it anyway: You make a call to the socket() system routine. It returns the socket descriptor, and you communicate through it using the specialized send() and recv() (man send4, man recv5) socket calls. "But, hey!" you might be exclaiming right about now. "If its a le descriptor, why in the name of Neptune cant I just use the normal read() and write() calls to communicate through the socket?" The short answer is, "You can!" The longer answer is, "You can, but send() and recv() offer much greater control over your data transmission." What next? How about this: there are all kinds of sockets. There are DARPA Internet addresses (Internet Sockets), path names on a local node (Unix Sockets), CCITT X.25 addresses (X.25 Sockets that you can safely ignore), and probably many others depending on which Unix avor you run. This document deals only with the rst: Internet Sockets.

2.1. Two Types of Internet Sockets

Whats this? There are two types of Internet sockets? Yes. Well, no. Im lying. There are more, but I didnt want to scare you. Im only going to talk about two types here. Except for this sentence, where Im going to tell you that "Raw Sockets" are also very powerful and you should look them up. All right, already. What are the two types? One is "Stream Sockets"; the other is "Datagram Sockets", which may hereafter be referred to as "SOCK_STREAM" and "SOCK_DGRAM", respectively. Datagram sockets are sometimes called "connectionless sockets". (Though they can be connect()d if you really want. See connect(), below.) Stream sockets are reliable two-way connected communication streams. If you output two items into the socket in the order "1, 2", they will arrive in the order "1, 2" at the opposite end. They will also be error free. Any errors you do encounter are gments of your own deranged mind, and are not to be discussed here.

Beejs Guide to Network Programming Figure 1. Data Encapsulation.

Ethernet IP UDP TFTP Data

What uses stream sockets? Well, you may have heard of the telnet application, yes? It uses stream sockets. All the characters you type need to arrive in the same order you type them, right? Also, web browsers use the HTTP protocol which uses stream sockets to get pages. Indeed, if you telnet to a web site on port 80, and type "GET /", itll dump the HTML back at you! How do stream sockets achieve this high level of data transmission quality? They use a protocol called "The Transmission Control Protocol", otherwise known as "TCP" (see RFC-7936 for extremely detailed info on TCP.) TCP makes sure your data arrives sequentially and error-free. You may have heard "TCP" before as the better half of "TCP/IP" where "IP" stands for "Internet Protocol" (see RFC-7917.) IP deals primarily with Internet routing and is not generally responsible for data integrity. Cool. What about Datagram sockets? Why are they called connectionless? What is the deal, here, anyway? Why are they unreliable? Well, here are some facts: if you send a datagram, it may arrive. It may arrive out of order. If it arrives, the data within the packet will be error-free. Datagram sockets also use IP for routing, but they dont use TCP; they use the "User Datagram Protocol", or "UDP" (see RFC-7688.) Why are they connectionless? Well, basically, its because you dont have to maintain an open connection as you do with stream sockets. You just build a packet, slap an IP header on it with destination information, and send it out. No connection needed. They are generally used for packet-by-packet transfers of information. Sample applications: tftp, bootp, etc. "Enough!" you may scream. "How do these programs even work if datagrams might get lost?!" Well, my human friend, each has its own protocol on top of UDP. For example, the tftp protocol says that for each packet that gets sent, the recipient has to send back a packet that says, "I got it!" (an "ACK" packet.) If the sender of the original packet gets no reply in, say, ve seconds, hell re-transmit the packet until he nally gets an ACK. This acknowledgment procedure is very important when implementing SOCK_DGRAM applications.

2.2. Low level Nonsense and Network Theory

Since I just mentioned layering of protocols, its time to talk about how networks really work, and to show some examples of how SOCK_DGRAM packets are built. Practically, you can probably skip this section. Its good background, however. Hey, kids, its time to learn about Data Encapsulation! This is very very important. Its so important that you might just learn about it if you take the networks course here at Chico State ;-). Basically, it says this: a packet is born, the packet is wrapped ("encapsulated") in a header (and rarely a footer) by the rst protocol (say, the TFTP protocol), then the whole thing (TFTP header included) is encapsulated again by the next protocol (say, UDP), then again by the next (IP), then again by the nal protocol on the hardware (physical) layer (say, Ethernet).

Beejs Guide to Network Programming When another computer receives the packet, the hardware strips the Ethernet header, the kernel strips the IP and UDP headers, the TFTP program strips the TFTP header, and it nally has the data. Now I can nally talk about the infamous Layered Network Model. This Network Model describes a system of network functionality that has many advantages over other models. For instance, you can write sockets programs that are exactly the same without caring how the data is physically transmitted (serial, thin Ethernet, AUI, whatever) because programs on lower levels deal with it for you. The actual network hardware and topology is transparent to the socket programmer. Without any further ado, Ill present the layers of the full-blown model. Remember this for network class exams:

Application Presentation Session Transport Network Data Link Physical

The Physical Layer is the hardware (serial, Ethernet, etc.). The Application Layer is just about as far from the physical layer as you can imagineits the place where users interact with the network. Now, this model is so general you could probably use it as an automobile repair guide if you really wanted to. A layered model more consistent with Unix might be:

Application Layer (telnet, ftp, etc.) Host-to-Host Transport Layer (TCP, UDP) Internet Layer (IP and routing) Network Access Layer (Ethernet, ATM, or whatever)

At this point in time, you can probably see how these layers correspond to the encapsulation of the original data. See how much work there is in building a simple packet? Jeez! And you have to type in the packet headers yourself using "cat"! Just kidding. All you have to do for stream sockets is send() the data out. All you have to do for datagram sockets is encapsulate the packet in the method of your choosing and sendto() it out. The kernel builds the Transport Layer and Internet Layer on for you and the hardware does the Network Access Layer. Ah, modern technology. So ends our brief foray into network theory. Oh yes, I forgot to tell you everything I wanted to say about routing: nothing! Thats right, Im not going to talk about it at all. The router strips the packet to the IP header, consults its

Beejs Guide to Network Programming routing table, blah blah blah. Check out the IP RFC9 if you really really care. If you never learn about it, well, youll live.

3. structs and Data Handling

Well, were nally here. Its time to talk about programming. In this section, Ill cover various data types used by the sockets interface, since some of them are a real bear to gure out. First the easy one: a socket descriptor. A socket descriptor is the following type:
int

Just a regular int. Things get weird from here, so just read through and bear with me. Know this: there are two byte orderings: most signicant byte (sometimes called an "octet") rst, or least signicant byte rst. The former is called "Network Byte Order". Some machines store their numbers internally in Network Byte Order, some dont. When I say something has to be in Network Byte Order, you have to call a function (such as htons()) to change it from "Host Byte Order". If I dont say "Network Byte Order", then you must leave the value in Host Byte Order. (For the curious, "Network Byte Order" is also know as "Big-Endian Byte Order".) My First StructTMstruct sockaddr. This structure holds socket address information for many types of sockets:
struct sockaddr { unsigned short char };

sa_family; sa_data[14];

// address family, AF_xxx // 14 bytes of protocol address

sa_family can be a variety of things, but itll be AF_INET for everything we do in this document. sa_data contains a destination address and port number for the socket. This is rather unwieldy since you dont want to tediously pack the address in the sa_data by hand. To deal with struct sockaddr, programmers created a parallel structure: struct sockaddr_in ("in" for "Internet".)
struct sockaddr_in { short int unsigned short int struct in_addr unsigned char };

sin_family; sin_port; sin_addr; sin_zero[8];

// // // //

Address family Port number Internet address Same size as struct sockaddr

This structure makes it easy to reference elements of the socket address. Note that sin_zero (which is included to pad the structure to the length of a struct sockaddr) should be set to all zeros with the function memset(). Also, and this is the important bit, a pointer to a struct sockaddr_in can be cast to a pointer to a struct sockaddr and vice-versa. So even though socket() wants a struct sockaddr*, you can still use a struct sockaddr_in

Beejs Guide to Network Programming and cast it at the last minute! Also, notice that sin_family corresponds to sa_family in a struct sockaddr and should be set to "AF_INET". Finally, the sin_port and sin_addr must be in Network Byte Order! "But," you object, "how can the entire structure, struct in_addr sin_addr, be in Network Byte Order?" This question requires careful examination of the structure struct in_addr, one of the worst unions alive:
// Internet address (a structure for historical reasons) struct in_addr { unsigned long s_addr; // thats a 32-bit long, or 4 bytes };

Well, it used to be a union, but now those days seem to be gone. Good riddance. So if you have declared ina to be of type struct sockaddr_in, then ina.sin_addr.s_addr references the 4-byte IP address (in Network Byte Order). Note that even if your system still uses the God-awful union for struct in_addr, you can still reference the 4-byte IP address in exactly the same way as I did above (this due to #defines.)

3.1. Convert the Natives!

Weve now been lead right into the next section. Theres been too much talk about this Network to Host Byte Order conversionnow is the time for action! All righty. There are two types that you can convert: short (two bytes) and long (four bytes). These functions work for the unsigned variations as well. Say you want to convert a short from Host Byte Order to Network Byte Order. Start with "h" for "host", follow it with "to", then "n" for "network", and "s" for "short": h-to-n-s, or htons() (read: "Host to Network Short"). Its almost too easy... You can use every combination if "n", "h", "s", and "l" you want, not counting the really stupid ones. For example, there is NOT a stolh() ("Short to Long Host") functionnot at this party, anyway. But there are:

htons() htonl() ntohs() ntohl()

"Host to Network Short" "Host to Network Long" "Network to Host Short" "Network to Host Long"

Now, you may think youre wising up to this. You might think, "What do I do if I have to change byte order on a char?" Then you might think, "Uh, never mind." You might also think that since your 68000 machine already uses network byte order, you dont have to call htonl() on your IP addresses. You would be right, BUT if you try to port to a machine that has reverse network byte order, your program will fail. Be portable! This is a Unix world! (As much as Bill Gates would like to think otherwise.) Remember: put your bytes in Network Byte Order before you put them on the network. A nal point: why do sin_addr and sin_port need to be in Network Byte Order in a struct sockaddr_in, but sin_family does not? The answer: sin_addr and sin_port get encapsulated in the packet at the IP and UDP layers, respectively. Thus, they must be in Network Byte Order. However, the sin_family eld is only used

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Beejs Guide to Network Programming by the kernel to determine what type of address the structure contains, so it must be in Host Byte Order. Also, since sin_family does not get sent out on the network, it can be in Host Byte Order.

3.2. IP Addresses and How to Deal With Them

Fortunately for you, there are a bunch of functions that allow you to manipulate IP addresses. No need to gure them out by hand and stuff them in a long with the operator. First, lets say you have a struct sockaddr_in ina, and you have an IP address "10.12.110.57" that you want to store into it. The function you want to use, inet_addr(), converts an IP address in numbers-and-dots notation into an unsigned long. The assignment can be made as follows:
ina.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr("10.12.110.57");

Notice that inet_addr() returns the address in Network Byte Order alreadyyou dont have to call htonl(). Swell! Now, the above code snippet isnt very robust because there is no error checking. See, inet_addr() returns -1 on error. Remember binary numbers? (unsigned)-1 just happens to correspond to the IP address 255.255.255.255! Thats the broadcast address! Wrongo. Remember to do your error checking properly. Actually, theres a cleaner interface you can use instead of inet_addr(): its called inet_aton() ("aton" means "ascii to network"):
#include <sys/socket.h> #include <netinet/in.h> #include <arpa/inet.h> int inet_aton(const char *cp, struct in_addr *inp);

And heres a sample usage, while packing a struct sockaddr_in (this example will make more sense to you when you get to the sections on bind() and connect().)
struct sockaddr_in my_addr; my_addr.sin_family = AF_INET; // host byte order my_addr.sin_port = htons(MYPORT); // short, network byte order inet_aton("10.12.110.57", &(my_addr.sin_addr)); memset(&(my_addr.sin_zero), \0, 8); // zero the rest of the struct inet_aton(), unlike practically every other socket-related function, returns non-zero on success, and zero on

failure. And the address is passed back in inp. Unfortunately, not all platforms implement inet_aton() so, although its use is preferred, the older more common inet_addr() is used in this guide. All right, now you can convert string IP addresses to their binary representations. What about the other way around? What if you have a struct in_addr and you want to print it in numbers-and-dots notation? In this case, youll want to use the function inet_ntoa() ("ntoa" means "network to ascii") like this:

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Beejs Guide to Network Programming

printf("%s", inet_ntoa(ina.sin_addr));

That will print the IP address. Note that inet_ntoa() takes a struct in_addr as an argument, not a long. Also notice that it returns a pointer to a char. This points to a statically stored char array within inet_ntoa() so that each time you call inet_ntoa() it will overwrite the last IP address you asked for. For example:
char *a1, *a2; . . a1 = inet_ntoa(ina1.sin_addr); a2 = inet_ntoa(ina2.sin_addr); printf("address 1: %s\n",a1); printf("address 2: %s\n",a2);

// this is 192.168.4.14 // this is 10.12.110.57

will print:
address 1: 10.12.110.57 address 2: 10.12.110.57

If you need to save the address, strcpy() it to your own character array. Thats all on this topic for now. Later, youll learn to convert a string like "whitehouse.gov" into its corresponding IP address (see DNS, below.)

4. System Calls or Bust

This is the section where we get into the system calls that allow you to access the network functionality of a Unix box. When you call one of these functions, the kernel takes over and does all the work for you automagically. The place most people get stuck around here is what order to call these things in. In that, the man pages are no use, as youve probably discovered. Well, to help with that dreadful situation, Ive tried to lay out the system calls in the following sections in exactly (approximately) the same order that youll need to call them in your programs. That, coupled with a few pieces of sample code here and there, some milk and cookies (which I fear you will have to supply yourself), and some raw guts and courage, and youll be beaming data around the Internet like the Son of Jon Postel!

4.1. socket()Get the File Descriptor!

I guess I can put it off no longerI have to talk about the socket() system call. Heres the breakdown:
#include <sys/types.h> #include <sys/socket.h> int socket(int domain, int type, int protocol);

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Beejs Guide to Network Programming But what are these arguments? First, domain should be set to "AF_INET", just like in the struct sockaddr_in (above.) Next, the type argument tells the kernel what kind of socket this is: SOCK_STREAM or SOCK_DGRAM. Finally, just set protocol to "0" to have socket() choose the correct protocol based on the type. (Notes: there are many more domains than Ive listed. There are many more types than Ive listed. See the socket() man page. Also, theres a "better" way to get the protocol. See the getprotobyname() man page.)
socket() simply returns to you a socket descriptor that you can use in later system calls, or -1 on error. The global variable errno is set to the errors value (see the perror() man page.)

In some documentation, youll see mention of a mystical "PF_INET". This is a weird etherial beast that is rarely seen in nature, but I might as well clarify it a bit here. Once a long time ago, it was thought that maybe a address family (what the "AF" in "AF_INET" stands for) might support several protocols that were referenced by their protocol family (what the "PF" in "PF_INET" stands for). That didnt happen. Oh well. So the correct thing to do is to use AF_INET in your struct sockaddr_in and PF_INET in your call to socket(). But practically speaking, you can use AF_INET everywhere. And, since thats what W. Richard Stevens does in his book, thats what Ill do here. Fine, ne, ne, but what good is this socket? The answer is that its really no good by itself, and you need to read on and make more system calls for it to make any sense.

4.2. bind()What port am I on?

Once you have a socket, you might have to associate that socket with a port on your local machine. (This is commonly done if youre going to listen() for incoming connections on a specic portMUDs do this when they tell you to "telnet to x.y.z port 6969".) The port number is used by the kernel to match an incoming packet to a certain processs socket descriptor. If youre going to only be doing a connect(), this may be unnecessary. Read it anyway, just for kicks. Here is the synopsis for the bind() system call:
#include <sys/types.h> #include <sys/socket.h> int bind(int sockfd, struct sockaddr *my_addr, int addrlen);

sockfd is the socket le descriptor returned by socket(). my_addr is a pointer to a struct sockaddr that contains information about your address, namely, port and IP address. addrlen can be set to sizeof(struct sockaddr). Whew. Thats a bit to absorb in one chunk. Lets have an example:
#include #include #include #include <string.h> <sys/types.h> <sys/socket.h> <netinet/in.h>

#define MYPORT 3490 main() { int sockfd; struct sockaddr_in my_addr;

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Beejs Guide to Network Programming

sockfd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0); // do some error checking! my_addr.sin_family = AF_INET; // host byte order my_addr.sin_port = htons(MYPORT); // short, network byte order my_addr.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr("10.12.110.57"); memset(&(my_addr.sin_zero), \0, 8); // zero the rest of the struct // dont forget your error checking for bind(): bind(sockfd, (struct sockaddr *)&my_addr, sizeof(struct sockaddr)); . . .

There are a few things to notice here: my_addr.sin_port is in Network Byte Order. So is my_addr.sin_addr.s_addr. Another thing to watch out for is that the header les might differ from system to system. To be sure, you should check your local man pages. Lastly, on the topic of bind(), I should mention that some of the process of getting your own IP address and/or port can can be automated:
my_addr.sin_port = 0; // choose an unused port at random my_addr.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY; // use my IP address

See, by setting my_addr.sin_port to zero, you are telling bind() to choose the port for you. Likewise, by setting my_addr.sin_addr.s_addr to INADDR_ANY, you are telling it to automatically ll in the IP address of the machine the process is running on. If you are into noticing little things, you might have seen that I didnt put INADDR_ANY into Network Byte Order! Naughty me. However, I have inside info: INADDR_ANY is really zero! Zero still has zero on bits even if you rearrange the bytes. However, purists will point out that there could be a parallel dimension where INADDR_ANY is, say, 12 and that my code wont work there. Thats ok with me:
my_addr.sin_port = htons(0); // choose an unused port at random my_addr.sin_addr.s_addr = htonl(INADDR_ANY); // use my IP address

Now were so portable you probably wouldnt believe it. I just wanted to point that out, since most of the code you come across wont bother running INADDR_ANY through htonl().
bind() also returns -1 on error and sets errno to the errors value.

Another thing to watch out for when calling bind(): dont go underboard with your port numbers. All ports below 1024 are RESERVED (unless youre the superuser)! You can have any port number above that, right up to 65535 (provided they arent already being used by another program.) Sometimes, you might notice, you try to rerun a server and bind() fails, claiming "Address already in use." What does that mean? Well, a bit a of socket that was connected is still hanging around in the kernel, and its hogging the port. You can either wait for it to clear (a minute or so), or add code to your program allowing it to reuse the port, like this:
int yes=1; //char yes=1; // Solaris people use this

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// lose the pesky "Address already in use" error message if (setsockopt(listener,SOL_SOCKET,SO_REUSEADDR,&yes,sizeof(int)) == -1) { perror("setsockopt"); exit(1); }

One small extra nal note about bind(): there are times when you wont absolutely have to call it. If you are connect()ing to a remote machine and you dont care what your local port is (as is the case with telnet where you only care about the remote port), you can simply call connect(), itll check to see if the socket is unbound, and will bind() it to an unused local port if necessary.

4.3. connect()Hey, you!

Lets just pretend for a few minutes that youre a telnet application. Your user commands you (just like in the movie TRON) to get a socket le descriptor. You comply and call socket(). Next, the user tells you to connect to "10.12.110.57" on port "23" (the standard telnet port.) Yow! What do you do now? Lucky for you, program, youre now perusing the section on connect()how to connect to a remote host. So read furiously onward! No time to lose! The connect() call is as follows:
#include <sys/types.h> #include <sys/socket.h> int connect(int sockfd, struct sockaddr *serv_addr, int addrlen);

sockfd is our friendly neighborhood socket le descriptor, as returned by the socket() call, serv_addr is a struct sockaddr containing the destination port and IP address, and addrlen can be set to sizeof(struct sockaddr). Isnt this starting to make more sense? Lets have an example:
#include #include #include #include <string.h> <sys/types.h> <sys/socket.h> <netinet/in.h>

#define DEST_IP "10.12.110.57" #define DEST_PORT 23 main() { int sockfd; struct sockaddr_in dest_addr;

// will hold the destination addr

sockfd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0); // do some error checking! dest_addr.sin_family = AF_INET; dest_addr.sin_port = htons(DEST_PORT); // host byte order // short, network byte order

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dest_addr.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr(DEST_IP); memset(&(dest_addr.sin_zero), \0, 8); // zero the rest of the struct // dont forget to error check the connect()! connect(sockfd, (struct sockaddr *)&dest_addr, sizeof(struct sockaddr)); . . .

Again, be sure to check the return value from connect()itll return -1 on error and set the variable errno. Also, notice that we didnt call bind(). Basically, we dont care about our local port number; we only care where were going (the remote port). The kernel will choose a local port for us, and the site we connect to will automatically get this information from us. No worries.

4.4. listen()Will somebody please call me?

Ok, time for a change of pace. What if you dont want to connect to a remote host. Say, just for kicks, that you want to wait for incoming connections and handle them in some way. The process is two step: rst you listen(), then you accept() (see below.) The listen call is fairly simple, but requires a bit of explanation:
int listen(int sockfd, int backlog);

sockfd is the usual socket le descriptor from the socket() system call. backlog is the number of connections allowed on the incoming queue. What does that mean? Well, incoming connections are going to wait in this queue until you accept() them (see below) and this is the limit on how many can queue up. Most systems silently limit this number to about 20; you can probably get away with setting it to 5 or 10. Again, as per usual, listen() returns -1 and sets errno on error. Well, as you can probably imagine, we need to call bind() before we call listen() or the kernel will have us listening on a random port. Bleah! So if youre going to be listening for incoming connections, the sequence of system calls youll make is:
socket(); bind(); listen(); /* accept() goes here */

Ill just leave that in the place of sample code, since its fairly self-explanatory. (The code in the accept() section, below, is more complete.) The really tricky part of this whole sha-bang is the call to accept().

4.5. accept()"Thank you for calling port 3490."

Get readythe accept() call is kinda weird! Whats going to happen is this: someone far far away will try to connect() to your machine on a port that you are listen()ing on. Their connection will be queued up waiting to 16

Beejs Guide to Network Programming be accept()ed. You call accept() and you tell it to get the pending connection. Itll return to you a brand new socket le descriptor to use for this single connection! Thats right, suddenly you have two socket le descriptors for the price of one! The original one is still listening on your port and the newly created one is nally ready to send() and recv(). Were there! The call is as follows:
#include <sys/socket.h> int accept(int sockfd, void *addr, int *addrlen);

sockfd is the listen()ing socket descriptor. Easy enough. addr will usually be a pointer to a local struct sockaddr_in. This is where the information about the incoming connection will go (and with it you can determine which host is calling you from which port). addrlen is a local integer variable that should be set to sizeof(struct sockaddr_in) before its address is passed to accept(). Accept will not put more than that many bytes into addr. If it puts fewer in, itll change the value of addrlen to reect that. Guess what? accept() returns -1 and sets errno if an error occurs. Betcha didnt gure that. Like before, this is a bunch to absorb in one chunk, so heres a sample code fragment for your perusal:
#include #include #include #include <string.h> <sys/types.h> <sys/socket.h> <netinet/in.h> // the port users will be connecting to // how many pending connections queue will hold

#define MYPORT 3490 #define BACKLOG 10

main() { int sockfd, new_fd; // listen on sock_fd, new connection on new_fd struct sockaddr_in my_addr; // my address information struct sockaddr_in their_addr; // connectors address information int sin_size; sockfd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0); // do some error checking! my_addr.sin_family = AF_INET; my_addr.sin_port = htons(MYPORT); my_addr.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY; memset(&(my_addr.sin_zero), \0, 8); // // // // host byte order short, network byte order auto-fill with my IP zero the rest of the struct

// dont forget your error checking for these calls: bind(sockfd, (struct sockaddr *)&my_addr, sizeof(struct sockaddr)); listen(sockfd, BACKLOG); sin_size = sizeof(struct sockaddr_in); new_fd = accept(sockfd, (struct sockaddr *)&their_addr, &sin_size); . . .

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Beejs Guide to Network Programming Again, note that we will use the socket descriptor new_fd for all send() and recv() calls. If youre only getting one single connection ever, you can close() the listening sockfd in order to prevent more incoming connections on the same port, if you so desire.

4.6. send() and recv()Talk to me, baby!

These two functions are for communicating over stream sockets or connected datagram sockets. If you want to use regular unconnected datagram sockets, youll need to see the section on sendto() and recvfrom(), below. The send() call:
int send(int sockfd, const void *msg, int len, int flags);

sockfd is the socket descriptor you want to send data to (whether its the one returned by socket() or the one you got with accept().) msg is a pointer to the data you want to send, and len is the length of that data in bytes. Just set flags to 0. (See the send() man page for more information concerning ags.) Some sample code might be:
char *msg = "Beej was here!"; int len, bytes_sent; . . len = strlen(msg); bytes_sent = send(sockfd, msg, len, 0); . . . send() returns the number of bytes actually sent outthis might be less than the number you told it to send! See,

sometimes you tell it to send a whole gob of data and it just cant handle it. Itll re off as much of the data as it can, and trust you to send the rest later. Remember, if the value returned by send() doesnt match the value in len, its up to you to send the rest of the string. The good news is this: if the packet is small (less than 1K or so) it will probably manage to send the whole thing all in one go. Again, -1 is returned on error, and errno is set to the error number. The recv() call is similar in many respects:
int recv(int sockfd, void *buf, int len, unsigned int flags);

sockfd is the socket descriptor to read from, buf is the buffer to read the information into, len is the maximum length of the buffer, and flags can again be set to 0. (See the recv() man page for ag information.)
recv() returns the number of bytes actually read into the buffer, or -1 on error (with errno set, accordingly.)

Wait! recv() can return 0. This can mean only one thing: the remote side has closed the connection on you! A return value of 0 is recv()s way of letting you know this has occurred. There, that was easy, wasnt it? You can now pass data back and forth on stream sockets! Whee! Youre a Unix Network Programmer! 18

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4.7. sendto() and recvfrom()Talk to me, DGRAM-style

"This is all ne and dandy," I hear you saying, "but where does this leave me with unconnected datagram sockets?" No problemo, amigo. We have just the thing. Since datagram sockets arent connected to a remote host, guess which piece of information we need to give before we send a packet? Thats right! The destination address! Heres the scoop:
int sendto(int sockfd, const void *msg, int len, unsigned int flags, const struct sockaddr *to, int tolen);

As you can see, this call is basically the same as the call to send() with the addition of two other pieces of information. to is a pointer to a struct sockaddr (which youll probably have as a struct sockaddr_in and cast it at the last minute) which contains the destination IP address and port. tolen can simply be set to sizeof(struct sockaddr). Just like with send(), sendto() returns the number of bytes actually sent (which, again, might be less than the number of bytes you told it to send!), or -1 on error. Equally similar are recv() and recvfrom(). The synopsis of recvfrom() is:
int recvfrom(int sockfd, void *buf, int len, unsigned int flags, struct sockaddr *from, int *fromlen);

Again, this is just like recv() with the addition of a couple elds. from is a pointer to a local struct sockaddr that will be lled with the IP address and port of the originating machine. fromlen is a pointer to a local int that should be initialized to sizeof(struct sockaddr). When the function returns, fromlen will contain the length of the address actually stored in from.
recvfrom() returns the number of bytes received, or -1 on error (with errno set accordingly.)

Remember, if you connect() a datagram socket, you can then simply use send() and recv() for all your transactions. The socket itself is still a datagram socket and the packets still use UDP, but the socket interface will automatically add the destination and source information for you.

4.8. close() and shutdown()Get outta my face!

Whew! Youve been send()ing and recv()ing data all day long, and youve had it. Youre ready to close the connection on your socket descriptor. This is easy. You can just use the regular Unix le descriptor close() function:
close(sockfd);

This will prevent any more reads and writes to the socket. Anyone attempting to read or write the socket on the remote end will receive an error. Just in case you want a little more control over how the socket closes, you can use the shutdown() function. It allows you to cut off communication in a certain direction, or both ways (just like close() does.) Synopsis:
int shutdown(int sockfd, int how);

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Beejs Guide to Network Programming sockfd is the socket le descriptor you want to shutdown, and how is one of the following:

0 1 2

Further receives are disallowed Further sends are disallowed Further sends and receives are disallowed (like close())

shutdown() returns 0 on success, and -1 on error (with errno set accordingly.)

If you deign to use shutdown() on unconnected datagram sockets, it will simply make the socket unavailable for further send() and recv() calls (remember that you can use these if you connect() your datagram socket.) Its important to note that shutdown() doesnt actually close the le descriptorit just changes its usability. To free a socket descriptor, you need to use close(). Nothing to it.

4.9. getpeername()Who are you?

This function is so easy. Its so easy, I almost didnt give it its own section. But here it is anyway. The function getpeername() will tell you who is at the other end of a connected stream socket. The synopsis:
#include <sys/socket.h> int getpeername(int sockfd, struct sockaddr *addr, int *addrlen);

sockfd is the descriptor of the connected stream socket, addr is a pointer to a struct sockaddr (or a struct sockaddr_in) that will hold the information about the other side of the connection, and addrlen is a pointer to an int, that should be initialized to sizeof(struct sockaddr). The function returns -1 on error and sets errno accordingly. Once you have their address, you can use inet_ntoa() or gethostbyaddr() to print or get more information. No, you cant get their login name. (Ok, ok. If the other computer is running an ident daemon, this is possible. This, however, is beyond the scope of this document. Check out RFC-141310 for more info.)

4.10. gethostname()Who am I?
Even easier than getpeername() is the function gethostname(). It returns the name of the computer that your program is running on. The name can then be used by gethostbyname(), below, to determine the IP address of your local machine. What could be more fun? I could think of a few things, but they dont pertain to socket programming. Anyway, heres the breakdown:

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#include <unistd.h> int gethostname(char *hostname, size_t size);

The arguments are simple: hostname is a pointer to an array of chars that will contain the hostname upon the functions return, and size is the length in bytes of the hostname array. The function returns 0 on successful completion, and -1 on error, setting errno as usual.

4.11. DNSYou say "whitehouse.gov", I say "198.137.240.92"

In case you dont know what DNS is, it stands for "Domain Name Service". In a nutshell, you tell it what the human-readable address is for a site, and itll give you the IP address (so you can use it with bind(), connect(), sendto(), or whatever you need it for.) This way, when someone enters:
$ telnet whitehouse.gov

telnet can nd out that it needs to connect() to "198.137.240.92". But how does it work? Youll be using the function gethostbyname():
#include <netdb.h> struct hostent *gethostbyname(const char *name);

As you see, it returns a pointer to a struct hostent, the layout of which is as follows:
struct hostent { char *h_name; char **h_aliases; int h_addrtype; int h_length; char **h_addr_list; }; #define h_addr h_addr_list[0]

And here are the descriptions of the elds in the struct hostent:

h_name Ofcial name of the host. h_aliases A NULL-terminated array of alternate names for the host. h_addrtype The type of address being returned; usually AF_INET. h_length The length of the address in bytes. h_addr_list A zero-terminated array of network addresses for the host. Host addresses are in Network Byte Order. h_addr The rst address in h_addr_list. 21

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gethostbyname() returns a pointer to the lled struct hostent, or NULL on error. (But errno is not seth_errno is set instead. See herror(), below.)

But how is it used? Sometimes (as we nd from reading computer manuals), just spewing the information at the reader is not enough. This function is certainly easier to use than it looks. Heres an example program11:
/* ** getip.c - a hostname lookup demo */ #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include <stdio.h> <stdlib.h> <errno.h> <netdb.h> <sys/types.h> <sys/socket.h> <netinet/in.h> <arpa/inet.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { struct hostent *h; if (argc != 2) { // error check the command line fprintf(stderr,"usage: getip address\n"); exit(1); } if ((h=gethostbyname(argv[1])) == NULL) { herror("gethostbyname"); exit(1); } // get the host info

printf("Host name : %s\n", h->h_name); printf("IP Address : %s\n", inet_ntoa(*((struct in_addr *)h->h_addr))); return 0; }

With gethostbyname(), you cant use perror() to print error message (since errno is not used). Instead, call herror(). Its pretty straightforward. You simply pass the string that contains the machine name ("whitehouse.gov") to gethostbyname(), and then grab the information out of the returned struct hostent. The only possible weirdness might be in the printing of the IP address, above. h->h_addr is a char*, but inet_ntoa() wants a struct in_addr passed to it. So I cast h->h_addr to a struct in_addr*, then dereference it to get at the data.

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Beejs Guide to Network Programming Figure 2. Client-Server Interaction.

request Client response Server

5. Client-Server Background
Its a client-server world, baby. Just about everything on the network deals with client processes talking to server processes and vice-versa. Take telnet, for instance. When you connect to a remote host on port 23 with telnet (the client), a program on that host (called telnetd, the server) springs to life. It handles the incoming telnet connection, sets you up with a login prompt, etc. The exchange of information between client and server is summarized in Figure 2. Note that the client-server pair can speak SOCK_STREAM, SOCK_DGRAM, or anything else (as long as theyre speaking the same thing.) Some good examples of client-server pairs are telnet/telnetd, ftp/ftpd, or bootp/bootpd. Every time you use ftp, theres a remote program, ftpd, that serves you. Often, there will only be one server on a machine, and that server will handle multiple clients using fork(). The basic routine is: server will wait for a connection, accept() it, and fork() a child process to handle it. This is what our sample server does in the next section.

5.1. A Simple Stream Server

All this server does is send the string "Hello, World!\n" out over a stream connection. All you need to do to test this server is run it in one window, and telnet to it from another with:
$ telnet remotehostname 3490

where remotehostname is the name of the machine youre running it on. The server code12: (Note: a trailing backslash on a line means that the line is continued on the next.)
/* ** server.c - a stream socket server demo */ #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include <stdio.h> <stdlib.h> <unistd.h> <errno.h> <string.h> <sys/types.h> <sys/socket.h> <netinet/in.h> <arpa/inet.h>

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#include <sys/wait.h> #include <signal.h> #define MYPORT 3490 #define BACKLOG 10 // the port users will be connecting to // how many pending connections queue will hold

void sigchld_handler(int s) { while(wait(NULL) > 0); } int main(void) { int sockfd, new_fd; // listen on sock_fd, new connection on new_fd struct sockaddr_in my_addr; // my address information struct sockaddr_in their_addr; // connectors address information int sin_size; struct sigaction sa; int yes=1; if ((sockfd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0)) == -1) { perror("socket"); exit(1); } if (setsockopt(sockfd,SOL_SOCKET,SO_REUSEADDR,&yes,sizeof(int)) == -1) { perror("setsockopt"); exit(1); } my_addr.sin_family = AF_INET; my_addr.sin_port = htons(MYPORT); my_addr.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY; memset(&(my_addr.sin_zero), \0, 8); // // // // host byte order short, network byte order automatically fill with my IP zero the rest of the struct

if (bind(sockfd, (struct sockaddr *)&my_addr, sizeof(struct sockaddr)) == -1) { perror("bind"); exit(1); } if (listen(sockfd, BACKLOG) == -1) { perror("listen"); exit(1); } sa.sa_handler = sigchld_handler; // reap all dead processes sigemptyset(&sa.sa_mask); sa.sa_flags = SA_RESTART; if (sigaction(SIGCHLD, &sa, NULL) == -1) { perror("sigaction"); exit(1); }

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while(1) { // main accept() loop sin_size = sizeof(struct sockaddr_in); if ((new_fd = accept(sockfd, (struct sockaddr *)&their_addr, &sin_size)) == -1) { perror("accept"); continue; } printf("server: got connection from %s\n", inet_ntoa(their_addr.sin_addr)); if (!fork()) { // this is the child process close(sockfd); // child doesnt need the listener if (send(new_fd, "Hello, world!\n", 14, 0) == -1) perror("send"); close(new_fd); exit(0); } close(new_fd); // parent doesnt need this } return 0; }

In case youre curious, I have the code in one big main() function for (I feel) syntactic clarity. Feel free to split it into smaller functions if it makes you feel better. (Also, this whole sigaction() thing might be new to youthats ok. The code thats there is responsible for reaping zombie processes that appear as the fork()ed child processes exit. If you make lots of zombies and dont reap them, your system administrator will become agitated.) You can get the data from this server by using the client listed in the next section.

5.2. A Simple Stream Client

This guys even easier than the server. All this client does is connect to the host you specify on the command line, port 3490. It gets the string that the server sends. The client source13:
/* ** client.c - a stream socket client demo */ #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include <stdio.h> <stdlib.h> <unistd.h> <errno.h> <string.h> <netdb.h> <sys/types.h> <netinet/in.h> <sys/socket.h>

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#define PORT 3490 // the port client will be connecting to #define MAXDATASIZE 100 // max number of bytes we can get at once int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { int sockfd, numbytes; char buf[MAXDATASIZE]; struct hostent *he; struct sockaddr_in their_addr; // connectors address information if (argc != 2) { fprintf(stderr,"usage: client hostname\n"); exit(1); } if ((he=gethostbyname(argv[1])) == NULL) { perror("gethostbyname"); exit(1); } // get the host info

if ((sockfd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0)) == -1) { perror("socket"); exit(1); } their_addr.sin_family = AF_INET; // host byte order their_addr.sin_port = htons(PORT); // short, network byte order their_addr.sin_addr = *((struct in_addr *)he->h_addr); memset(&(their_addr.sin_zero), \0, 8); // zero the rest of the struct if (connect(sockfd, (struct sockaddr *)&their_addr, sizeof(struct sockaddr)) == -1) { perror("connect"); exit(1); } if ((numbytes=recv(sockfd, buf, MAXDATASIZE-1, 0)) == -1) { perror("recv"); exit(1); } buf[numbytes] = \0; printf("Received: %s",buf); close(sockfd); return 0; }

Notice that if you dont run the server before you run the client, connect() returns "Connection refused". Very useful.

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5.3. Datagram Sockets

I really dont have that much to talk about here, so Ill just present a couple of sample programs: talker.c and listener.c. listener sits on a machine waiting for an incoming packet on port 4950. talker sends a packet to that port, on the specied machine, that contains whatever the user enters on the command line. Here is the source for listener.c14:
/* ** listener.c - a datagram sockets "server" demo */ #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include <stdio.h> <stdlib.h> <unistd.h> <errno.h> <string.h> <sys/types.h> <sys/socket.h> <netinet/in.h> <arpa/inet.h> // the port users will be connecting to

#define MYPORT 4950 #define MAXBUFLEN 100

int main(void) { int sockfd; struct sockaddr_in my_addr; // my address information struct sockaddr_in their_addr; // connectors address information int addr_len, numbytes; char buf[MAXBUFLEN]; if ((sockfd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, 0)) == -1) { perror("socket"); exit(1); } my_addr.sin_family = AF_INET; my_addr.sin_port = htons(MYPORT); my_addr.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY; memset(&(my_addr.sin_zero), \0, 8); // // // // host byte order short, network byte order automatically fill with my IP zero the rest of the struct

if (bind(sockfd, (struct sockaddr *)&my_addr, sizeof(struct sockaddr)) == -1) { perror("bind"); exit(1); } addr_len = sizeof(struct sockaddr); if ((numbytes=recvfrom(sockfd,buf, MAXBUFLEN-1, 0, (struct sockaddr *)&their_addr, &addr_len)) == -1) {

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perror("recvfrom"); exit(1); } printf("got packet from %s\n",inet_ntoa(their_addr.sin_addr)); printf("packet is %d bytes long\n",numbytes); buf[numbytes] = \0; printf("packet contains \"%s\"\n",buf); close(sockfd); return 0; }

Notice that in our call to socket() were nally using SOCK_DGRAM. Also, note that theres no need to listen() or accept(). This is one of the perks of using unconnected datagram sockets! Next comes the source for talker.c15:
/* ** talker.c - a datagram "client" demo */ #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include #include <stdio.h> <stdlib.h> <unistd.h> <errno.h> <string.h> <sys/types.h> <sys/socket.h> <netinet/in.h> <arpa/inet.h> <netdb.h> // the port users will be connecting to

#define MYPORT 4950

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { int sockfd; struct sockaddr_in their_addr; // connectors address information struct hostent *he; int numbytes; if (argc != 3) { fprintf(stderr,"usage: talker hostname message\n"); exit(1); } if ((he=gethostbyname(argv[1])) == NULL) { perror("gethostbyname"); exit(1); } // get the host info

if ((sockfd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, 0)) == -1) {

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perror("socket"); exit(1); } their_addr.sin_family = AF_INET; // host byte order their_addr.sin_port = htons(MYPORT); // short, network byte order their_addr.sin_addr = *((struct in_addr *)he->h_addr); memset(&(their_addr.sin_zero), \0, 8); // zero the rest of the struct if ((numbytes=sendto(sockfd, argv[2], strlen(argv[2]), 0, (struct sockaddr *)&their_addr, sizeof(struct sockaddr))) == -1) { perror("sendto"); exit(1); } printf("sent %d bytes to %s\n", numbytes, inet_ntoa(their_addr.sin_addr)); close(sockfd); return 0; }

And thats all there is to it! Run listener on some machine, then run talker on another. Watch them communicate! Fun G-rated excitement for the entire nuclear family! Except for one more tiny detail that Ive mentioned many times in the past: connected datagram sockets. I need to talk about this here, since were in the datagram section of the document. Lets say that talker calls connect() and species the listeners address. From that point on, talker may only sent to and receive from the address specied by connect(). For this reason, you dont have to use sendto() and recvfrom(); you can simply use send() and recv().

6. Slightly Advanced Techniques

These arent really advanced, but theyre getting out of the more basic levels weve already covered. In fact, if youve gotten this far, you should consider yourself fairly accomplished in the basics of Unix network programming! Congratulations! So here we go into the brave new world of some of the more esoteric things you might want to learn about sockets. Have at it!

6.1. Blocking
Blocking. Youve heard about itnow what the heck is it? In a nutshell, "block" is techie jargon for "sleep". You probably noticed that when you run listener, above, it just sits there until a packet arrives. What happened is that it called recvfrom(), there was no data, and so recvfrom() is said to "block" (that is, sleep there) until some data arrives.

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Beejs Guide to Network Programming Lots of functions block. accept() blocks. All the recv() functions block. The reason they can do this is because theyre allowed to. When you rst create the socket descriptor with socket(), the kernel sets it to blocking. If you dont want a socket to be blocking, you have to make a call to fcntl():
#include <unistd.h> #include <fcntl.h> . . sockfd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0); fcntl(sockfd, F_SETFL, O_NONBLOCK); . .

By setting a socket to non-blocking, you can effectively "poll" the socket for information. If you try to read from a non-blocking socket and theres no data there, its not allowed to blockit will return -1 and errno will be set to EWOULDBLOCK. Generally speaking, however, this type of polling is a bad idea. If you put your program in a busy-wait looking for data on the socket, youll suck up CPU time like it was going out of style. A more elegant solution for checking to see if theres data waiting to be read comes in the following section on select().

6.2. select()Synchronous I/O Multiplexing

This function is somewhat strange, but its very useful. Take the following situation: you are a server and you want to listen for incoming connections as well as keep reading from the connections you already have. No problem, you say, just an accept() and a couple of recv()s. Not so fast, buster! What if youre blocking on an accept() call? How are you going to recv() data at the same time? "Use non-blocking sockets!" No way! You dont want to be a CPU hog. What, then?
select() gives you the power to monitor several sockets at the same time. Itll tell you which ones are ready for

reading, which are ready for writing, and which sockets have raised exceptions, if you really want to know that. Without any further ado, Ill offer the synopsis of select():
#include <sys/time.h> #include <sys/types.h> #include <unistd.h> int select(int numfds, fd_set *readfds, fd_set *writefds, fd_set *exceptfds, struct timeval *timeout);

The function monitors "sets" of le descriptors; in particular readfds, writefds, and exceptfds. If you want to see if you can read from standard input and some socket descriptor, sockfd, just add the le descriptors 0 and sockfd to the set readfds. The parameter numfds should be set to the values of the highest le descriptor plus one. In this example, it should be set to sockfd+1, since it is assuredly higher than standard input (0). When select() returns, readfds will be modied to reect which of the le descriptors you selected which is ready for reading. You can test them with the macro FD_ISSET(), below.

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Beejs Guide to Network Programming Before progressing much further, Ill talk about how to manipulate these sets. Each set is of the type fd_set. The following macros operate on this type:

FD_ZERO(fd_set *set)

clears a le descriptor set adds fd to the set removes fd from the set tests to see if fd is in the set

FD_SET(int fd, fd_set *set) FD_CLR(int fd, fd_set *set)

FD_ISSET(int fd, fd_set *set)

Finally, what is this weirded out struct timeval? Well, sometimes you dont want to wait forever for someone to send you some data. Maybe every 96 seconds you want to print "Still Going..." to the terminal even though nothing has happened. This time structure allows you to specify a timeout period. If the time is exceeded and select() still hasnt found any ready le descriptors, itll return so you can continue processing. The struct timeval has the follow elds:
struct timeval { int tv_sec; int tv_usec; };

// seconds // microseconds

Just set tv_sec to the number of seconds to wait, and set tv_usec to the number of microseconds to wait. Yes, thats microseconds, not milliseconds. There are 1,000 microseconds in a millisecond, and 1,000 milliseconds in a second. Thus, there are 1,000,000 microseconds in a second. Why is it "usec"? The "u" is supposed to look like the Greek letter (Mu) that we use for "micro". Also, when the function returns, timeout might be updated to show the time still remaining. This depends on what avor of Unix youre running. Yay! We have a microsecond resolution timer! Well, dont count on it. Standard Unix timeslice is around 100 milliseconds, so you might have to wait that long no matter how small you set your struct timeval. Other things of interest: If you set the elds in your struct timeval to 0, select() will timeout immediately, effectively polling all the le descriptors in your sets. If you set the parameter timeout to NULL, it will never timeout, and will wait until the rst le descriptor is ready. Finally, if you dont care about waiting for a certain set, you can just set it to NULL in the call to select(). The following code snippet16 waits 2.5 seconds for something to appear on standard input:
/* ** select.c - a select() demo */ #include #include #include #include <stdio.h> <sys/time.h> <sys/types.h> <unistd.h> // file descriptor for standard input

#define STDIN 0

int main(void) { struct timeval tv;

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fd_set readfds; tv.tv_sec = 2; tv.tv_usec = 500000; FD_ZERO(&readfds); FD_SET(STDIN, &readfds); // dont care about writefds and exceptfds: select(STDIN+1, &readfds, NULL, NULL, &tv); if (FD_ISSET(STDIN, &readfds)) printf("A key was pressed!\n"); else printf("Timed out.\n"); return 0; }

If youre on a line buffered terminal, the key you hit should be RETURN or it will time out anyway. Now, some of you might think this is a great way to wait for data on a datagram socketand you are right: it might be. Some Unices can use select in this manner, and some cant. You should see what your local man page says on the matter if you want to attempt it. Some Unices update the time in your struct timeval to reect the amount of time still remaining before a timeout. But others do not. Dont rely on that occurring if you want to be portable. (Use gettimeofday() if you need to track time elapsed. Its a bummer, I know, but thats the way it is.) What happens if a socket in the read set closes the connection? Well, in that case, select() returns with that socket descriptor set as "ready to read". When you actually do recv() from it, recv() will return 0. Thats how you know the client has closed the connection. One more note of interest about select(): if you have a socket that is listen()ing, you can check to see if there is a new connection by putting that sockets le descriptor in the readfds set. And that, my friends, is a quick overview of the almighty select() function. But, by popular demand, here is an in-depth example. Unfortunately, the difference between the dirt-simple example, above, and this one here is signicant. But have a look, then read the description that follows it. This program17 acts like a simple multi-user chat server. Start it running in one window, then telnet to it ("telnet hostname 9034") from multiple other windows. When you type something in one telnet session, it should appear in all the others.
/* ** selectserver.c - a cheezy multiperson chat server */ #include #include #include #include #include #include <stdio.h> <stdlib.h> <string.h> <unistd.h> <sys/types.h> <sys/socket.h>

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#include <netinet/in.h> #include <arpa/inet.h> #define PORT 9034 // port were listening on

int main(void) { fd_set master; // master file descriptor list fd_set read_fds; // temp file descriptor list for select() struct sockaddr_in myaddr; // server address struct sockaddr_in remoteaddr; // client address int fdmax; // maximum file descriptor number int listener; // listening socket descriptor int newfd; // newly accept()ed socket descriptor char buf[256]; // buffer for client data int nbytes; int yes=1; // for setsockopt() SO_REUSEADDR, below int addrlen; int i, j; FD_ZERO(&master); FD_ZERO(&read_fds); // clear the master and temp sets

// get the listener if ((listener = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0)) == -1) { perror("socket"); exit(1); } // lose the pesky "address already in use" error message if (setsockopt(listener, SOL_SOCKET, SO_REUSEADDR, &yes, sizeof(int)) == -1) { perror("setsockopt"); exit(1); } // bind myaddr.sin_family = AF_INET; myaddr.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY; myaddr.sin_port = htons(PORT); memset(&(myaddr.sin_zero), \0, 8); if (bind(listener, (struct sockaddr *)&myaddr, sizeof(myaddr)) == -1) { perror("bind"); exit(1); } // listen if (listen(listener, 10) == -1) { perror("listen"); exit(1); } // add the listener to the master set FD_SET(listener, &master);

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// keep track of the biggest file descriptor fdmax = listener; // so far, its this one // main loop for(;;) { read_fds = master; // copy it if (select(fdmax+1, &read_fds, NULL, NULL, NULL) == -1) { perror("select"); exit(1); } // run through the existing connections looking for data to read for(i = 0; i <= fdmax; i++) { if (FD_ISSET(i, &read_fds)) { // we got one!! if (i == listener) { // handle new connections addrlen = sizeof(remoteaddr); if ((newfd = accept(listener, (struct sockaddr *)&remoteaddr, &addrlen)) == -1) { perror("accept"); } else { FD_SET(newfd, &master); // add to master set if (newfd > fdmax) { // keep track of the maximum fdmax = newfd; } printf("selectserver: new connection from %s on " "socket %d\n", inet_ntoa(remoteaddr.sin_addr), newfd); } } else { // handle data from a client if ((nbytes = recv(i, buf, sizeof(buf), 0)) <= 0) { // got error or connection closed by client if (nbytes == 0) { // connection closed printf("selectserver: socket %d hung up\n", i); } else { perror("recv"); } close(i); // bye! FD_CLR(i, &master); // remove from master set } else { // we got some data from a client for(j = 0; j <= fdmax; j++) { // send to everyone! if (FD_ISSET(j, &master)) { // except the listener and ourselves if (j != listener && j != i) { if (send(j, buf, nbytes, 0) == -1) { perror("send"); } } } } } } // its SO UGLY!

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} } } return 0; }

Notice I have two le descriptor sets in the code: master and read_fds. The rst, master, holds all the socket descriptors that are currently connected, as well as the socket descriptor that is listening for new connections. The reason I have the master set is that select() actually changes the set you pass into it to reect which sockets are ready to read. Since I have to keep track of the connections from one call of select() to the next, I must store these safely away somewhere. At the last minute, I copy the master into the read_fds, and then call select(). But doesnt this mean that every time I get a new connection, I have to add it to the master set? Yup! And every time a connection closes, I have to remove it from the master set? Yes, it does. Notice I check to see when the listener socket is ready to read. When it is, it means I have a new connection pending, and I accept() it and add it to the master set. Similarly, when a client connection is ready to read, and recv() returns 0, I know the client has closed the connection, and I must remove it from the master set. If the client recv() returns non-zero, though, I know some data has been received. So I get it, and then go through the master list and send that data to all the rest of the connected clients. And that, my friends, is a less-than-simple overview of the almighty select() function.

6.3. Handling Partial send()s

Remember back in the section about send(), above, when I said that send() might not send all the bytes you asked it to? That is, you want it to send 512 bytes, but it returns 412. What happened to the remaining 100 bytes? Well, theyre still in your little buffer waiting to be sent out. Due to circumstances beyond your control, the kernel decided not to send all the data out in one chunk, and now, my friend, its up to you to get the data out there. You could write a function like this to do it, too:
#include <sys/types.h> #include <sys/socket.h> int sendall(int s, char *buf, int *len) { int total = 0; // how many bytes weve sent int bytesleft = *len; // how many we have left to send int n; while(total < *len) { n = send(s, buf+total, bytesleft, 0); if (n == -1) { break; } total += n; bytesleft -= n; }

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*len = total; // return number actually sent here return n==-1?-1:0; // return -1 on failure, 0 on success }

In this example, s is the socket you want to send the data to, buf is the buffer containing the data, and len is a pointer to an int containing the number of bytes in the buffer. The function returns -1 on error (and errno is still set from the call to send().) Also, the number of bytes actually sent is returned in len. This will be the same number of bytes you asked it to send, unless there was an error. sendall() will do its best, hufng and pufng, to send the data out, but if theres an error, it gets back to you right away. For completeness, heres a sample call to the function:
char buf[10] = "Beej!"; int len; len = strlen(buf); if (sendall(s, buf, &len) == -1) { perror("sendall"); printf("We only sent %d bytes because of the error!\n", len); }

What happens on the receivers end when part of a packet arrives? If the packets are variable length, how does the receiver know when one packet ends and another begins? Yes, real-world scenarios are a royal pain in the donkeys. You probably have to encapsulate (remember that from the data encapsulation section way back there at the beginning?) Read on for details!

6.4. Son of Data Encapsulation

What does it really mean to encapsulate data, anyway? In the simplest case, it means youll stick a header on there with either some identifying information or a packet length, or both. What should your header look like? Well, its just some binary data that represents whatever you feel is necessary to complete your project. Wow. Thats vague. Okay. For instance, lets say you have a multi-user chat program that uses SOCK_STREAMs. When a user types ("says") something, two pieces of information need to be transmitted to the server: what was said and who said it. So far so good? "Whats the problem?" youre asking. The problem is that the messages can be of varying lengths. One person named "tom" might say, "Hi", and another person named "Benjamin" might say, "Hey guys what is up?" So you send() all this stuff to the clients as it comes in. Your outgoing data stream looks like this:
t o m H i B e n j a m i n H e y g u y s w h a t i s u p ?

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Beejs Guide to Network Programming And so on. How does the client know when one message starts and another stops? You could, if you wanted, make all messages the same length and just call the sendall() we implemented, above. But that wastes bandwidth! We dont want to send() 1024 bytes just so "tom" can say "Hi". So we encapsulate the data in a tiny header and packet structure. Both the client and server know how to pack and unpack (sometimes referred to as "marshal" and "unmarshal") this data. Dont look now, but were starting to dene a protocol that describes how a client and server communicate! In this case, lets assume the user name is a xed length of 8 characters, padded with \0. And then lets assume the data is variable length, up to a maximum of 128 characters. Lets have a look a sample packet structure that we might use in this situation:

1. len (1 byte, unsigned) The total length of the packet, counting the 8-byte user name and chat data. 2. name (8 bytes) The users name, NUL-padded if necessary. 3. chatdata (n-bytes) The data itself, no more than 128 bytes. The length of the packet should be calculated as the length of this data plus 8 (the length of the name eld, above). Why did I choose the 8-byte and 128-byte limits for the elds? I pulled them out of the air, assuming theyd be long enough. Maybe, though, 8 bytes is too restrictive for your needs, and you can have a 30-byte name eld, or whatever. The choice is up to you. Using the above packet denition, the rst packet would consist of the following information (in hex and ASCII):
0A (length) 74 6F 6D 00 00 00 00 00 T o m (padding) 48 69 H i

And the second is similar:

14 (length) 42 65 6E 6A 61 6D 69 6E B e n j a m i n 48 65 79 20 67 75 79 73 20 77 ... H e y g u y s w ...

(The length is stored in Network Byte Order, of course. In this case, its only one byte so it doesnt matter, but generally speaking youll want all your binary integers to be stored in Network Byte Order in your packets.) When youre sending this data, you should be safe and use a command similar to sendall(), above, so you know all the data is sent, even if it takes multiple calls to send() to get it all out. Likewise, when youre receiving this data, you need to do a bit of extra work. To be safe, you should assume that you might receive a partial packet (like maybe we receive "00 14 42 65 6E" from Benjamin, above, but thats all we get in this call to recv()). We need to call recv() over and over again until the packet is completely received. But how? Well, we know the number of bytes we need to receive in total for the packet to be complete, since that number is tacked on the front of the packet. We also know the maximum packet size is 1+8+128, or 137 bytes (because thats how we dened the packet.) What you can do is declare an array big enough for two packets. This is your work array where you will reconstruct packets as they arrive. Every time you recv() data, youll feed it into the work buffer and check to see if the packet is complete. That is, the number of bytes in the buffer is greater than or equal to the length specied in the header (+1, because the length in the header doesnt include the byte for the length itself.) If the number of bytes in the buffer is less than 1, the 37

Beejs Guide to Network Programming packet is not complete, obviously. You have to make a special case for this, though, since the rst byte is garbage and you cant rely on it for the correct packet length. Once the packet is complete, you can do with it what you will. Use it, and remove it from your work buffer. Whew! Are you juggling that in your head yet? Well, heres the second of the one-two punch: you might have read past the end of one packet and onto the next in a single recv() call. That is, you have a work buffer with one complete packet, and an incomplete part of the next packet! Bloody heck. (But this is why you made your work buffer large enough to hold two packetsin case this happened!) Since you know the length of the rst packet from the header, and youve been keeping track of the number of bytes in the work buffer, you can subtract and calculate how many of the bytes in the work buffer belong to the second (incomplete) packet. When youve handled the rst one, you can clear it out of the work buffer and move the partial second packed down the to front of the buffer so its all ready to go for the next recv(). (Some of you readers will note that actually moving the partial second packet to the beginning of the work buffer takes time, and the program can be coded to not require this by using a circular buffer. Unfortunately for the rest of you, a discussion on circular buffers is beyond the scope of this article. If youre still curious, grab a data structures book and go from there.) I never said it was easy. Ok, I did say it was easy. And it is; you just need practice and pretty soon itll come to you naturally. By Excalibur I swear it!

7. More References
Youve come this far, and now youre screaming for more! Where else can you go to learn more about all this stuff?

7.1. man Pages

Try the following man pages, for starters:

htonl()18 htons()19 ntohl()20 ntohs()21 inet_aton()22 inet_addr()23 inet_ntoa()24 socket()25 socket options26 bind()27

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connect()28 listen()29 accept()30 send()31 recv()32 sendto()33 recvfrom()34 close()35 shutdown()36 getpeername()37 getsockname()38 gethostbyname()39 gethostbyaddr()40 getprotobyname()41 fcntl()42 select()43 perror()44 gettimeofday()45

7.2. Books
For old-school actual hold-it-in-your-hand pulp paper books, try some of the following excellent guides. Note the prominent Amazon.com logo. What all this shameless commercialism means is that I basically get a kickback (Amazon.com store credit, actually) for selling these books through this guide. So if youre going to order one of these books anyway, why not send me a special thank you by starting your spree from one of the links, below. Besides, more books for me might ultimately lead to more guides for you. ;-)

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Unix Network Programming, volumes 1-2 by W. Richard Stevens. Published by Prentice Hall. ISBNs for volumes 1-2: 013490012X47, 013081081948. Internetworking with TCP/IP, volumes I-III by Douglas E. Comer and David L. Stevens. Published by Prentice Hall. ISBNs for volumes I, II, and III: 013018380649, 013973843650, 013848714651.

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Beejs Guide to Network Programming TCP/IP Illustrated, volumes 1-3 by W. Richard Stevens and Gary R. Wright. Published by Addison Wesley. ISBNs for volumes 1, 2, and 3: 020163346952, 020163354X53, 020163495354. TCP/IP Network Administration by Craig Hunt. Published by OReilly & Associates, Inc. ISBN 156592322755. Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment by W. Richard Stevens. Published by Addison Wesley. ISBN 020156317756. Using C on the UNIX System by David A. Curry. Published by OReilly & Associates, Inc. ISBN 0937175234. Out of print.

7.3. Web References

On the web: BSD Sockets: A Quick And Dirty Primer57 (has other great Unix system programming info, too!) The Unix Socket FAQ58 Client-Server Computing59 Intro to TCP/IP60 (gopher) Internet Protocol Frequently Asked Questions61 The Winsock FAQ62

7.4. RFCs
RFCs63the real dirt: RFC-76864The User Datagram Protocol (UDP) RFC-79165The Internet Protocol (IP) RFC-79366The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) RFC-85467The Telnet Protocol RFC-95168The Bootstrap Protocol (BOOTP) RFC-135069The Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP)

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8. Common Questions
Q: Where can I get those header les? A: If you dont have them on your system already, you probably dont need them. Check the manual for your particular platform. If youre building for Windows, you only need to #include <winsock.h>. Q: What do I do when bind() reports "Address already in use"? A: You have to use setsockopt() with the SO_REUSEADDR option on the listening socket. Check out the section on bind() and the section on select() for an example. Q: How do I get a list of open sockets on the system? A: Use the netstat. Check the man page for full details, but you should get some good output just typing:
$ netstat

The only trick is determining which socket is associated with which program. :-)

Q: How can I view the routing table? A: Run the route command (in /sbin on most Linuxes) or the command netstat -r. Q: How can I run the client and server programs if I only have one computer? Dont I need a network to write network program? A: Fortunately for you, virtually all machines implement a loopback network "device" that sits in the kernel and pretends to be a network card. (This is the interface listed as "lo" in the routing table.) Pretend youre logged into a machine named "goat". Run the client in one window and the server in another. Or start the server in the background ("server &") and run the client in the same window. The upshot of the loopback device is that you can either client goat or client localhost (since "localhost" is likely dened in your /etc/hosts le) and youll have the client talking to the server without a network! In short, no changes are necessary to any of the code to make it run on a single non-networked machine! Huzzah!

Q: How can I tell if the remote side has closed connection? A: You can tell because recv() will return 0. Q: How do I implement a "ping" utility? What is ICMP? Where can I nd out more about raw sockets and SOCK_RAW? A: All your raw sockets questions will be answered in W. Richard Stevens UNIX Network Programming books. See the books section of this guide.

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Beejs Guide to Network Programming Q: How do I build for Windows? A: First, delete Windows and install Linux or BSD. };-). No, actually, just see the section on building for Windows in the introduction. Q: How do I build for Solaris/SunOS? I keep getting linker errors when I try to compile! A: The linker errors happen because Sun boxes dont automatically compile in the socket libraries. See the section on building for Solaris/SunOS in the introduction for an example of how to do this. Q: Why does select() keep falling out on a signal? A: Signals tend to cause blocked system calls to return -1 with errno set to EINTR. When you set up a signal handler with sigaction(), you can set the ag SA_RESTART, which is supposed to restart the system call after it was interrupted. Naturally, this doesnt always work. My favorite solution to this involves a goto statement. You know this irritates your professors to no end, so go for it!
select_restart: if ((err = select(fdmax+1, &readfds, NULL, NULL, NULL)) == -1) { if (errno == EINTR) { // some signal just interrupted us, so restart goto select_restart; } // handle the real error here: perror("select"); }

Sure, you dont need to use goto in this case; you can use other structures to control it. But I think the goto statement is actually cleaner.

Q: How can I implement a timeout on a call to recv()? A: Use select()! It allows you to specify a timeout parameter for socket descriptors that youre looking to read from. Or, you could wrap the entire functionality in a single function, like this:
#include #include #include #include <unistd.h> <sys/time.h> <sys/types.h> <sys/socket.h>

int recvtimeout(int s, char *buf, int len, int timeout) { fd_set fds; int n; struct timeval tv; // set up the file descriptor set FD_ZERO(&fds); FD_SET(s, &fds);

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// set up the struct timeval for the timeout tv.tv_sec = timeout; tv.tv_usec = 0; // wait until timeout or data received n = select(s+1, &fds, NULL, NULL, &tv); if (n == 0) return -2; // timeout! if (n == -1) return -1; // error // data must be here, so do a normal recv() return recv(s, buf, len, 0); } // Sample call to recvtimeout(): . . n = recvtimeout(s, buf, sizeof(buf), 10); // 10 second timeout if (n == -1) { // error occurred perror("recvtimeout"); } else if (n == -2) { // timeout occurred } else { // got some data in buf } . .

Notice that recvtimeout() returns -2 in case of a timeout. Why not return 0? Well, if you recall, a return value of 0 on a call to recv() means that the remote side closed the connection. So that return value is already spoken for, and -1 means "error", so I chose -2 as my timeout indicator.

Q: How do I encrypt or compress the data before sending it through the socket? A: One easy way to do encryption is to use SSL (secure sockets layer), but thats beyond the scope of this guide. But assuming you want to plug in or implement your own compressor or encryption system, its just a matter of thinking of your data as running through a sequence of steps between both ends. Each step changes the data in some way.

1. server reads data from le (or whereever) 2. server encrypts data (you add this part) 3. server send()s encrypted data

Now the other way around: 43

Beejs Guide to Network Programming 4. client recv()s encrypted data 5. client decrypts data (you add this part) 6. client writes data to le (or whereever)

You can also do compression at the same point that you do the encryption/decryption, above. Or you could do both! Just remember to compress before you encrypt. :) Just as long as the client properly undoes what the server does, the data will be ne in the end no matter how many intermediate steps you add. So all you need to do to use my code is to nd the place between where the data is read and the data is sent (using send()) over the network, and stick some code in there that does the encryption.

Q: What is this "PF_INET" I keep seeing? Is it related to AF_INET? A: Yes, yes it is. See the section on socket() for details. Q: How can I write a server that accepts shell commands from a client and executes them? A: For simplicity, lets say the client connect()s, send()s, and close()s the connection (that is, there are no subsequent system calls without the client connecting again.) The process the client follows is this:

1. connect() to server 2. send("/sbin/ls > /tmp/client.out") 3. close() the connection

Meanwhile, the server is handling the data and executing it:

1. accept() the connection from the client 2. recv(str) the command string 3. close() the connection 4. system(str) to run the command

Beware! Having the server execute what the client says is like giving remote shell access and people can do things to your account when they connect to the server. For instance, in the above example, what if the client sends "rm -rf ~"? It deletes everything in your account, thats what!

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Beejs Guide to Network Programming So you get wise, and you prevent the client from using any except for a couple utilities that you know are safe, like the foobar utility:
if (!strcmp(str, "foobar")) { sprintf(sysstr, "%s > /tmp/server.out", str); system(sysstr); }

But youre still unsafe, unfortunately: what if the client enters "foobar; rm -rf ~"? The safest thing to do is to write a little routine that puts an escape ("\") character in front of all non-alphanumeric characters (including spaces, if appropriate) in the arguments for the command. As you can see, security is a pretty big issue when the server starts executing things the client sends.

Q: Im sending a slew of data, but when I recv(), it only receives 536 bytes or 1460 bytes at a time. But if I run it on my local machine, it receives all the data at the same time. Whats going on? A: Youre hitting the MTUthe maximum size the physical medium can handle. On the local machine, youre using the loopback device which can handle 8K or more no problem. But on ethernet, which can only handle 1500 bytes with a header, you hit that limit. Over a modem, with 576 MTU (again, with header), you hit the even lower limit. You have to make sure all the data is being sent, rst of all. (See the sendall() function implementation for details.) Once youre sure of that, then you need to call recv() in a loop until all your data is read. Read the section Son of Data Encapsulation for details on receiving complete packets of data using multiple calls to
recv().

Q: Im on a Windows box and I dont have the fork() system call or any kind of struct sigaction. What to do? A: If theyre anywhere, theyll be in POSIX libraries that may have shipped with your compiler. Since I dont have a Windows box, I really cant tell you the answer, but I seem to remember that Microsoft has a POSIX compatibility layer and thats where fork() would be. (And maybe even sigaction.) Search the help that came with VC++ for "fork" or "POSIX" and see if it gives you any clues. If that doesnt work at all, ditch the fork()/sigaction stuff and replace it with the Win32 equivalent: CreateProcess(). I dont know how to use CreateProcess()it takes a bazillion arguments, but it should be covered in the docs that came with VC++.

Q: How do I send data securely with TCP/IP using encryption? A: Check out the OpenSSL project70.

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Beejs Guide to Network Programming Q: Im behind a rewallhow do I let people outside the rewall know my IP address so they can connect to my machine? A: Unfortunately, the purpose of a rewall is to prevent people outside the rewall from connecting to machines inside the rewall, so allowing them to do so is basically considered a breach of security. This isnt to say that all is lost. For one thing, you can still often connect() through the rewall if its doing some kind of masquerading or NAT or something like that. Just design your programs so that youre always the one initiating the connection, and youll be ne. If thats not satisfactory, you can ask your sysadmins to poke a hole in the rewall so that people can connect to you. The rewall can forward to you either through its NAT software, or through a proxy or something like that. Be aware that a hole in the rewall is nothing to be taken lightly. You have to make sure you dont give bad people access to the internal network; if youre a beginner, its a lot harder to make software secure than you might imagine. Dont make your sysadmin mad at me. ;-)

9. Disclaimer and Call for Help

Well, thats the lot of it. Hopefully at least some of the information contained within this document has been remotely accurate and I sincerely hope there arent any glaring errors. Well, sure, there always are. So, let this be a warning to you! Im sorry if any inaccuracies contained herein have caused you any grief, but you just cant hold me accountable. See, I dont stand behind a single word of this document, legally speaking. The whole thing could be completely and utterly wrong! But its probably not. After all, Ive spent many many hours messing with this stuff, and implemented several TCP/IP network utilities at work, have written multiplayer game engines, and so on. But Im not the sockets god; Im just some guy. By the way, if anyone has any constructive (or destructive) criticism about this document, please send mail to <[email protected]> and Ill try to make an effort to set the record straight. In case youre wondering why I did this, well, I did it for the money. Ha! No, really, I did it because a lot of people have asked me socket-related questions and when I tell them Ive been thinking about putting together a socket page, they say, "Cool!" Besides, I feel that all this hard-earned knowledge is going to waste if I cant share it with others. The web just happens to be the perfect vehicle. I encourage others to provide similar information whenever possible. Enough of thisback to coding! ;-)

Notes
1. http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~beej/guide/net/ 2. http://tangentsoft.net/wskfaq/ 3. http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

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Beejs Guide to Network Programming 4. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man2/send.2.inc 5. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man2/recv.2.inc 6. http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc793.txt 7. http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc791.txt 8. http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc768.txt 9. http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc791.txt 10. http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1413.txt 11. http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~beej/guide/net/examples/getip.c 12. http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~beej/guide/net/examples/server.c 13. http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~beej/guide/net/examples/client.c 14. http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~beej/guide/net/examples/listener.c 15. http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~beej/guide/net/examples/talker.c 16. http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~beej/guide/net/examples/select.c 17. http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~beej/guide/net/examples/selectserver.c 18. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man3/htonl.3.inc 19. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man3/htons.3.inc 20. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man3/ntohl.3.inc 21. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man3/ntohs.3.inc 22. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man3/inet_aton.3.inc 23. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man3/inet_addr.3.inc 24. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man3/inet_ntoa.3.inc 25. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man2/socket.2.inc 26. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man7/socket.7.inc 27. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man2/bind.2.inc 28. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man2/connect.2.inc 29. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man2/listen.2.inc 30. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man2/accept.2.inc 31. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man2/send.2.inc 32. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man2/recv.2.inc 33. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man2/sendto.2.inc 34. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man2/recvfrom.2.inc

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Beejs Guide to Network Programming 35. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man2/close.2.inc 36. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man2/shutdown.2.inc 37. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man2/getpeername.2.inc 38. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man2/getsockname.2.inc 39. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man3/gethostbyname.3.inc 40. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man3/gethostbyaddr.3.inc 41. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man3/getprotobyname.3.inc 42. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man2/fcntl.2.inc 43. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man2/select.2.inc 44. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man3/perror.3.inc 45. http://linux.com.hk/man/showman.cgi?manpath=/man/man2/gettimeofday.2.inc 46. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/beejsguides-20 47. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/013490012X/beejsguides-20 48. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0130810819/beejsguides-20 49. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0130183806/beejsguides-20 50. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0139738436/beejsguides-20 51. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0138487146/beejsguides-20 52. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201633469/beejsguides-20 53. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/020163354X/beejsguides-20 54. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201634953/beejsguides-20 55. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1565923227/beejsguides-20 56. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201563177/beejsguides-20 57. http://www.cs.umn.edu/~bentlema/unix/ 58. http://www.ibrado.com/sock-faq/ 59. http://pandonia.canberra.edu.au/ClientServer/ 60. gopher://gopher-chem.ucdavis.edu/11/Index/Internet_aw/Intro_the_Internet/intro.to.ip/ 61. http://www-iso8859-5.stack.net/pages/faqs/tcpip/tcpipfaq.html 62. http://tangentsoft.net/wskfaq/ 63. http://www.rfc-editor.org/ 64. http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc768.txt 65. http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc791.txt

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Beejs Guide to Network Programming 66. http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc793.txt 67. http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc854.txt 68. http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc951.txt 69. http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1350.txt 70. http://www.openssl.org/

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