Sending and receiving UDP packets through NAT - c

Question

I've been fiddling with this for a bit now. I have a server with a static IP address and a client sitting behind a consumer grade NAT (read a router provided by my ISP).
I'm trying to send a message, using UDP to the server and then receiving a response on the same socket. I have tried in a variety of languages, but just for the sake of it, here is my C version. I'm not sure if this a code problem or a machine configuration.
The message to the server goes through just fine, but the client never receives the response.
Client:
// Client side implementation of UDP client-server model
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <arpa/inet.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#define PORT 8080
#define MAXLINE 1024
// Driver code
int main() {
int sockfd;
char buffer[MAXLINE];
char *hello = "Hello from client";
struct sockaddr_in servaddr;
// Creating socket file descriptor
if ( (sockfd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, 0)) < 0 ) {
perror("socket creation failed");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
memset(&servaddr, 0, sizeof(servaddr));
// Filling server information
servaddr.sin_family = AF_INET;
servaddr.sin_port = htons(PORT);
// servaddr.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY;
servaddr.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr("87.118.127.66");
int n, len;
sendto(sockfd, (const char *)hello, strlen(hello),
MSG_CONFIRM, (const struct sockaddr *) &servaddr,
sizeof(servaddr));
printf("Hello message sent.\n");
n = recvfrom(sockfd, (char *)buffer, MAXLINE,
MSG_WAITALL, (struct sockaddr *) &servaddr,
&len);
buffer[n] = '\0';
printf("Server : %s\n", buffer);
close(sockfd);
return 0;
}
Server:
// Server side implementation of UDP client-server model
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <arpa/inet.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#define PORT 8080
#define MAXLINE 1024
// Driver code
int main() {
int sockfd;
char buffer[MAXLINE];
char *hello = "Hello from server";
struct sockaddr_in servaddr, cliaddr;
// Creating socket file descriptor
if ( (sockfd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, 0)) < 0 ) {
perror("socket creation failed");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
memset(&servaddr, 0, sizeof(servaddr));
memset(&cliaddr, 0, sizeof(cliaddr));
// Filling server information
servaddr.sin_family = AF_INET; // IPv4
servaddr.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY;
servaddr.sin_port = htons(PORT);
// Bind the socket with the server address
if ( bind(sockfd, (const struct sockaddr *)&servaddr,
sizeof(servaddr)) < 0 )
{
perror("bind failed");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
int len, n;
len = sizeof(cliaddr); //len is value/resuslt
n = recvfrom(sockfd, (char *)buffer, MAXLINE,
MSG_WAITALL, ( struct sockaddr *) &cliaddr,
&len);
buffer[n] = '\0';
printf("Client : %s\n", buffer);
sendto(sockfd, (const char *)hello, strlen(hello),
MSG_CONFIRM, (const struct sockaddr *) &cliaddr,
len);
printf("Hello message sent.\n");
return 0;
}

Answer 1

UDP is a transport protocol and transport protocols carry a port. As you are working on this layer, the port has to be known/specified. But that is just not the case for recvfrom in your client code. It does not know from which port it should return the messages. Therefore you have to call bind and or connect in your client code.