2017-03-27

Socket programming

Socket
programming

What is a socket?
goal: learn how to build client/server applications that communicate using
sockets

socket: door between application process and end-end-transport protocol

application application
socket controlled by
process process app developer

transport transport
network network controlled
link by OS
link Internet
physical physical

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What is a socket?

 Socket is an interface between application and network

(the lower levels of the protocol stack)
 The application creates a socket
 The socket type dictates the style of communication
 reliable vs. best effort
 connection-oriented vs. connectionless

 Once a socket is setup the application can

 pass data to the socket for network transmission
 receive data from the socket (transmitted through the
network, received from some other host)

Most popular types of sockets

• TCP socket  UDP socket

• Type: SOCK_STREAM  Type: SOCK_DGRAM
• reliable delivery  unreliable delivery
• in-order guaranteed  no order guarantees
• connection-oriented  no notion of “connection” –
• bidirectional app indicates destination
for each packet
 can send or receive

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Ports
• Each host machine has an IP
address (or more!) Port 0

Port 1

• Each host has 65,536 ports (2?)

Port 65535

• As you know some ports are

reserved for specific apps
• 20,21: FTP
• 23: Telnet A socket provides an interface to send
• 80: HTTP data to/from the network through a
• see RFC 1700 (about 2000 ports port
are reserved)

Addresses, Ports and Sockets

 Like apartments and mailboxes

 You are the application
 Your apartment building address is the address
 Your mailbox is the port
 The post-office is the network
 The socket is the key that gives you access to the right
mailbox (one difference: assume outgoing mail is placed by
you in your mailbox)

 Q: How do you choose which port a socket connects to?

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Socket programming

Application Example:
1. Client reads a line of characters (data) from its
keyboard and sends the data to the server.
2. The server receives the data and converts
characters to uppercase.
3. The server sends the modified data to the client.
4. The client receives the modified data and displays
the line on its screen.

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Ports
• Each host machine has an IP
address (or more!) Port 0

Port 1

• Each host has 65,536 ports (2?)

Port 65535

• As you know some ports are

reserved for specific apps
• 20,21: FTP
• 23: Telnet A socket provides an interface to send
• 80: HTTP data to/from the network through a
• see RFC 1700 (about 2000 ports port
are reserved)

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Addresses, Ports and Sockets

 Like apartments and mailboxes

 You are the application
 Your apartment building address is the address
 Your mailbox is the port
 The post-office is the network
 The socket is the key that gives you access to the right
mailbox (one difference: assume outgoing mail is placed by
you in your mailbox)

 Q: How do you choose which port a socket connects to?

Socket programming with UDP

UDP: no “connection” between client & server

 no handshaking before sending data

 sender explicitly attaches IP destination address and port # to each packet

 rcvr extracts sender IP address and port# from received packet

UDP: transmitted data may be lost or received out-of-order
Application viewpoint:
 UDP provides unreliable transfer of groups of bytes (“datagrams”) between
client and server

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Client/server socket interaction: UDP

server (running on serverIP) client

create socket:
create socket, port= x: clientSocket =
serverSocket = socket(AF_INET,SOCK_DGRAM)
socket(AF_INET,SOCK_DGRAM)
Create datagram with server IP and
port=x; send datagram via
read datagram from clientSocket
serverSocket

write reply to
serverSocket read datagram from
specifying clientSocket
client address,
port number close
clientSocket

Application 2-11

Example app: UDP client

Python UDPClient
include Python’s socket
library from socket import *
serverName = ‘hostname’
serverPort = 12000
create UDP socket for clientSocket = socket(socket.AF_INET,
server
socket.SOCK_DGRAM)
get user keyboard
input message = raw_input(’Input lowercase sentence:’)
Attach server name, port to
message; send into socket clientSocket.sendto(message,(serverName, serverPort))
read reply characters from modifiedMessage, serverAddress =
socket into string
clientSocket.recvfrom(2048)
print out received string print modifiedMessage
and close socket
clientSocket.close()

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Example app: UDP server

Python UDPServer
from socket import *
serverPort = 12000
create UDP socket serverSocket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM)
bind socket to local port serverSocket.bind(('', serverPort))
number 12000
print “The server is ready to receive”
loop forever while 1:
Read from UDP socket into message, clientAddress = serverSocket.recvfrom(2048)
message, getting client’s
address (client IP and port) modifiedMessage = message.upper()
send upper case string
serverSocket.sendto(modifiedMessage, clientAddress)
back to this client

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Socket programming with TCP

client must contact server  when contacted by client, server
TCP creates new socket for server
 server process must first be process to communicate with
running that particular client
 allows server to talk with
 server must have created multiple clients
socket (door) that welcomes
client’s contact  source port numbers used to
distinguish clients
client contacts server by:
 Creating TCP socket, specifying
IP address, port number of
server process application viewpoint:
 when client creates socket: client TCP provides reliable, in-order
TCP establishes connection to byte-stream transfer (“pipe”)
server TCP
between client and server

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Client/server socket interaction: TCP

server (running on hostid) client

create socket,
port=x, for incoming
request:
serverSocket = socket()

wait for incoming create socket,

connection request
TCP connect to hostid, port=x
connectionSocket = connection setup clientSocket = socket()
serverSocket.accept()

send request using

read request from clientSocket
connectionSocket

write reply to
connectionSocket read reply from
clientSocket
close
connectionSocket close
clientSocket

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Example app: TCP client

Python TCPClient
from socket import *
serverName = ’servername’
create TCP socket for serverPort = 12000
server, remote port 12000 clientSocket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM)
clientSocket.connect((serverName,serverPort))
sentence = raw_input(‘Input lowercase sentence:’)
clientSocket.send(sentence)
No need to attach server modifiedSentence = clientSocket.recv(1024)
name, port
print ‘From Server:’, modifiedSentence
clientSocket.close()

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Example app: TCP server

Python TCPServer
from socket import *
create TCP welcoming serverPort = 12000
socket serverSocket = socket(AF_INET,SOCK_STREAM)
serverSocket.bind((‘’,serverPort))
server begins listening for
incoming TCP requests
serverSocket.listen(1)
print ‘The server is ready to receive’
loop forever
while 1:
server waits on accept()
for incoming requests, new
connectionSocket, addr = serverSocket.accept()
socket created on return
sentence = connectionSocket.recv(1024)
read bytes from socket (but
not address as in UDP)
capitalizedSentence = sentence.upper()
connectionSocket.send(capitalizedSentence)
close connection to this connectionSocket.close()
client (but not welcoming
socket)

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The bind function

 The bind function associates and (can exclusively) reserves a
port for use by the socket

 int status = bind(sockid, &addrport, size);

 status: error status, = -1 if bind failed
 sockid: integer, socket descriptor
 addrport: struct sockaddr, the (IP) address and port of the machine
(address usually set to INADDR_ANY – chooses a local address)
 size: the size (in bytes) of the addrport structure

 bind can be skipped for both types of sockets. When and

why?

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Skipping the bind

 SOCK_DGRAM:
 if only sending, no need to bind. The OS finds a port each
time the socket sends a pkt
 if receiving, need to bind

 SOCK_STREAM:
 destination determined during conn. setup
 don’t need to know port sending from (during connection
setup, receiving end is informed of port)

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On the connecting end

• When connecting to another host (i.e., connecting

end is the client and the receiving end is the server),
the OS automatically assigns a free port for the
outgoing connection.

• During connection setup, receiving end is informed

of port)

• You can however bind to a specific port if need be.

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Connection Setup
 A connection occurs between two ends
 Server: waits for an active participant to request connection
 Client: initiates connection request to passive side

 Once connection is established, server and client ends

are “similar”
 both can send & receive data
 either can terminate the connection

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Server and clients

TCP Server
socket()

bind()

TCP Client listen()

socket() accept()
connection establishment
connect()
data request read()
write()

data reply write()

read()
read()
close() end-of-file notification
close()
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Connection setup steps

 Client end:  Server end:
 step 1: listen (for
incoming requests)
 step 2: request &
establish connection  step 3: accept (a request)
 step 4: send/recv
 step 4: send/recv

Server  The accepted connection

a-sock-1 l-sock a-sock-2 is on a new socket

 The old socket continues

socket socket to listen for other active
participants
Client1 Client2
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