How to properly terminate a pthread? - c

Question

I have a tcp echo server that creates a pthread for each client that connects to it. For each connection, I have a variable nbOfClients that increments.
When a client closes its connection, I detect it and decrease the number of clients. However the server keeps thinking that the client it alive and keeps on trying to read/write from the socket. I guessed that it was because of the thread that created the client and I tries to kill the thread with pthread_cancel all to non avail.
I want to kill the pthread associated to a certain client that closes its connection.
How can I go about it?
Here's my code :
static int nbOfClients = 0;
static pthread_t tid;
int main (int argc, char *argv[]) {
int bytes_to_read, arg, listen_sd, new_conn, sockfd, client_len, port;
struct sockaddr_in server, client_addr;
char *bp, buf[BUFLEN];
ssize_t n;
sockfd = 0;
switch(argc) {
case 1:
port = SERVER_TCP_PORT; // Use the default port
break;
case 2:
port = atoi(argv[1]); // Get user specified port
break;
default:
fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s [port]\n", argv[0]);
exit(1);
}
// Create a stream socket
if ((listen_sd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0)) == -1)
error("Cannot Create Socket!");
// set SO_REUSEADDR so port can be resused imemediately after exit, i.e., after CTRL-c
arg = 1;
if (setsockopt (listen_sd, SOL_SOCKET, SO_REUSEADDR, &arg, sizeof(arg)) == -1)
error("setsockopt");
// Bind an address to the socket
bzero((char *)&server, sizeof(server));
server.sin_family = AF_INET;
server.sin_port = htons(port);
server.sin_addr.s_addr = htonl(INADDR_ANY); // Accept connections from any client
if (bind(listen_sd, (struct sockaddr *)&server, sizeof(server)) == -1)
error("bind error");
listen(listen_sd, MAX_CONNECTIONS); ///put a define constant indicating the maximum number of clients #define NB_CLIENTS 3
while (TRUE) {
client_len = sizeof(client_addr);
if ((new_conn = accept(listen_sd, (struct sockaddr *) &client_addr, (socklen_t *)&client_len)) == -1)
error("accept error");
if(new_conn > 0) {
if(nbOfClients < MAX_CONNECTIONS) {
printf("just here\n");
printf(">> Initializing remote address: %s\n", inet_ntoa(client_addr.sin_addr));
nbOfClients++;
fclose(fp);
printf("Connections to date: %u \n",nbOfClients);
printf("make thread\n");
pthread_create(&tid,NULL,&echo, (void *)new_conn);
printf("had thread\n");
}
else {
printf("connection limit reached\n");
if(send(new_conn, "Server full!\n", 13, 0) == -1)
perror("send");
close(new_conn);
}
}
}
return(0);
}
void * echo(void *arg) {
char buf[BUFSIZE]; /* message buffer */
int n, i = 0;
bzero(buf, BUFSIZE);
if(send((int)arg, "Welcome!!\n", 20, 0) == -1)
perror("send");
detect_closed_connection(arg);
while(TRUE) {
n = read((int)arg, buf, BUFSIZE);
/**read: read input string from the client*/
if(n < 0) {
perror("error reading from socket");
}
printf("Server received from client, %d bytes: %s\n", n, buf);
/**write: echo the input string in UPPERCASE back to the client*/
int len = strlen(buf);
for(i = 0; buf[i]; i++)
buf[i] = toupper(buf[i]);
n = write((int)arg, buf, len);
if(n < 0) {
error("ERROR writing to socket");
}
}
}
void detect_closed_connection(void * listenSocket) {
struct pollfd pfd;
pfd.fd = (int)listenSocket;
pfd.events = POLLIN | POLLHUP | POLLRDNORM;
pfd.revents = 0;
while(pfd.revents == 0) {
if(poll(&pfd, 1, 100) > 0) {
// if result > 0, this means that there is either data available on the
// socket, or the socket has been closed
char buffer[32];
if (recv((int)listenSocket, buffer, sizeof(buffer), MSG_PEEK | MSG_DONTWAIT) == 0) {
// if recv returns zero, that means the connection has been closed:
nbOfClients--;
pthread_cancel(tid);
}
}
}
}
Thanks.

Answer 1

You should check read() for returning 0 in the thread servering the client, as read() returns 0 in case the peer (client here) closed the connection.
After this line
n = read((int)arg, buf, BUFSIZE);
add
if (0 == n)
{
fprintf(stderr, "The client closed the connection.\n");
break;
}
Just before the thread function leave you could add the statement to decrement the number of running threads.
Also be aware that nbOfClients is accessed concurently by all the "client"-threads as well as by the main thread, so accessing it shall be protected, for example by using a mutex.
There is another issues, as the call to strlen() on the buffer read expects the buffer to be 0-terminate, which does not necessarily needs ot be the case, even if you sent 0-terminated "strings". read() might very well return the "string" the client sent in more then one part. So loop around read() until the 0-terminator had been received.
Do not make the thread end itself by calling pthread_cancel(), use pthread_exit() instead.