Sockets in C Tutorials

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What is a socket?



See there are many types of sockets hardware sockets “like electrical sockets” etc. and software “programming sockets” like what i'm going to talk about from now onwards.

See , a socket can be thought like any standard way to perform network communication through our system to another system or multiple systems . In this course I'll be only talking about establishment of connection in between two machines.

Types of sockets with respect to programming:-



Socket definations in </usr/include/bits/socket.h>
Code:
/* Types of sockets.  */ 
enum __socket_type 
{ 
  SOCK_STREAM = 1,		/* Sequenced, reliable, connection-based 
				   byte streams.  */ 
#define SOCK_STREAM SOCK_STREAM 
  SOCK_DGRAM = 2,		/* Connectionless, unreliable datagrams 
				   of fixed maximum length.  */ 
#define SOCK_DGRAM SOCK_DGRAM 
  SOCK_RAW = 3,			/* Raw protocol interface.  */ 
#define SOCK_RAW SOCK_RAW 
  SOCK_RDM = 4,			/* Reliably-delivered messages.  */ 
#define SOCK_RDM SOCK_RDM 
  SOCK_SEQPACKET = 5,		/* Sequenced, reliable, connection-based, 
				   datagrams of fixed maximum length.  */ 
#define SOCK_SEQPACKET SOCK_SEQPACKET 
  SOCK_DCCP = 6,		/* Datagram Congestion Control Protocol.  */ 
#define SOCK_DCCP SOCK_DCCP 
  SOCK_PACKET = 10,		/* Linux specific way of getting packets 
				   at the dev level.  For writing rarp and 
				   other similar things on the user level. */ 
#define SOCK_PACKET SOCK_PACKET 

  /* Flags to be ORed into the type parameter of socket and socketpair and 
     used for the flags parameter of paccept.  */ 

  SOCK_CLOEXEC = 02000000,	/* Atomically set close-on-exec flag for the 
				   new descriptor(s).  */ 
#define SOCK_CLOEXEC SOCK_CLOEXEC 
  SOCK_NONBLOCK = 04000		/* Atomically mark descriptor(s) as 
				   non-blocking.  */ 
#define SOCK_NONBLOCK SOCK_NONBLOCK 
};
There are basically two commonly used sockets in programming they are :-
  1. Stream sockets
  2. UDP datagram sockets
Note:-These are not the only two sockets in the programming but the most commonly used there are tons of more like Raw sockets etc etc.. and I also don't know much about them. You'll learn about them in advance level but these two are great for building up the basics. At-least I think so [ : | ] …


Stream sockets:-



They are basically connection oriented reliable 2 way communication sockets. Having problem understanding that one ..
Its Ok!! i'll make it simple.

Call your friend through the phone and notice your friend receives the request in the form of a call then as he picks up both sides initiates the connection to one other and after the connection is established and each side can communicate to each other. In addition there is a confirmation that the words you speak actually reaches the other side.


Now I think you'll find it easy to gasp up.

Stream sockets use TCP/IP protocol a tutorial on this can be found on http://www.w3schools.com/tcpip/tcpip_intro.asp or i'll write a tutorial on it soon...

Drawbacks of stream sockets:-



They are two way connection sockets and they are slower in terms of sending and receiving than Datagram sockets because when we send a packet through Stream sockets it will send it and then ensure that is it reached or not then It will send back the confirmation message.
Quite a long way right...

To avoid this drawback our network gurus invented “THE DATAGRAM SOCKETS” yupii!!! ….LOL...

We'll talk about them right down there...

ok. Now let us come to the Datagram sockets …

Datagram sockets:-



What is a datagram sockets is that they are the one-way, non-reliable connectionless sockets . Yeah I'll make it easy..

Now imagine you are mailing [ not e-mailing ] a letter to your old friend staying overseas through not a very good company . You are not sure that will it reach to its destination or not. Yeah you are right out mailing service providers are quite reliable but the net is not.

So why do we need them then... “man they are useless” no my friend these are also very important sockets in some programs ..
some common programs using datagram sockets are :-

Softwares dealing with network games , streaming media , etc etc....because packet loss is acceptable but loss of speed unacceptable.

Disadvantages of Datagram sockets:-



These are non-reliable.. and are one-way connection based.

Protocols



As per as defined in </usr/include/bits/socket.h> there are the following types of protocols :-

Code:
/* Protocol families.  */ 
#define	PF_UNSPEC	0	/* Unspecified.  */ 
#define	PF_LOCAL	1	/* Local to host (pipes and file-domain).  */ 
#define	PF_UNIX		PF_LOCAL /* POSIX name for PF_LOCAL.  */ 
#define	PF_FILE		PF_LOCAL /* Another non-standard name for PF_LOCAL.  */ 
#define	PF_INET		2	/* IP protocol family.  */ 
#define	PF_AX25		3	/* Amateur Radio AX.25.  */ 
#define	PF_IPX		4	/* Novell Internet Protocol.  */ 
#define	PF_APPLETALK	5	/* Appletalk DDP.  */ 
#define	PF_NETROM	6	/* Amateur radio NetROM.  */ 
#define	PF_BRIDGE	7	/* Multiprotocol bridge.  */ 
#define	PF_ATMPVC	8	/* ATM PVCs.  */ 
#define	PF_X25		9	/* Reserved for X.25 project.  */ 
#define	PF_INET6	10	/* IP version 6.  */ 
#define	PF_ROSE		11	/* Amateur Radio X.25 PLP.  */ 
#define	PF_DECnet	12	/* Reserved for DECnet project.  */ 
#define	PF_NETBEUI	13	/* Reserved for 802.2LLC project.  */ 
#define	PF_SECURITY	14	/* Security callback pseudo AF.  */ 
#define	PF_KEY		15	/* PF_KEY key management API.  */ 
#define	PF_NETLINK	16 
#define	PF_ROUTE	PF_NETLINK /* Alias to emulate 4.4BSD.  */ 
#define	PF_PACKET	17	/* Packet family.  */ 
#define	PF_ASH		18	/* Ash.  */ 
#define	PF_ECONET	19	/* Acorn Econet.  */ 
#define	PF_ATMSVC	20	/* ATM SVCs.  */ 
#define PF_RDS		21	/* RDS sockets.  */ 
#define	PF_SNA		22	/* Linux SNA Project */ 
#define	PF_IRDA		23	/* IRDA sockets.  */ 
#define	PF_PPPOX	24	/* PPPoX sockets.  */ 
#define	PF_WANPIPE	25	/* Wanpipe API sockets.  */ 
#define PF_LLC		26	/* Linux LLC.  */ 
#define PF_CAN		29	/* Controller Area Network.  */ 
#define PF_TIPC		30	/* TIPC sockets.  */ 
#define	PF_BLUETOOTH	31	/* Bluetooth sockets.  */ 
#define	PF_IUCV		32	/* IUCV sockets.  */ 
#define PF_RXRPC	33	/* RxRPC sockets.  */ 
#define PF_ISDN		34	/* mISDN sockets.  */ 
#define PF_PHONET	35	/* Phonet sockets.  */ 
#define PF_IEEE802154	36	/* IEEE 802.15.4 sockets.  */ 
#define	PF_MAX		37	/* For now..  */
Hey .. Don't be scared you don't have to know all about them until you get 1-2 year experienced programmer in C ..Ok!! so Chill....

So , in all of the above the ones we are interested in are the
Code:
#define 	PF_UNSPEC	0	/* Unspecified.  */ 
#define	PF_INET		2	/* IP protocol family.  */
#define	PF_INET6	10	/* IP version 6.  */

Structs and declarations :-



First of all i'll tell you what are the actual role of these structures in our programming.. See these structures are the ones who so all the stuff to send receive data in and out . We just fill out these structures and the rest is all to just sit and watch your program work! Wait! I'm not saying that all the work done is by the structs .No. These structs are accompanied by some functions which I will mention later in this guide...

Struct sockaddr:-

Code:
/* Structure describing a generic socket address.  */ 
struct sockaddr 
  { 
    __SOCKADDR_COMMON (sa_);	/* Common data: address family and length.  */ 
    char sa_data[14];		/* Address data.  */ 
  };
The comment on the above says it all it is a structure describing a generic socket address. The sockaddr_common can be any thing but in this document we'll be dealing with AF_INET or AF_INET6.
And sa_data contains a destination address and port number for the
socket. This is rather unwieldy since you don't want to tediously pack the address in the sa_data by hand. The functions will do that for you...

struct sockaddr_in:-

Code:
    struct sockaddr_in
{ 
    short int          sin_family;  // Address family, AF_INET 
    unsigned short int sin_port;    // Port number 
    struct in_addr     sin_addr;    // Internet address 
    unsigned char      sin_zero[8]; // Same size as struct sockaddr 
};
As we've read above that there are 2 ip versions till date and this structure only handles IPV4 .No need to worry about this our functions will fill up the structure we'll talk about these functions in the next section.

In the above structure :-
Code:
struct in_addr     sin_addr;    // Internet address
This will give us the IP address of the remote computer in the network byte order we have to convert iy to presentation to make it readable. I'll tell you how in the next section. So , stick in there.

To deal with Some Ipv6 addresses our NETWORK GURUS

Code:
// (IPv6 only--see struct sockaddr_in and struct in_addr for IPv4) 
struct sockaddr_in6 
{ 
    u_int16_t       sin6_family;   // address family, AF_INET6 
    u_int16_t       sin6_port;     // port number, Network Byte Order 
    u_int32_t       sin6_flowinfo; // IPv6 flow information 
    struct in6_addr sin6_addr;     // IPv6 address 
    u_int32_t       sin6_scope_id; // Scope ID 
}; 
struct in6_addr 
{ 
         unsigned char   s6_addr[16];   // IPv6 address 
};
Just little bit different from the structure sockaddr_in. This sturcture deals with IPV6 …

This struct is commented enough for your understanding .
I'll explain this with more detail when we'll make our programs.

Structure Sockaddr_storage

Code:
struct sockaddr_storage { 
    sa_family_t ss_family;      // address family 
    // all this is padding, implementation specific, ignore it: 
    char      __ss_pad1[_SS_PAD1SIZE]; 
    int64_t   __ss_align; 
    char      __ss_pad2[_SS_PAD2SIZE]; 
};
This structure looks quite simmilar to the sockaddr_in structure but this structure is made big enough to hold both IPV4 and IPV6 values...


Struct addrinfo:-
Code:
struct addrinfo { 
    int              ai_flags;     // AI_PASSIVE, AI_CANONNAME, etc. 
    int              ai_family;    // AF_INET, AF_INET6, AF_UNSPEC 
    int              ai_socktype;  // SOCK_STREAM, SOCK_DGRAM 
    int              ai_protocol;  // use 0 for "any" 
    size_t           ai_addrlen;   // size of ai_addr in bytes 
    struct sockaddr *ai_addr;      // struct sockaddr_in or _in6 
    char            *ai_canonname; // full canonical hostname 
    struct addrinfo *ai_next;      // linked list, next node 
};
We'll be using this structure the most during this short course so pay some respect to it... LOL … just kiddin...

This structure is simply used for a function getaddrinfo() which i'll get to in a minute!!!

Functions



To make our work easier our C network gurus created some top class functions to automate the automation …

yeah! So here they come :-
  1. getaddrinfo() … The most important function for me .. while programming Sockets.
  2. socket()
  3. bind() // Only for the server side
  4. accept //Only for the server side
  5. connect() // The client side
  6. listen() // Server side
  7. send()
  8. recv()
  9. sendto() // only for Dgram
  10. recvfrom() // only for dgram
  11. close()
  12. Shutdown()
  13. getpeerbyname()
  14. gethostbyname()
Most probably i'l cover these functions with explanations in my next tutorial...Till then read the man pages ...Figure out some stuff and post it here...

Conclusion



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Please try and leave a comment or thanks...
Invasive contributor
13Jan2011,12:34   #2
lionaneesh's Avatar
It would be gr8 if the viewers could comment!!!!!
Banned
18Jan2011,17:09   #3
Seo_Aryan's Avatar
Most interprocess communication uses the client server model. These terms refer to the two processes which will be communicating with each other. One of the two processes, the client, connects to the other process, the server, typically to make a request for information. A good analogy is a person who makes a phone call to another person.

Notice that the client needs 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.

Notice also that once a connection is established, both sides can send and receive information.

The system calls for establishing a connection are somewhat different for the client and the server, but both involve the basic construct of a socket.
A socket is one end of an interprocess communication channel. The two processes
each establish their own socket.

The steps involved in establishing a socket on the client side are as follows:

1. Create a socket with the socket() system call
2. Connect the socket to the address of the server using the connect() system call
3. Send and receive data. There are a number of ways to do this, but the simplest is to use the read() and write() system calls.

The steps involved in establishing a socket on the server side are as follows:

1. Create a socket with the socket() system call
2. Bind the socket to an address using the bind() system call. For a server socket on the Internet, an address consists of a port number on the host machine.
3. Listen for connections with the listen() system call
4. Accept a connection with the accept() system call. This call typically blocks until a client connects with the server.
5. Send and receive data
Invasive contributor
18Jan2011,17:21   #4
lionaneesh's Avatar
Quote:
Originally Posted by Seo_Aryan View Post
Most interprocess communication uses the client server model. These terms refer to the two processes which will be communicating with each other. One of the two processes, the client, connects to the other process, the server, typically to make a request for information. A good analogy is a person who makes a phone call to another person.

Notice that the client needs 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.

Notice also that once a connection is established, both sides can send and receive information.

The system calls for establishing a connection are somewhat different for the client and the server, but both involve the basic construct of a socket.
A socket is one end of an interprocess communication channel. The two processes
each establish their own socket.

The steps involved in establishing a socket on the client side are as follows:

1. Create a socket with the socket() system call
2. Connect the socket to the address of the server using the connect() system call
3. Send and receive data. There are a number of ways to do this, but the simplest is to use the read() and write() system calls.

The steps involved in establishing a socket on the server side are as follows:

1. Create a socket with the socket() system call
2. Bind the socket to an address using the bind() system call. For a server socket on the Internet, an address consists of a port number on the host machine.
3. Listen for connections with the listen() system call
4. Accept a connection with the accept() system call. This call typically blocks until a client connects with the server.
5. Send and receive data
Thanks for commenting and sharing what you know...
Go4Expert Member
21Jan2011,15:55   #5
sneha123's Avatar
Hello to all,,,,,sneha here...........I agree this comment...I like it,,,,,,,
"The steps involved in establishing a socket on the server side are as follows:

1. Create a socket with the socket() system call
2. Bind the socket to an address using the bind() system call. For a server socket on the Internet, an address consists of a port number on the host machine.
3. Listen for connections with the listen() system call
4. Accept a connection with the accept() system call. This call typically blocks until a client connects with the server.
5. Send and receive data."..........thanks for share with us,,,,,
Invasive contributor
23Jan2011,00:05   #6
lionaneesh's Avatar
Quote:
Originally Posted by sneha123 View Post
Hello to all,,,,,sneha here...........I agree this comment...I like it,,,,,,,
&quot;The steps involved in establishing a socket on the server side are as follows:

1. Create a socket with the socket() system call
2. Bind the socket to an address using the bind() system call. For a server socket on the Internet, an address consists of a port number on the host machine.
3. Listen for connections with the listen() system call
4. Accept a connection with the accept() system call. This call typically blocks until a client connects with the server.
5. Send and receive data.&quot;..........thanks for share with us,,,,,
Hey One thing i would like you to know... Is that :- Please dont use ""[quotes] while excerpting a comment ... Use Quote... At the ending of every comment there is a button on the right bottom nameed 'Quote' click that and You will be redirected to a page then you can write your message from there on!!! I hope You Understood!!
Newbie Member
23Jan2011,16:06   #7
hamed2012's Avatar
hello
i need socket.h & ...
please help me
Invasive contributor
23Jan2011,16:09   #8
lionaneesh's Avatar
Quote:
Originally Posted by hamed2012 View Post
hello
i need socket.h & ...
please help me
If you are using Unix... There is no need to install it its already here... And this program can only be run in Unix...
Go4Expert Member
24Jan2011,11:08   #9
sneha123's Avatar
Quote:
Originally Posted by lionaneesh View Post
Hey One thing i would like you to know... Is that :- Please dont use ""[quotes] while excerpting a comment ... Use Quote... At the ending of every comment there is a button on the right bottom nameed 'Quote' click that and You will be redirected to a page then you can write your message from there on!!! I hope You Understood!!
Hello sir,,,,I really thankful to you for reply my post and you suggest me,,,,,thanks lot,,,,,,,
with regards,,,
sneha123
Invasive contributor
24Jan2011,15:38   #10
lionaneesh's Avatar
Quote:
Originally Posted by sneha123 View Post
Hello sir,,,,I really thankful to you for reply my post and you suggest me,,,,,thanks lot,,,,,,,
with regards,,,
sneha123
Always welcome!!!
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