5. Client-Server Background
It's 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.
![[Client-Server Interaction Diagram]](cs.gif)
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 they're speaking the same thing.) Some good examples of client-server pairs are telnet/telnetd, ftp/ftpd, or bootp/bootpd. Every time you use ftp, there's 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 you're running it on.
The server code: (Note: a trailing backslash on a line means that the line is continued on the next.)
/*
** server.c -- a stream socket server demo
*/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <arpa/inet.h>
#include <sys/wait.h>
#include <signal.h>
#define MYPORT 3490 // the port users will be connecting to
#define BACKLOG 10 // 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; // connector's 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; // host byte order
my_addr.sin_port = htons(MYPORT); // short, network byte order
my_addr.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY; // automatically fill with my IP
memset(&(my_addr.sin_zero), '\0', 8); // 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);
}
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 doesn't need the listener
if (send(new_fd, "Hello, world!\n", 14, 0) == -1)
perror("send");
close(new_fd);
exit(0);
}
close(new_fd); // parent doesn't need this
}
return 0;
}
|
In case you're 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 you--that's ok. The code that's there is responsible for reaping zombie processes that appear as the fork()ed child processes exit. If you make lots of zombies and don't 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 guy's 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.
/*
** client.c -- a stream socket client demo
*/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <netdb.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#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; // connector's address information
if (argc != 2) {
fprintf(stderr,"usage: client hostname\n");
exit(1);
}
if ((he=gethostbyname(argv[1])) == NULL) { // get the host info
perror("gethostbyname");
exit(1);
}
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 don't run the server before you run the client, connect() returns "Connection refused". Very useful.
5.3. Datagram Sockets
I really don't have that much to talk about here, so I'll 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 specified machine, that contains whatever the user enters on the command line.
Here is the source for listener.c:
/*
** listener.c -- a datagram sockets "server" demo
*/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <arpa/inet.h>
#define MYPORT 4950 // the port users will be connecting to
#define MAXBUFLEN 100
int main(void)
{
int sockfd;
struct sockaddr_in my_addr; // my address information
struct sockaddr_in their_addr; // connector's 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; // host byte order
my_addr.sin_port = htons(MYPORT); // short, network byte order
my_addr.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY; // automatically fill with my IP
memset(&(my_addr.sin_zero), '\0', 8); // 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) {
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() we're finally using SOCK_DGRAM. Also, note that there's no need to listen() or accept(). This is one of the perks of using unconnected datagram sockets!
Next comes the source for talker.c:
/*
** talker.c -- a datagram "client" demo
*/
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <arpa/inet.h>
#include <netdb.h>
#define MYPORT 4950 // the port users will be connecting to
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
int sockfd;
struct sockaddr_in their_addr; // connector's 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) { // get the host info
perror("gethostbyname");
exit(1);
}
if ((sockfd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, 0)) == -1) {
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 that's 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 I've mentioned many times in the past: connected datagram sockets. I need to talk about this here, since we're in the datagram section of the document. Let's say that talker calls connect() and specifies the listener's address. From that point on, talker may only sent to and receive from the address specified by connect(). For this reason, you don't have to use sendto() and recvfrom(); you can simply use send() and recv().