Network Programming in C:

The Berkeley Sockets API

Networked Systems 3
Laboratory Sessions
The Berkeley Sockets API

• Widely used low-level C networking API

• First introduced in 4.3BSD Unix
• Now available on most platforms: Linux, MacOS X, Windows, FreeBSD,
Solaris, etc.
• Largely compatible cross-platform

• Recommended reading:
• Stevens, Fenner, and Rudoff, “Unix Network Programming
volume 1: The Sockets Networking API”, 3rd Edition,
Addison-Wesley, 2003.

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Concepts

Application • Sockets provide a standard

interface between network
and application

Socket • Two types of socket:

• Stream – provides a virtual circuit service
• Datagram – delivers individual packets

• Independent of network type:

• Commonly used with TCP/IP and UDP/IP,
but not specific to the Internet protocols
Network
• Only discuss TCP/IP sockets today

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What is a TCP/IP Connection?

• A reliable byte-stream connection between two

computers
• Most commonly used in a client-server fashion:
• The server listens on a well-known port
• The port is a 16-bit number used to distinguish servers
• E.g. web server listens on port 80, email server on port 25

• The client connects to that port

• Once connection is established, either side can write data into the
connection, where it becomes available for the other side to read

• The Sockets API represents the connection using a

file descriptor

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TCP/IP Connection
Client Server

fd
fd connfd

Network ?
?
Socket Socket

int fd = socket(...) int fd = socket(...)

bind(fd, ..., ...)
listen(fd, ...)
connect(fd, ..., ...) connfd = accept(fd, ...)

write(fd, data, datalen) read(connfd, buffer, buflen)

read(fd, buffer, buflen) write(connfd, data, datalen)

close(fd) 5 close(connfd)
TCP/IP Connection

Server fd = socket(…);

Client bind(fd, …);

Specify well-known
port

fd = socket(…); listen(fd, …); Begin listening

TCP/IP connection established

connect(fd, …); connfd = accept(fd, …);
Block until connection
Send request established
write(fd, …); read(connfd, …);

Wait for response

read(fd, …); write(connfd, …);

TCP/IP connection shutdown

close(fd, …); read(connfd, …); EOF read

close(connfd, …);
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Creating a socket

#include <sys/types.h>
<sys/socket.h>
#include <sys/socket.h> AF_INET for IPv4
AF_INET6 for IPv6
int fd;
...
fd = socket(family, type, protocol); SOCK_STREAM for TCP
if (fd == -1) { SOCK_DGRAM for UDP
// Error: unable to create socket
... 0 (not used for Internet sockets)
}
...

Create an unbound socket, not connected to network;

can be used as either a client or a server

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Handling Errors

Socket functions return -1 and set the global integer

variable errno on failure

fd = socket(family, type, protocol); The Unix man pages list

if (fd == -1) {
// Error occurred; look at possible errors that can
// errno to determine what occur for each function
// to do.
...
} E.g. do “man 2 socket”
in a terminal, and read the
ERRORS section

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Binding a Server Socket

• Bind a socket to a port #include <sys/types.h>

#include <sys/socket.h>
on a network interface ...
if (bind(fd, addr, addrlen) == -1) {
• Needed to run servers on a
// Error: unable to bind
well-known port – with addr
specified as INADDR_ANY ...
}
• Not generally used on clients, ...
since typically don’t care
which port used

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Listening for Connections

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>

if (listen(fd, backlog) == -1) {

// Error
...
}
...

Tell the socket to listen for new connections

The backlog is the maximum number of connections the

socket will queue up, each waiting to be accept()’ed

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Connecting to a Server

#include <sys/types.h>
Pointer to a struct sockaddr
#include <sys/socket.h>
Size of the struct in bytes
if (connect(fd, addr, addrlen) == -1) {
// Error: unable to open connection
...
}
...

Tries to open a connection to the server

Times out after 75 seconds if no response

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Specifying Addresses & Ports

• Must specify the address and port when calling

bind() or connect()
• The address can be either IPv4 or IPv6
• Could be modelled in C as a union, but the designers of the sockets API
chose to use a number of structs, and abuse casting instead

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struct sockaddr

• Addresses specified via

struct sockaddr
• Has a data field big enough to struct sockaddr {
hold the largest address of any uint8_t sa_len;
family sa_family_t sa_family;
• Plus sa_len and sa_family
};
char sa_data[22];
to specify the length and type
of the address
• Treats the address as an opaque
binary string

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struct sockaddr_in

struct in_addr {
• Two variations exist for
};
in_addr_t s_addr;

IPv4 and IPv6

addresses struct sockaddr_in {
uint8_t sin_len;
• Use struct sockaddr_in to sa_family_t sin_family;
hold an IPv4 address in_port_t sin_port;
• Has the same size and memory struct in_addr
char
sin_addr;
sin_pad[16];
layout as struct sockaddr,
but interprets the bits differently };
to give structure to the address

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struct sockaddr_in6

struct in6_addr {
• Two variations exist for
};
uint8_t s6_addr[16];

IPv4 and IPv6

addresses struct sockaddr_in6 {
uint8_t sin6_len;
• Use struct sockaddr_in6 sa_family_t sin6_family;
to hold an IPv6 address in_port_t sin6_port;
• Has the same size and memory uint32_t
struct in6_addr
sin6_flowinfo;
sin6_addr;
layout as struct sockaddr,
but interprets the bits differently };
to give structure to the address

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Working with Addresses

• Work with either struct sockaddr_in or

struct sockaddr_in6
• Cast it to a struct sockaddr before calling
the socket routines

struct sockaddr_in addr;

...
// Fill in addr here
...
if (bind(fd, (struct sockaddr *) &addr, sizeof(addr)) == -1) {
...

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Creating an Address: Manually (Client)

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h> inet_pton() to convert address
#include
#include
<netinet/in.h>
<arpa/inet.h>
htons() to convert port

struct sockaddr_in addr;

...
inet_pton(AF_INET, “130.209.240.1”, &addr.sin_addr);
addr.sin_family = AF_INET;
addr.sin_port = htons(80);

if (connect(fd, (struct sockaddr *)&addr, sizeof(addr)) == -1) {

...

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Creating an Address: Manually (Server)

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h> Usually specify INADDR_ANY
#include <netinet/in.h> htons() to convert port
#include <arpa/inet.h>

struct sockaddr_in addr;

...
addr.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY;
addr.sin_family = AF_INET;
addr.sin_port = htons(80);

if (bind(fd, (struct sockaddr *)&addr, sizeof(addr)) == -1) {

...

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Creating an Address: DNS

• Prefer using DNS names to raw IP addresses

• Use getaddrinfo() to look-up name in DNS
• Returns a linked list of struct addrinfo values, representing
addresses of the host

struct addrinfo {
int ai_flags; // input flags
int ai_family; // AF_INET, AF_INET6, ...
int ai_socktype; // IPPROTO_TCP, IPPROTO_UDP
int ai_protocol; // SOCK_STREAM, SOCK_DRAM, ...
socklen_t ai_addrlen; // length of socket-address
struct sockaddr *ai_addr; // socket-address for socket
char *ai_canonname; // canonical name of host
struct addrinfo *ai_next; // pointer to next in list
};

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Connecting via a DNS Query
struct addrinfo hints, *ai, *ai0;
int i;

memset(&hints, 0, sizeof(hints));
hints.ai_family = PF_UNSPEC;
hints.ai_socktype = SOCK_STREAM;
if ((i = getaddrinfo(“www.google.com”, "80", &hints, &ai0)) != 0) {
printf("Unable to look up IP address: %s", gai_strerror(i));
...
}

for (ai = ai0; ai != NULL; ai = ai->ai_next) {

fd = socket(ai->ai_family, ai->ai_socktype, ai->ai_protocol);
if (fd == -1) {
perror("Unable to create socket");
continue;
}

if (connect(fd, ai->ai_addr, ai->ai_addrlen) == -1) {

perror("Unable to connect");
close(fd);
continue;
}
...success, use the connection
break;
}
if (ai == NULL) {
// Connection failed, handle the failure...
}

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Accepting Connections

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>

int connfd;
struct sockaddr_in cliaddr;
socklen_t cliaddrlen = sizeof(cliaddr);
...
connfd = accept(fd, (struct sockaddr *) &cliaddr, &cliaddrlen);
if (connfd == -1) {
// Error
...
}
...

Accepts a connection, returns new file descriptor for the

connection (connfd) and client address (cliaddr)
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Accepting Connections

• A TCP/IP server may have multiple connections

outstanding
• Can accept() connections one at a time, handling each request in
series
• Can accept() connections and start a new thread for each, allowing it to
process several in parallel

• Each call to accept() returns a new file descriptor

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Reading and Writing Data

#define BUFLEN 1500

...
Read up to BUFLEN bytes of
ssize_t i; data from connection; blocks
ssize_t rcount; until data available
char buf[BUFLEN];
...
rcount = read(fd, buf, BUFLEN); Returns actual number of
if (rcount == -1) {
// Error has occurred bytes read, or -1 on error
...
}
... Data is not null terminated
for (i = 0; i < rcount; i++) {
printf(“%c”, buf[i]);
}

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Handling Multiple Sockets
#include <sys/select.h> The select() call tells you which of a
...
int fd1, fd2;
group of sockets has data available to read
fd_set rfds;
struct timeval timeout;
...
timeout.tv_sec = 1; // 1 second timeout
timeout.tv_usec = 0;

FD_ZERO(&rfds);
FD_SET(fd1, &rfds);
FD_SET(fd2, &rfds);

int rc = select(max(fd1, fd2) + 1, &rfds, NULL, NULL, &timeout);

if (rc == 0) ... // timeout
if (rc > 0) {
if (FD_ISSET(fd1, &rfds)) {
// Data available to read on fd1
}
if (FD_ISSET(fd2, &rfds)) {
// Data available to read on fd2
}
}
if (rc < 0) ... // error

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Reading and Writing Data

char data[] = “Hello, world!”;

int datalen = strlen(data);
...
if (write(fd, data, datalen) == -1) {
// Error has occurred
...
}
...

Send data on a TCP/IP connection; blocks until all data

can be written

Returns actual number of bytes written, or -1 on error

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Reading and Writing Data

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h> What gets printed?
#include <string.h>

int main()
{
char x[] = "Hello, world!";
char *y = malloc(14);

sprintf(y, "Hello, world!");

printf("x = %s\n", x);

printf("y = %s\n", y);

printf("sizeof(x) = %d\n", sizeof(x));

printf("sizeof(y) = %d\n", sizeof(y)); Why?
printf("strlen(x) = %d\n", strlen(x));
printf("strlen(y) = %d\n", strlen(y));

return 0;
}

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Closing a Socket

#include <unistd.h>

close(fd);

Close and destroy a socket

Close the file descriptor for each connection, then the file
descriptor for the underlying socket

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Questions?

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