Tuesday, 14 April 2015

Socket Programming

Socket program is a key skill needed for the robotics project for exerting control - in this case the controller running on your laptop will connect to the server running on the bot.


Goals

We plan to learn the following :
  • What is a socket?
  • The client-server model
  • Byte order
  • TCP socket API
  • Concurrent server design
  • Example of echo client and iterative server
  • Example of echo client and concurrent server
The basics
Program. A program is an executable file residing on a disk in a directory. A program is read into memory and is executed by the kernel as a result of an exec() function. The exec() has six variants, but we only consider the simplest one (exec()) in this course.
Process. An executing instance of a program is called a process. Sometimes, task is used instead of process with the same meaning. UNIX guarantees that every process has a unique identifier called the process ID. The process ID is always a non-negative integer.
File descriptors. File descriptors are normally small non-negative integers that the kernel uses to identify the files being accessed by a particular process. Whenever it opens an existing file or creates a new file, the kernel returns a file descriptor that is used to read or write the file. As we will see in this course, sockets are based on a very similar mechanism (socket descriptors).
The client-server model
The client-server model is one of the most used communication paradigms in networked systems. Clients normally communicates with one server at a time. From a server’s perspective, at any point in time, it is not unusual for a server to be communicating with multiple clients. Client need to know of the existence of and the address of the server, but the server does not need to know the address of (or even the existence of) the client prior to the connection being established
Client and servers communicate by means of multiple layers of network protocols. In this course we will focus on the TCP/IP protocol suite.
The scenario of the client and the server on the same local network (usually called LAN, Local Area Network) is shown in Figure 

The client and the server may be in different LANs, with both LANs connected to a Wide Area Network (WAN) by means of routers. The largest WAN is the Internet, but companies may have their own WANs. This scenario is depicted in Figure 


The flow of information between the client and the server goes down the protocol stack on one side, then across the network and then up the protocol stack on the other side.
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
TCP provides a connection oriented service, since it is based on connections between clients and servers.
TCP provides reliability. When a TCP client send data to the server, it requires an acknowledgement in return. If an acknowledgement is not received, TCP automatically retransmit the data and waits for a longer period of time.
TCP is instead a byte-stream protocol, without any boundaries at all.
TCP is described in RFC 793, RFC 1323, RFC 2581 and RFC 3390.
Socket addresses
IPv4 socket address structure is named sockaddr_in and is defined by including the <netinet/in.h> header.
The POSIX definition is the following:

struct in_addr{
in_addr_t s_addr; /*32 bit IPv4 network byte ordered address*/
};


struct sockaddr_in {
   uint8_t sin_len; /* length of structure (16)*/
   sa_family_t sin_family; /* AF_INET*/
   in_port_t sin_port; /* 16 bit TCP or UDP port number */
   struct in_addr sin_addr; /* 32 bit IPv4 address*/
   char sin_zero[8]; /* not used but always set to zero */
};
The uint8_t datatype is unsigned 8-bit integer.
Generic Socket Address Structure
A socket address structure is always passed by reference as an argument to any socket functions. But any socket function that takes one of these pointers as an argument must deal with socket address structures from any of the supported protocol families.
A problem arises in declaring the type of pointer that is passed. With ANSI C, the solution is to use void * (the generic pointer type). But the socket functions predate the definition of ANSI C and the solution chosen was to define a generic socket address as follows:

struct sockaddr {
   uint8_t sa_len;
   sa_family_t sa_family; /* address family: AD_xxx value */
   char sa_data[14];
};
Host Byte Order to Network Byte Order Conversion
There are two ways to store two bytes in memory: with the lower-order byte at the starting address (little-endian byte order) or with the high-order byte at the starting address (big-endian byte order). We call them collectively host byte order. For example, an Intel processor stores the 32-bit integer as four consecutives bytes in memory in the order 1-2-3-4, where 1 is the most significant byte. IBM PowerPC processors would store the integer in the byte order 4-3-2-1.
Networking protocols such as TCP are based on a specific network byte order. The Internet protocols use big-endian byte ordering.
The htons(), htonl(), ntohs(), and ntohl() Functions
The follwowing functions are used for the conversion:

#include <netinet/in.h>

uint16_t htons(uint16_t host16bitvalue);

uint32_t htonl(uint32_t host32bitvalue);

uint16_t ntohs(uint16_t net16bitvalue);

uint32_t ntohl(uint32_t net32bitvalue);
The first two return the value in network byte order (16 and 32 bit, respectively). The latter return the value in host byte order (16 and 32 bit, respectively).
TCP Socket API
The sequence of function calls for the client and a server participating in a TCP connection is presented in Figure 


As shown in the figure, the steps for establishing a TCP socket on the client side are the following:
  • Create a socket using the socket() function;
  • Connect the socket to the address of the server using the connect() function;
  • Send and receive data by means of the read() and write() functions.
The steps involved in establishing a TCP socket on the server side are as follows:
  • Create a socket with the socket() function;
  • Bind the socket to an address using the bind() function;
  • Listen for connections with the listen() function;
  • Accept a connection with the accept() function system call. This call typically blocks until a client connects with the server.
  • Send and receive data by means of send() and receive().
The socket() Function
The first step is to call the socket function, specifying the type of communication protocol (TCP based on IPv4, TCP based on IPv6, UDP).
The function is defined as follows:

#include <sys/socket.h>

int socket (int family, int type, int protocol);
where family specifies the protocol family (AF_INET for the IPv4 protocols), type is a constant described the type of socket (SOCK_STREAM for stream sockets and SOCK_DGRAM for datagram sockets.
The function returns a non-negative integer number, similar to a file descriptor, that we define socket descriptor or -1 on error.
The connect() Function
The connect() function is used by a TCP client to establish a connection with a TCP server/
The function is defined as follows:

#include <sys/socket.h>

int connect (int sockfd, const struct sockaddr *servaddr, socklen_t addrlen);
where sockfd is the socket descriptor returned by the socket function.
The function returns 0 if the it succeeds in establishing a connection (i.e., successful TCP three-way handshake, -1 otherwise.
The client does not have to call bind() in Section before calling this function: the kernel will choose both an ephemeral port and the source IP if necessary.
The bind() Function
The bind() assigns a local protocol address to a socket. With the Internet protocols, the address is the combination of an IPv4 or IPv6 address (32-bit or 128-bit) address along with a 16 bit TCP port number.
The function is defined as follows:

#include <sys/socket.h>

int bind(int sockfd, const struct sockaddr *servaddr, socklen_t addrlen);
where sockfd is the socket descriptor, myaddr is a pointer to a protocol-specific address and addrlen is the size of the address structure.
bind() returns 0 if it succeeds, -1 on error.
This use of the generic socket address sockaddr requires that any calls to these functions must cast the pointer to the protocol-specific address structure. For example for and IPv4 socket structure:

struct sockaddr_in serv; /* IPv4 socket address structure */

bind(sockfd, (struct sockaddr*) &serv, sizeof(serv))
A process can bind a specific IP address to its socket: for a TCP client, this assigns the source IP address that will be used for IP datagrams sent on the sockets. For a TCP server, this restricts the socket to receive incoming client connections destined only to that IP address.
Normally, a TCP client does not bind an IP address to its socket. The kernel chooses the source IP socket is connected, based on the outgoing interface that is used. If a TCP server does not bind an IP address to its socket, the kernel uses the destination IP address of the incoming packets as the server’s source address.
bind() allows to specify the IP address, the port, both or neither.
The table below summarizes the combinations for IPv4.
IP Address
IP Port
Result
INADDR_ANY
0
Kernel chooses IP address and port
INADDR_ANY
non zero
Kernel chooses IP address, process specifies port
Local IP address
0
Process specifies IP address, kernel chooses port
Local IP address
non zero
Process specifies IP address and port
The listen() Function
The listen() function converts an unconnected socket into a passive socket, indicating that the kernel should accept incoming connection requests directed to this socket. It is defined as follows:

#include <sys/socket.h>

int listen(int sockfd, int backlog);
where sockfd is the socket descriptor and backlog is the maximum number of connections the kernel should queue for this socket. The backlog argument provides an hint to the system of the number of outstanding connect requests that is should enqueue in behalf of the process. Once the queue is full, the system will reject additional connection requests. The backlog value must be chosen based on the expected load of the server.
The function listen() return 0 if it succeeds, -1 on error.
The accept() Function
The accept() is used to retrieve a connect request and convert that into a request. It is defined as follows:

#include <sys/socket.h>

int accept(int sockfd, struct sockaddr *cliaddr,
socklen_t *addrlen);
where sockfd is a new file descriptor that is connected to the client that called the connect(). The cliaddr and addrlen arguments are used to return the protocol address of the client. The new socket descriptor has the same socket type and address family of the original socket. The original socket passed to accept() is not associated with the connection, but instead remains available to receive additional connect requests. The kernel creates one connected socket for each client connection that is accepted.
If we don’t care about the client’s identity, we can set the cliaddr and addrlen to NULL. Otherwise, before calling the accept function, the cliaddr parameter has to be set to a buffer large enough to hold the address and set the interger pointed byaddrlen to the size of the buffer.
The send() Function
Since a socket endpoint is represented as a file descriptor, we can use read and write to communicate with a socket as long as it is connected. However, if we want to specify options we need another set of functions.
For example, send() is similar to write() but allows to specify some options. send() is defined as follows:

#include <sys/socket.h>
ssize_t send(int sockfd, const void *buf, size_t nbytes, int flags);
where buf and nbytes have the same meaning as they have with write. The additional argument flags is used to specify how we want the data to be transmitted. We will not consider the possible options in this course. We will assume it equal to 0.
The function returns the number of bytes if it succeeds, -1 on error.
The receive() Function
The recv() function is similar to read(), but allows to specify some options to control how the data are received. We will not consider the possible options in this course. We will assume it is equal to 0.
receive is defined as follows:

#include <sys/socket.h>
ssize_t recv(int sockfd, void *buf, size_t nbytes, int flags);
The function returns the length of the message in bytes, 0 if no messages are available and peer had done an orderly shutdown, or -1 on error.
The close() Function
The normal close() function is used to close a socket and terminate a TCP socket. It returns 0 if it succeeds, -1 on error. It is defined as follows:

#include <unistd.h>

int close(int sockfd);
Concurrent Servers
There are two main classes of servers, iterative and concurrent. An iterative server iterates through each client, handling it one at a time. A concurrent server handles multiple clients at the same time. The simplest technique for a concurrent server is to call the fork function, creating one child process for each client. An alternative technique is to use threads instead (i.e., light-weight processes).
The fork() function
The fork() function is the only way in Unix to create a new process. It is defined as follows:

#include <unist.h>

pid_t fork(void);
The function returns 0 if in child and the process ID of the child in parent; otherwise, -1 on error.
In fact, the function fork() is called once but returns twice. It returns once in the calling process (called the parent) with the process ID of the newly created process (its child). It also returns in the child, with a return value of 0. The return value tells whether the current process is the parent or the child.
Example
A typical concurrent server has the following structure:


pid_t pid;
int listenfd, connfd;
listenfd = socket(...);

/***fill the socket address with server’s well known port***/

bind(listenfd, ...);
listen(listenfd, ...);

for ( ; ; ) {

   connfd = accept(listenfd, ...); /* blocking call */

   if ( (pid = fork()) == 0 ) {

      close(listenfd); /* child closes listening socket */

      /***process the request doing something using connfd ***/
      /* ................. */

      close(connfd);
      exit(0);  /* child terminates
    }
    close(connfd);  /*parent closes connected socket*/
}
}
When a connection is established, accept returns, the server calls fork, and the child process services the client (on the connected socket connfd). The parent process waits for another connection (on the listening socket listenfd. The parent closes the connected socket since the child handles the new client. The interactions among client and server are presented in Figure 4.

TCP Client/Server Examples
We now present a complete example of the implementation of a TCP based echo server to summarize the concepts presented above. We present an iterative and a concurrent implementation of the server.
We recommend that you run the client and server on different machines so there is a TCP connection over the Internet. However, you can also use a local TCP connection bewteen the client and server processes using the IP address 127.0.0.1 as the address given to the client. The localhost (meaning ”this computer”) is the standard hostname given to the address of the loopback network interface.
Please note that socket programming regularly resolve names of machines such as wildcat.cs.dartmouth.edu to a 32 bit IP address needed to make a connect(). In class we have interacted directly with the DNS (domain name server) using the host command:


$# you can use localhost or 127.0.0.1 for testing the client and server on the same machine



$ host localhost
localhost has address 127.0.0.1



$# find the name of the machine you are logged into



$ hostname
bear.cs.dartmouth.edu



$# find the IP address of the machine



$ host bear
bear.cs.dartmouth.edu has address 129.170.213.32
bear.cs.dartmouth.edu mail is handled by 0 mail.cs.dartmouth.edu.



$# If you have the dot IP address form you can find the name



$ host 129.170.213.32
32.213.170.129.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer bear.cs.dartmouth.edu.


Host allows us to get the host IP address by name or get the host name given the IP address.
Luckly you don’t have to call “host” from your code. There are two commands that you can use:


struct hostent *gethostbyname(const char *name);



struct hostent *gethostbyaddr(const char *addr,  int len, int type);

echoClient.c source: echoClient.c
TCP Echo Client



#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <arpa/inet.h>



#define MAXLINE 4096 /*max text line length*/
#define SERV_PORT 3000 /*port*/



int
main(int argc, char **argv)
{
 int sockfd;
 struct sockaddr_in servaddr;
 char sendline[MAXLINE], recvline[MAXLINE];



 //basic check of the arguments
 //additional checks can be inserted
 if (argc !=2) {
  perror("Usage: TCPClient <IP address of the server");
  exit(1);
 }



 //Create a socket for the client
 //If sockfd<0 there was an error in the creation of the socket
 if ((sockfd = socket (AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0)) <0) {
  perror("Problem in creating the socket");
  exit(2);
 }



 //Creation of the socket
 memset(&servaddr, 0, sizeof(servaddr));
 servaddr.sin_family = AF_INET;
 servaddr.sin_addr.s_addr= inet_addr(argv[1]);
 servaddr.sin_port =  htons(SERV_PORT); //convert to big-endian order



 //Connection of the client to the socket
 if (connect(sockfd, (struct sockaddr *) &servaddr, sizeof(servaddr))<0) {
  perror("Problem in connecting to the server");
  exit(3);
 }



 while (fgets(sendline, MAXLINE, stdin) != NULL) {



  send(sockfd, sendline, strlen(sendline), 0);



  if (recv(sockfd, recvline, MAXLINE,0) == 0){
   //error: server terminated prematurely
   perror("The server terminated prematurely");
   exit(4);
  }
  printf("%s", "String received from the server: ");
  fputs(recvline, stdout);
 }



 exit(0);
}

echoServer.c source: echoServer.c
TCP Iterative Server



#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <unistd.h>



#define MAXLINE 4096 /*max text line length*/
#define SERV_PORT 3000 /*port*/
#define LISTENQ 8 /*maximum number of client connections */



int main (int argc, char **argv)
{
 int listenfd, connfd, n;
 socklen_t clilen;
 char buf[MAXLINE];
 struct sockaddr_in cliaddr, servaddr;



 //creation of the socket
 listenfd = socket (AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);



 //preparation of the socket address
 servaddr.sin_family = AF_INET;
 servaddr.sin_addr.s_addr = htonl(INADDR_ANY);
 servaddr.sin_port = htons(SERV_PORT);



 bind (listenfd, (struct sockaddr *) &servaddr, sizeof(servaddr));



 listen (listenfd, LISTENQ);



 printf("%s\n","Server running...waiting for connections.");



 for ( ; ; ) {



  clilen = sizeof(cliaddr);
  connfd = accept (listenfd, (struct sockaddr *) &cliaddr, &clilen);
  printf("%s\n","Received request...");



  while ( (n = recv(connfd, buf, MAXLINE,0)) > 0)  {
   printf("%s","String received from and resent to the client:");
   puts(buf);
   send(connfd, buf, n, 0);
  }



 if (n < 0) {
  perror("Read error");
  exit(1);
 }
 close(connfd);



 }
 //close listening socket
 close (listenfd);
}

Localhost Execution of Client/Server
To run the client and server try the following. It is best if you can run the server and client on different machines. But we will first show how to test the client and server on the same host using the locahost 127.0.0.1


$# first mygcc the client and server



$ mygcc -o echoClient echoClient.c
$ mygcc -o echoServer echoServer.c



$# first run the server in background



$ ./echoServer&
[1] 341
$ Server running...waiting for connections.



$ #Now connect using the localhost address 127.0.0.1 and then type something
$ # the control C out of the client and ps and kill the server



$ ./echoClient 127.0.0.1
Received request...
Hello CS23!
String received from and resent to the client:Hello CS23!



String received from the server: Hello CS23!
^C
$ ps
  PID TTY           TIME CMD
  208 ttys000    0:00.04 -bash
  341 ttys000    0:00.00 ./echoServer
  236 ttys001    0:00.01 -bash
$ kill -9 341
$
[1]+  Killed                  ./echoServer

Remote Execution of Client/Server
Now lets do the same thing but run the server on a remote machine and client locally. This time we will have to use the host command to find the IP address of the host we run the server on. The rest is the same as the localhost example above.
First, we ssh into bear and run the server and get the local IP address of bear


$ssh campbell@bear.cs.dartmouth.edu
campbell@bear.cs.dartmouth.edu’s password:
Last login: Sun Feb 14 23:27:30 2010 from c-71-235-190-26.hsd1.ct.comcast.net
$ cd public_html/cs23
$ mygcc -o echoServer echoServer.c
$ ./echoServer&
[1] 6020
$ Server running...waiting for connections.



$ host bear
bear.cs.dartmouth.edu has address 129.170.213.32
bear.cs.dartmouth.edu mail is handled by 0 mail.cs.dartmouth.edu.

Next, we start the client on our local machine and type something. We terminate the same way as before
First, we ssh into bear and run the server and get the local IP address of bear


$# Just to show we are running on a different machine



$ hostname
andrew-campbells-macbook-pro.local



$ ./echoClient 129.170.213.32
Hello CS23!
String received from the server: Hello CS23!
^C

Notice, that when we type make a connection and type in “Hello CS23!” we get the following at the server.


$# Just to show we are running on a different machine



$ Received request...
String received from and resent to the client:Hello CS23!



$# Now we clean up



$ ps
  PID TTY          TIME CMD
 5972 pts/2    00:00:00 bash
 6020 pts/2    00:00:00 echoServer
 6040 pts/2    00:00:00 ps
$ kill -9 6020
$
[1]+  Killed                  ./echoServer


conEchoServer.c source: conEchoServer.c
TCP Concurrent Echo Server



#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <unistd.h>



#define MAXLINE 4096 /*max text line length*/
#define SERV_PORT 3000 /*port*/
#define LISTENQ 8 /*maximum number of client connections*/



int main (int argc, char **argv)
{
 int listenfd, connfd, n;
 pid_t childpid;
 socklen_t clilen;
 char buf[MAXLINE];
 struct sockaddr_in cliaddr, servaddr;



 //Create a socket for the soclet
 //If sockfd<0 there was an error in the creation of the socket
 if ((listenfd = socket (AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0)) <0) {
  perror("Problem in creating the socket");
  exit(2);
 }




 //preparation of the socket address
 servaddr.sin_family = AF_INET;
 servaddr.sin_addr.s_addr = htonl(INADDR_ANY);
 servaddr.sin_port = htons(SERV_PORT);



 //bind the socket
 bind (listenfd, (struct sockaddr *) &servaddr, sizeof(servaddr));



 //listen to the socket by creating a connection queue, then wait for clients
 listen (listenfd, LISTENQ);



 printf("%s\n","Server running...waiting for connections.");



 for ( ; ; ) {



  clilen = sizeof(cliaddr);
  //accept a connection
  connfd = accept (listenfd, (struct sockaddr *) &cliaddr, &clilen);



  printf("%s\n","Received request...");



  if ( (childpid = fork ()) == 0 ) {//if it’s 0, it’s child process



  printf ("%s\n","Child created for dealing with client requests");



  //close listening socket
  close (listenfd);



  while ( (n = recv(connfd, buf, MAXLINE,0)) > 0)  {
   printf("%s","String received from and resent to the client:");
   puts(buf);
   send(connfd, buf, n, 0);
  }



  if (n < 0)
   printf("%s\n", "Read error");
  exit(0);
 }
 //close socket of the server
 close(connfd);
}
}

Remote Execution of concurrent Client/Server
Now, we run the server on a remote machine and then run two clients talking to the same server. We use hostname so we know what machines we use in the example below.
First, we start the concurrent server on a remote machine and get its IP address that the clients will use.



$ mygcc -o conEchoServer conEchoServer.c
$ ./conEchoServer&
[1] 6075
$ Server running...waiting for connections.



$ hostname
bear.cs.dartmouth.edu
$ host bear
bear.cs.dartmouth.edu has address 129.170.213.32
bear.cs.dartmouth.edu mail is handled by 0 mail.cs.dartmouth.edu.

Next, we run one client on my local machine, as follows:


$# Just to show we are running on a different machine



$ hostname
andrew-campbells-macbook-pro.local



$ ./echoClient 129.170.213.32
Hello from andrew-campbells-macbook-pro.local
String received from the server: Hello from andrew-campbells-macbook-pro.local

Next, we run one client on my local machine, as follows:


$# Just to show we are running on a different machine



$ hostname
andrew-campbells-macbook-pro.local



$ ./echoClient 129.170.213.32
Hello from andrew-campbells-macbook-pro.local
String received from the server: Hello from andrew-campbells-macbook-pro.local

Notice, that when we type make a connection and type in “Hello from andrew-campbells-macbook-pro.local” we get the following at the server.


$ Received request...
Child created for dealing with client requests
String received from and resent to the client:Hello from andrew-campbells-macbook-pro.local

Now, we ssh into a another machine and start a client


$ ssh campbell@moose.cs.dartmouth.edu
campbell@moose.cs.dartmouth.edu’s password:
Last login: Mon Feb  8 10:25:01 2010 from 10.35.2.112
$ cd public_html/cs23
$ mygcc -o echoClient echoClient.c
$ ./echoClient 129.170.213.32
Hello from moose.cs.dartmouth.edu
String received from the server: Hello from moose.cs.dartmouth.edu

Over at the server we see that the new client is recognized proving that our concurrent server can handle multiple clients at any one time; that is cool!


$Received request...
Child created for dealing with client requests
String received from and resent to the client:Hello from moose.cs.dartmouth.edu


Reference : Google







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