source port number in the recvfrom socket function - c

I'm wondering on what basis src_addr.sin_port while receiving socket data gets filled up in the last but one argument of recvfrom function, syntax of which is
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
ssize_t recvfrom(int sockfd, void *buf, size_t len, int flags,
struct sockaddr *src_addr, socklen_t *addrlen);
And also what's the significance of it, does it help the receiver in any way?

The IP and port that is populated after a successful call to recvfrom is the source IP and port of the received datagram. This can be logged so the user knows where the datagram came from.
Also, if a datagram needs to be sent back to this endpoint, src_addr can be passed to sendto to specify the destination IP and port.

Related

How to reproduce the accept error in Linux

I'm learning Unix Network Programming Volume 1, I want to reproduce the accept error for RST in Linux.
server: call socket(), bind(), listen(), and sleep(10)
client: call socket(), connect(), setsockopt() of LINGER, close() and return
server: call accept()
I think that the 3rd steps will get an error like ECONNABORTED, but not.
Do I want to know why?
I will appreciate it if you help me.
The follow is server code :
#include <arpa/inet.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <strings.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
int sock = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP);
struct sockaddr_in addr;
bzero(&addr, sizeof addr);
addr.sin_family = AF_INET;
addr.sin_port = htons(6666);
inet_pton(AF_INET, "127.0.0.1", &addr.sin_addr);
bind(sock, (struct sockaddr*)(&addr), (socklen_t)(sizeof addr));
listen(sock, 5);
sleep(10);
if (accept(sock, NULL, NULL) < 0)
perror("error");
else
printf("right");
return 0;
}
The following is the client code
#include <arpa/inet.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <strings.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
int sock = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP);
struct sockaddr_in addr;
bzero(&addr, sizeof addr);
addr.sin_family = AF_INET;
addr.sin_port = htons(6666);
inet_pton(AF_INET, "127.0.0.1", &addr.sin_addr);
connect(sock, (struct sockaddr*)(&addr), (socklen_t)(sizeof addr));
struct linger ling;
ling.l_onoff = 1;
ling.l_linger = 0;
setsockopt(sock, SOL_SOCKET, SO_LINGER, &ling, sizeof ling);
close(sock);
return 0;
}
Nope. I think you'll get an empty, but complete connection (with no data). The kernel will manage the complete connection establishment and then it'll get an immediate FIN packet (meaning EOF, not reset) and will handle it (or wait for user space process to close its side, to send the FIN to the other side) For a connection abort you need to reboot the client machine (or the server) without allowing it to send the FIN packets (or disconnecting it from the network before rebooting it) An ACK is never answered, so you won't get a RST sent from an ACK.
RST packets are sent automatically by the kernel when some state mismatch is in between two parties. For this to happen in a correct implementation you must force such a state mismatch (this is why the machine reboot is necessary)
Make a connection between both parties and stop it (with a sleep) to ensure the connection is in the ESTABLISHED state before disconnecting the cable.
disconnect physically one of the peers from the network, so you don't allow its traffic to go to the network.
reboot the machine, so all sockets are in the IDLE state.
reconnect the cable. As soon as the waiting machine gets out of the sleep and begins sending packets again, it will receive a RST segment from the other side, because it has been rebooted and TCP does not know about that connection.
Other ways of getting a RST segment involve bad implementations of TCP, or mangling the packets in transit (changing the sender or receiver sequence numbers in transit)
The purpose of RST packets is not to add functionality to TCP, but to detect misbehaviours, to there should be no means to get a reset with proper use of sockets. Listen syscall is there to allow you to reserve resources in kernel space to allow the user space process to prepare to handle the connection while the clients are trying to connect. If you do what you intend you'll get a connection with no data, but valid connection, SO_LINGER is there to force a loss of status when machines don't have the time to send the packets to each other... but being connected, the whole connection is handled in the kernel and no abort is to be expected.
Linux accept() (and accept4()) passes already-pending network errors
on the new socket as an error code from accept(). This behavior
differs from other BSD socket implementations. For reliable
operation the application should detect the network errors defined
for the protocol after accept() and treat them like EAGAIN by
retrying. In the case of TCP/IP, these are ENETDOWN, EPROTO,
ENOPROTOOPT, EHOSTDOWN, ENONET, EHOSTUNREACH, EOPNOTSUPP, and
ENETUNREACH.
http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/accept.2.html

Receive all IPv6 packets

How do I receive all IPv6 packets(TCP, UDP, ICMP,...) I for example on lo interface. I am sending ICMP packets with command ping6 ::1, but none of them are received.
Thank you
#include <linux/if_ether.h>
#include <error.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <netinet/ip6.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <arpa/inet.h>
int main() {
int socket_fd;
char buffer[1480];
struct sockaddr_in6 sin6;
struct sockaddr sin;
socket_fd = socket(AF_INET6, SOCK_RAW, IPPROTO_RAW);
setsockopt(socket_fd , SOL_SOCKET , SO_BINDTODEVICE , "lo" , strlen("lo")+ 1 );
if (socket_fd < 0) {
perror("Failed to create socket");
}
ssize_t data_size;
// Why am I unable to receve any data?
data_size = recvfrom(socket_fd, buffer, 1480, 0, &sin, (socklen_t *) &sin);
return 0;
}
RFC3542 Says the following:
We note that IPPROTO_RAW
has no special meaning to an IPv6 raw socket (and the IANA
currently reserves the value of 255 when used as a next-header
field).
So IPPROTO_RAW is not reserved for sending/receiving IPv6 packets.
With IPv4 you can use IPPROTO_RAW only for sending, not receiving. See man raw(7):
An IPPROTO_RAW socket is send only. If you really want to receive
all IP packets, use a packet(7) socket with the ETH_P_IP protocol.
Note that packet sockets don't reassemble IP fragments, unlike raw
sockets.
You may use the following:
socket(PF_PACKET, SOCK_RAW, htons(ETH_P_ALL))
But that may lead to other problems.
If you just want to monitor the traffic, please check pcap-library.
you're not bind()ing your socket to an address before you try to read data from it.
When a socket is created with socket(2), it exists in a name space (address family) but has no address assigned to it. bind() assigns the address specified by addr to the socket referred to by the file descriptor sockfd. addrlen specifies the size, in bytes, of the address structure pointed to by addr. Traditionally, this operation is called "assigning a name to a socket".
see also: how to bind raw socket to specific interface

socket connect() vs bind()

Both connect() and bind() system calls 'associate' the socket file descriptor to an address (typically an ip/port combination). Their prototypes are like:-
int connect(int sockfd, const struct sockaddr *addr,
socklen_t addrlen);
and
int bind(int sockfd, const struct sockaddr *addr,
socklen_t addrlen);
What is the exact difference between 2 calls? When should one use connect() and when bind()?
Specifically, in some sample server client codes, found that client is using connect() and server is using the bind() call. Reason was not fully clear to me.
To make understanding better , lets find out where exactly bind and connect comes into picture,
Further to positioning of two calls , as clarified by Sourav,
bind() associates the socket with its local address [that's why server side binds, so that clients can use that address to connect to server.]
connect() is used to connect to a remote [server] address, that's why is client side, connect [read as: connect to server] is used.
We cannot use them interchangeably (even when we have client/server on same machine) because of specific roles and corresponding implementation.
I will further recommend to correlate these calls TCP/IP handshake .
So, who will send SYN here, it will be connect(). While bind() is used for defining the communication end point.
The one liner : bind() to own address, connect() to remote address.
Quoting from the man page of bind()
bind() assigns the address specified by addr to the socket referred to by the file descriptor sockfd. addrlen specifies the size, in bytes, of the address structure pointed to by addr. Traditionally, this operation is called "assigning a name to a socket".
and, from the same for connect()
The connect() system call connects the socket referred to by the file descriptor sockfd to the address specified by addr.
To clarify,
bind() associates the socket with its local address [that's why
server side binds, so that clients can use that address to connect
to server.]
connect() is used to connect to a remote [server] address, that's
why is client side, connect [read as: connect to server] is used.
I think it would help your comprehension if you think of connect() and listen() as counterparts, rather than connect() and bind(). The reason for this is that you can call or omit bind() before either, although it's rarely a good idea to call it before connect(), or not to call it before listen().
If it helps to think in terms of servers and clients, it is listen() which is the hallmark of the former, and connect() the latter. bind() can be found - or not found - on either.
If we assume our server and client are on different machines, it becomes easier to understand the various functions.
bind() acts locally, which is to say it binds the end of the connection on the machine on which it is called, to the requested address and assigns the requested port to you. It does that irrespective of whether that machine will be a client or a server. connect() initiates a connection to a server, which is to say it connects to the requested address and port on the server, from a client. That server will almost certainly have called bind() prior to listen(), in order for you to be able to know on which address and port to connect to it with using connect().
If you don't call bind(), a port and address will be implicitly assigned and bound on the local machine for you when you call either connect() (client) or listen() (server). However, that's a side effect of both, not their purpose. A port assigned in this manner is ephemeral.
An important point here is that the client does not need to be bound, because clients connect to servers, and so the server will know the address and port of the client even though you are using an ephemeral port, rather than binding to something specific. On the other hand, although the server could call listen() without calling bind(), in that scenario they would need to discover their assigned ephemeral port, and communicate that to any client that it wants to connect to it.
I assume as you mention connect() you're interested in TCP, but this also carries over to UDP, where not calling bind() before the first sendto() (UDP is connection-less) also causes a port and address to be implicitly assigned and bound. One function you cannot call without binding is recvfrom(), which will return an error, because without an assigned port and bound address, there is nothing to receive from (or too much, depending on how you interpret the absence of a binding).
bind tells the running process to claim a port. i.e, it should bind itself to port 80 and listen for incomming requests. with bind, your process becomes a server. when you use connect, you tell your process to connect to a port that is ALREADY in use. your process becomes a client. the difference is important: bind wants a port that is not in use (so that it can claim it and become a server), and connect wants a port that is already in use (so it can connect to it and talk to the server)
From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_sockets#bind.28.29
connect():
The connect() system call connects a socket, identified by its file descriptor, to a remote host specified by that host's address in the argument list.
Certain types of sockets are connectionless, most commonly user datagram protocol sockets. For these sockets, connect takes on a special meaning: the default target for sending and receiving data gets set to the given address, allowing the use of functions such as send() and recv() on connectionless sockets.
connect() returns an integer representing the error code: 0 represents success, while -1 represents an error.
bind():
bind() assigns a socket to an address. When a socket is created using socket(), it is only given a protocol family, but not assigned an address. This association with an address must be performed with the bind() system call before the socket can accept connections to other hosts. bind() takes three arguments:
sockfd, a descriptor representing the socket to perform the bind on.
my_addr, a pointer to a sockaddr structure representing the address to bind to.
addrlen, a socklen_t field specifying the size of the sockaddr structure.
Bind() returns 0 on success and -1 if an error occurs.
Examples:
1.)Using Connect
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <string.h>
int main(){
int clientSocket;
char buffer[1024];
struct sockaddr_in serverAddr;
socklen_t addr_size;
/*---- Create the socket. The three arguments are: ----*/
/* 1) Internet domain 2) Stream socket 3) Default protocol (TCP in this case) */
clientSocket = socket(PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);
/*---- Configure settings of the server address struct ----*/
/* Address family = Internet */
serverAddr.sin_family = AF_INET;
/* Set port number, using htons function to use proper byte order */
serverAddr.sin_port = htons(7891);
/* Set the IP address to desired host to connect to */
serverAddr.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr("192.168.1.17");
/* Set all bits of the padding field to 0 */
memset(serverAddr.sin_zero, '\0', sizeof serverAddr.sin_zero);
/*---- Connect the socket to the server using the address struct ----*/
addr_size = sizeof serverAddr;
connect(clientSocket, (struct sockaddr *) &serverAddr, addr_size);
/*---- Read the message from the server into the buffer ----*/
recv(clientSocket, buffer, 1024, 0);
/*---- Print the received message ----*/
printf("Data received: %s",buffer);
return 0;
}
2.)Bind Example:
int main()
{
struct sockaddr_in source, destination = {}; //two sockets declared as previously
int sock = 0;
int datalen = 0;
int pkt = 0;
uint8_t *send_buffer, *recv_buffer;
struct sockaddr_storage fromAddr; // same as the previous entity struct sockaddr_storage serverStorage;
unsigned int addrlen; //in the previous example socklen_t addr_size;
struct timeval tv;
tv.tv_sec = 3; /* 3 Seconds Time-out */
tv.tv_usec = 0;
/* creating the socket */
if ((sock = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, IPPROTO_UDP)) < 0)
printf("Failed to create socket\n");
/*set the socket options*/
setsockopt(sock, SOL_SOCKET, SO_RCVTIMEO, (char *)&tv, sizeof(struct timeval));
/*Inititalize source to zero*/
memset(&source, 0, sizeof(source)); //source is an instance of sockaddr_in. Initialization to zero
/*Inititalize destinaton to zero*/
memset(&destination, 0, sizeof(destination));
/*---- Configure settings of the source address struct, WHERE THE PACKET IS COMING FROM ----*/
/* Address family = Internet */
source.sin_family = AF_INET;
/* Set IP address to localhost */
source.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY; //INADDR_ANY = 0.0.0.0
/* Set port number, using htons function to use proper byte order */
source.sin_port = htons(7005);
/* Set all bits of the padding field to 0 */
memset(source.sin_zero, '\0', sizeof source.sin_zero); //optional
/*bind socket to the source WHERE THE PACKET IS COMING FROM*/
if (bind(sock, (struct sockaddr *) &source, sizeof(source)) < 0)
printf("Failed to bind socket");
/* setting the destination, i.e our OWN IP ADDRESS AND PORT */
destination.sin_family = AF_INET;
destination.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr("127.0.0.1");
destination.sin_port = htons(7005);
//Creating a Buffer;
send_buffer=(uint8_t *) malloc(350);
recv_buffer=(uint8_t *) malloc(250);
addrlen=sizeof(fromAddr);
memset((void *) recv_buffer, 0, 250);
memset((void *) send_buffer, 0, 350);
sendto(sock, send_buffer, 20, 0,(struct sockaddr *) &destination, sizeof(destination));
pkt=recvfrom(sock, recv_buffer, 98,0,(struct sockaddr *)&destination, &addrlen);
if(pkt > 0)
printf("%u bytes received\n", pkt);
}
I hope that clarifies the difference
Please note that the socket type that you declare will depend on what you require, this is extremely important
Too Long; Don't Read: The difference is whether the source (local) or the destination address/port is being set. In short, bind() set the source and connect() set the destination. Regardless of TCP or UDP.
bind()
bind() set the socket's local (source) address. This is the address where packets are received. Packets sent by the socket carry this as the source address, so the other host will know where to send back its packets.
If receive is not needed the socket source address is useless. Protocols like TCP require receiving enabled in order to send properly, as the destination host send back a confirmation when one or more packets have arrived (i.e. acknowledgement).
connect()
TCP has a "connected" state. connect() triggers the TCP code to try to establish a connection to the other side.
UDP has no "connected" state. connect() only set a default address to where packets are sent when no address is specified. When connect() is not used, sendto() or sendmsg() must be used containing the destination address.
When connect() or a send function is called, and no address is bound, Linux automatically bind the socket to a random port. For technical details, take a look at inet_autobind() in Linux kernel source code.
Side notes
listen() is TCP only.
In AF_INET family, the socket's source or destination address (struct sockaddr_in) is composed by an IP address (see IP header), and TCP or UDP port (see TCP and UDP header).

recvfrom in socket programming with C

So I was trying to understand socket programming in C when I came across this code:
/* Sample UDP client */
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <arpa/inet.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
int main(int argc, char**argv)
{
int sockfd,n;
struct sockaddr_in servaddr;
char sendline[] = "Hello UDP server! This is UDP client";
char recvline[1000];
if (argc != 2)
{
printf("usage: ./%s <IP address>\n",argv[0]);
return -1;
}
sockfd=socket(AF_INET,SOCK_DGRAM,0);
bzero(&servaddr,sizeof(servaddr));
servaddr.sin_family = AF_INET;
servaddr.sin_addr.s_addr=inet_addr(argv[1]);
servaddr.sin_port=htons(32000);
sendto(sockfd,sendline,strlen(sendline),0,(struct sockaddr *)&servaddr,sizeof(servaddr));
n=recvfrom(sockfd,recvline,10000,0,NULL,NULL);
recvline[n]=0;
printf("Received: %s\n",recvline);
return 0;
}
It seems that the recvfrom() call does not need an ip address to send the message. A look at the man pages revealed the following lines:
If src_addr is not NULL, and the underlying protocol provides the
source address, this source address is filled in. When src_addr is
NULL, nothing is filled in; in this case, addrlen is not used,
and should also be NULL.
So I think that the underlying protocol provides the source IP address. My problem is, how does it really figure out the address to receive the message from ? Is it that, once you send a message to an address, you cannot use the same socket to send messages to other addresses ? So that it keeps on using the same address ?
Please help. Couldn't find an answer anywhere in Google or any lecture note.
Thank you in advance.
You have a misconception that recvfrom pulls data from a particular source address.
recvfrom is generally used for connectionless protocols like UDP. When an UDP packet is received, it could be from any source address. src_addr returns this address for the application usage.
If you are expecting messages only from a particular address, there are 2 ways. (1) Either you can ignore the packets received from other addresses by comparing the address returned in src_addr, or (2) use connect to specify a particular remote address from where you are expecting messages and the lower socket layer takes care of ignoring packets from other sources. After connect, you could also use recv instead of recvfrom.
Sending messages are done through sendto. You seem to be confusing the 2 calls. Using sendto it is possible to send messages to difference addresses on the same socket.

In socket prgramming in "C" how do I find out the IP address of the Client who is connecting to the Server?

In socket prgramming in "C" how do I find out the IP address of the Client who is connecting to the Server? How can the server get the client's IP address?
You didn't mention any API, but the accept function/system call generally accepts a sockaddr * argument where it stores the address of the peer.
int accept(int socket, struct sockaddr *restrict address, /* <---- */
socklen_t *restrict address_len);
Alternatively you can use getpeername to retrieve the same address at a later time.
int getpeername(int socket, struct sockaddr *restrict address,
socklen_t *restrict address_len);
If you happen to use winapi: accept, getpeername.

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