How to ping using C sockets - c

Compiler: Code::Blocks(GNU GCC)
Platform: Windows(x86)
Includes: winsock.h winsock2.h (ws2_32 is linked as well)
I am currently trying to write a program that will read a text file containing a list of IP-Addresses and ping each IP-Addresses respectively. If the host responds to the ping then the host's IP-Address will be copied to a seconded file specified by the user. Unfourtantly this is the first time I have used C's socket library and I cannot find a good tutorial about how to ping using C. From what I understand of the couple tutorials I did find. I need to included a ICMP header, which is a struct containg the ICMP type, code, and checksum, in a IP datagram. But I have no idea how to go about doing so, should I declare the struct myself or is it declared in a header file? I am assuming that it is in a header but the tutorials contradicted each other about exactly where it is declared. I tired including icmp.h and netinet/icmp.h but my compiler complained that they don't exist so I created my own struct.
struct echo_request
{
char type; // Type
char code; // Code
short checksum; // Checksum
short id; // Identification
short seq; // Sequence
int time; // Time
char data[16]; // Data
};
I thought that I might be able to get away with it but I wasn't even able to compile my program because my compiler says that in_cksum()(checksum generator) is undefined.
To sum up my questions, what header files should I include, how do I create a ping packet, am I using the correct checksum generator function, should a ping be directed to port 80, and should the socket I use be RAW or DGRAM?
This is what I have so far, please note that I have purposely left out error checking.
int socket_descriptor = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_RAW, IPPROTO_ICMP);
struct sockaddr_in address; //Initialize address struct
memset(&address, 0, sizeof(address)); //Clear address struct
//Declare address
address.sin_family = AF_INET;
address.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr(ipaddress);
address.sin_port = htons(80);
//Bind socket to address
bind(socket_descriptor, (struct sockaddr *)&address, sizeof(address));
//Create packet
struct echo_request packet; //See above for declaration of struct
memset(packet.data, 1, 16);
packet.type = 8; //ECHO_REQUEST
packet.code = 0;
packet.time = gettime();
packet.checksum = 0;
packet.checksum = in_cksum(packet, sizeof(packet));

If you don't have to implement the ping from scratch and you want only Windows solution, I'd second Anton's suggestion for IcmpSendEcho. If you have to implement ping, look at how POCO ICMP package is implemented. It is portable code and it runs fine on Windows.
In regards to the specific questions, here are the answers:
what header files should I include
#include <winsock2.h>
how do I create a ping packet
See ICMPv4PacketImpl::initPacket() for an example of IPv4 packet.
am I using the correct checksum generator function
Not for windows. See ICMPPacketImpl::checksum() for an example of checksum function.
should a ping be directed to port 80
No. There's no such thing as port when it comes to ICMP. See Does ICMP use a specific port?
should the socket I use be RAW or DGRAM
It should be RAW.

It looks like you want a real solution, not just reimplementing PING for the sake of it.
I recommend using IP helper (ICMP.dll on pre-WinXP systems), specifically, IcmpSendEcho (or its enhanced versions, IcmpSendEcho2, IcmpSendEcho2Ex, for asynchronous operations).
There is a complete example of "pinging" a host on MSDN. It may be a good starting point.
Update: for GCC (mingw), link with -liphlpapi.

Related

Raw sockets in C, isn't connect redundant?

I'm writing a simple program that creates an ethernet I frame and sends it through an interface to the specified MAC.
As i have read, the process for connecting to a socket in UNIX goes a bit like:
int sockfd = socket(AF_PACKET, SOCK_RAW, htons(ETH_P_ALL));
struct sockaddr_ll sll;
/* populate sll with the target and interface info */
connect(sockfd, (struct sockaddr*)&sll, sizeof(sll));
write(sockfd, stuff, sizeof(stuff));
close(sockfd)
The thing is, for me, stuff is a valid eth frame already containing everything needed to send a packet to its destination. Isn't the connect step redundant then? What am I missing?
Have a nice day.
Not only is the connect "redundant", it is an error -- according to the Linux man page:
The connect(2) operation is not supported on packet sockets.
So the connect is probably failing but not actually doing anything. Since you ignore the return value of connect, you don't notice the failure.
As stated above, the connection step was wrong.
I will give the details of how i solved it in this post in case anyone in need sees this: (this is as i understood it, feel free to correct me)
For a trully raw communication in userspace you have to understand three concepts:
Sockets are analogous to file descriptors.
Binding a socket is like opening a file.
You can not read or write to a socket, just kindly ask the kernel to do it for you.
The process i followed is as follows:
int sockfd = socket(PF_PACKET, SOCK_RAW, htons(ETH_P_ALL));
struct sockaddr_ll sll;
sll.sll_family = AF_PACKET;
sll.sll_ifindex = index; //This is the index of your network card
//Can be obtained through ioctl with SIOCGIFINDEX
sll.sll_protocol = htons(ETH_P_ALL);
bind(sockfd, (struct sockaddr*)&sll, sizeof(sll));
size_t send_len = write(sockfd, data, size);
As you can see, we dont really use connect, as it was, indeed, a mistake.
p.s. for a full example: https://github.com/TretornESP/RAWRP

A few related questions regarding traceroutes in c:

According to Wikipedia, a traceroute program
Traceroute, by default, sends a sequence of User Datagram Protocol
(UDP) packets addressed to a destination host[...] The time-to-live
(TTL) value, also known as hop limit, is used in determining the
intermediate routers being traversed towards the destination. Routers
decrement packets' TTL value by 1 when routing and discard packets
whose TTL value has reached zero, returning the ICMP error message
ICMP Time Exceeded.[..]
I started writing a program (using an example UDP program as a guide) to adhere to this specification,
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <assert.h>
#include <netinet/udp.h> //Provides declarations for udp header
#include <netinet/ip.h> //Provides declarations for ip header
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <arpa/inet.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#define DATAGRAM_LEN sizeof(struct iphdr) + sizeof(struct iphdr)
unsigned short csum(unsigned short *ptr,int nbytes) {
register long sum;
unsigned short oddbyte;
register short answer;
sum=0;
while(nbytes>1) {
sum+=*ptr++;
nbytes-=2;
}
if(nbytes==1) {
oddbyte=0;
*((u_char*)&oddbyte)=*(u_char*)ptr;
sum+=oddbyte;
}
sum = (sum>>16)+(sum & 0xffff);
sum = sum + (sum>>16);
answer=(short)~sum;
return(answer);
}
char *new_packet(int ttl, struct sockaddr_in sin) {
static int id = 0;
char *datagram = malloc(DATAGRAM_LEN);
struct iphdr *iph = (struct iphdr*) datagram;
struct udphdr *udph = (struct udphdr*)(datagram + sizeof (struct iphdr));
iph->ihl = 5;
iph->version = 4;
iph->tos = 0;
iph->tot_len = DATAGRAM_LEN;
iph->id = htonl(++id); //Id of this packet
iph->frag_off = 0;
iph->ttl = ttl;
iph->protocol = IPPROTO_UDP;
iph->saddr = inet_addr("127.0.0.1");//Spoof the source ip address
iph->daddr = sin.sin_addr.s_addr;
iph->check = csum((unsigned short*)datagram, iph->tot_len);
udph->source = htons(6666);
udph->dest = htons(8622);
udph->len = htons(8); //udp header size
udph->check = csum((unsigned short*)datagram, DATAGRAM_LEN);
return datagram;
}
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
int s, ttl, repeat;
struct sockaddr_in sin;
char *data;
printf("\n");
if (argc != 3) {
printf("usage: %s <host> <port>", argv[0]);
return __LINE__;
}
sin.sin_family = AF_INET;
sin.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr(argv[1]);
sin.sin_port = htons(atoi(argv[2]));
if ((s = socket(AF_PACKET, SOCK_RAW, 0)) < 0) {
printf("Failed to create socket.\n");
return __LINE__;
}
ttl = 1, repeat = 0;
while (ttl < 2) {
data = new_packet(ttl);
if (write(s, data, DATAGRAM_LEN) != DATAGRAM_LEN) {
printf("Socket failed to send packet.\n");
return __LINE__;
}
read(s, data, DATAGRAM_LEN);
free(data);
if (++repeat > 2) {
repeat = 0;
ttl++;
}
}
return 0;
}
... however at this point I have a few questions.
Is read(s, data, ... reading whole packets at a time, or do I need to parse the data read from the socket; seeking markers particular to IP packets?
What is the best way to uniquely mark my packets as they return to my box as expired?
Should I set up a second socket with the IPPROTO_ICMP flag, or is it easier to write a filter; accepting everything?
Do any other common mistakes exist; or are any common obstacles foreseeable?
Here are some of my suggestions (based on assumption it's a Linux machine).
read packets
You might want to read whole 1500 byte packets (entire Ethernet frame). Don't worry - smaller frames would still be read completely with read returning the length of data read.
Best way to add marker is to have some UDP payload (a simple unsigned int) should be good enough. Increase it on every packet sent. (I just did a tcpdump on traceroute - the ICMP error - does return an entire IP frame back - so you can look at the returned IP frame, parse the UDP payload and so on. Note your DATAGRAM_LEN would change accordingly. ) Of course you can use ID - but be careful that ID is mainly used by fragmentation. You should be okay with that - 'cos you'd not be approaching fragmentation limit on any intermediate routers with these packet sizes. Generally, not a good idea to 'steal' protocol fields that are meant for something else for our custom purpose.
A cleaner way could be to actually use IPPROTO_ICMP on raw sockets (if manuals are installed on your machine man 7 raw and man 7 icmp). You would not want to receive copy of all packets on your device and ignore those that are not ICMP.
If you are using type SOCKET_RAW on AF_PACKET, you will have to manually attach a link layer header or you can do SOCKET_DGRAM and check. Also man 7 packet for lot of subtleties.
Hope that helps or are you looking at some actual code?
A common pitfall is that programming at this level needs very careful use of the proper include files. For instance, your program as-is won't compile on NetBSD, which is typically quite strict in following relevant standards.
Even when I add some includes, there is no struct iphdr but there is a struct udpiphdr instead.
So for now the rest of my answer is not based on trying your program in practice.
read(2) can be used to read single packets at a time. For packet-oriented protocols, such as UDP, you'll never get more data from it than a single packet.
However you can also use recvfrom(2), recv(2) or recvmsg(2) to receive the packets.
If fildes refers to a socket, read() shall be equivalent to recv()
with no flags set.
To identify the packets, I believe using the id field is typically done, as you have already. I am not sure what you mean with "mark my packets as they return to my box as expired", since your packets don't return to you. What you may get back are ICMP Time Exceeded messages. These usually arrive within a few seconds, if they arrive at all. Sometimes they are not sent, sometimes they may be blocked by misconfigured routers between you and their sender.
Note that this assumes that the IP ID you set up in your packet is respected by the network stack you're using. It is possible that it doesn't, and replaces your chosen ID with a different one. Van Jacobson, the original author of the traceroute command as found in NetBSD therefore use a different method:
* The udp port usage may appear bizarre (well, ok, it is bizarre).
* The problem is that an icmp message only contains 8 bytes of
* data from the original datagram. 8 bytes is the size of a udp
* header so, if we want to associate replies with the original
* datagram, the necessary information must be encoded into the
* udp header (the ip id could be used but there's no way to
* interlock with the kernel's assignment of ip id's and, anyway,
* it would have taken a lot more kernel hacking to allow this
* code to set the ip id). So, to allow two or more users to
* use traceroute simultaneously, we use this task's pid as the
* source port (the high bit is set to move the port number out
* of the "likely" range). To keep track of which probe is being
* replied to (so times and/or hop counts don't get confused by a
* reply that was delayed in transit), we increment the destination
* port number before each probe.
Using a IPPROTO_ICMP socket for receiving the replies is more likely to be efficient than trying to receive all packets. It would also require fewer privileges to do so. Of course sending raw packets normally already requires root, but it could make a difference if a more fine-grained permission system is in use.

Get Local Port used by Socket

I need to get the local port used by a (client) socket.
It was my understanding that Windows Sockets performs an implicit bind function call, therefore getsockname() after sendto() should provide the assigned port. However, it always sets 0 as the port number. Am I missing something?
ex:
if (sendto(sockfd, ...) != SOCKET_ERROR)
printf("Sent\n");
if (getsockname(sockfd, (struct sockaddr*)&sin, &sinlen) != SOCKET_ERROR)
printf("port = %u\n", ntohs(sin.sin_port);
else
printf("Error");
//result: Sent, port = 0
Problem solved with a restart of the computer. Still unknown as to the actual cause, but at this point I'm just happy it's working.
If anyone has an idea for fixing the issue without a restart (for future readers), feel free to post.
The only ambiguity I can see in your example code is what size you assigned to sinlen before calling. (you do not show it) If you are using winsock, it should be defined, and assigned int sinlen = sizeof(sin);
I used this code on my system, and it returns a non-zero value for the port I am connecting through:
struct sockaddr_in sin;
int len = sizeof(sin);
if (getsockname(sock, (struct sockaddr *)&sin, &len) == -1)
//handle error
else
printf("port number %d\n", ntohs(sin.sin_port));
By the way, The ntohs function function returns the value in host byte order. If [ sin.sin_port ] is already in host byte order, then this function will reverse it. It is up to [your] application to determine if the byte order must be reversed. [text in brackets are my emphasis]
In answer to comment question ( getsockname() ):
The function prototype for getsockname():
int getsockname(
_In_ SOCKET s,
_Out_ struct sockaddr *name,
_Inout_ int *namelen //int, not socklen_t
);
For more discussion on socklen_t
Edit (address possible approach to re-setting sockets without rebooting PC.)
If winsock API calls cease to work predictably, you can re-start sockets without rebooting the PC by using WSAStartup and WSACleanup (see code example at bottom of link for WSAStartup)
You say you want to know the LOCAL port, but your line
sendto(sockfd, ...)
implies sockfd is the REMOTE descriptor. Your later code may therefore give you info about the REMOTE port, not the LOCAL one. 'sockets' are not both ends, meaning one connection. A socket is one end, meaning the IP and port number of one end of the connection. The first parameter of your getsockname() is not a reference or a pointer, it is therefore not an output from the function, but an input. You're telling the function to use the same socket descriptor that you just sent to, ie. the remote one.
Formatting error. ntohs() returns unsigned short so the format should be %hu, not %u or %d. If you grab too many bytes they are not the port.
Answer. After using sendto() try using gethostname() then getaddrinfo() on the name that comes back. Note: the addrinfo structures you get back will give you struct sockaddr pointers which you will need to re-cast to struct sockaddr_in pointers to access the local port number.
To find the local port number the kernel dreamed up when you issued a sendto() function perhaps you could write a routine to parse the output from the (gnu linux) commands 'ss' or 'netstat'. (Not sure if these are POSIX compatible.) Or maybe you could access /proc/net if you have the privilege.

How to write proxy program for resending packets?

I need to write program using raw sockets in c language on proxy server between two hosts.
I've written some code for it (and set some rules for iptable to change destination address of packets to proxy's interfaces), where I am receiving packet, print data in this packet and then send the packet to receiver.
It's working on my simple client/server programs on raw sockets, but when I am trying to establish a connection through a proxy - it doesn't work.
Do you have any ideas on how I can write this program without using the kernel?
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/ip.h>
#include <netinet/tcp.h>
#define PCKT_LEN 8192
int main(void){
int s;
char buffer[PCKT_LEN];
struct sockaddr saddr;
struct sockaddr_in daddr;
memset(buffer, 0, PCKT_LEN);
s = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_RAW, IPPROTO_TCP);
if(s < 0){
printf("socket() error");
return -1;
}
int saddr_size = sizeof(saddr);
int header_size = sizeof(struct iphdr) + sizeof(struct tcphdr);
unsigned int count;
daddr.sin_family = AF_INET;
daddr.sin_port = htons(1234);
daddr.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr ("2.2.2.1");
while(1){
if(recvfrom(s, buffer, PCKT_LEN , 0, &saddr, &saddr_size) < 0){
printf("recvfrom() error");
return -1;
}
else{
int i = header_size;
for(; i < PCKT_LEN; i++)
printf("%c", buffer[i]);
if (sendto (s, buffer, PCKT_LEN, 0, &daddr, &saddr_size) < 0)
printf("sendto() error");
return -1;
}
}
}
close(s);
return 0;
}
(Your code has serious bugs. For example, the last argument to sendto(2) should not be a pointer. I'll assume it's not the real code and that the real code compiles without warnings.)
With the nagging out of the way, I think one problem is that you're accidentally including an extra IP header in the packets you send. raw(7) has the following:
The IPv4 layer generates an IP header when sending a packet unless the IP_HDRINCL socket option is enabled on the socket. When it is enabled, the packet must contain an IP header. For receiving the IP header is always included in the packet.
IP_HDRINCL is not enabled by default unless protocol is IPPROTO_RAW (see a bit further down in raw(7)), meaning it's disabled in your case. (I also checked with getsockopt(2).)
You will have to either enable IP_HDRINCL using setsockopt(2) to tell the kernel that you're supplying the header yourself, or not include the header in sendto().
It's better to look at the IHL field in the IP header than assume it has fixed size by the way. The IP header could include options.
There could be other issues as well depending on what you're trying to do, and details might vary for IPv6.
Whatever you are doing I don't think using raw sockets is the way. Those are used for network debugging only.
Fist of all, observe that basically you are copying content from an existing, stabilished connection, rather than tunneling it. You are not doing what is proposed.
If you want to capture connections to a given server:port, for instance, 2.2.2.1:1234, into your application so that you can tunnel it through a proxy, you can use iptables.
iptables -t nat -A OUTPUT -p tcp -d 2.2.2.1 --dport 1234 -j REDIRECT
Create an application bound to ip 0.0.0.0 listening to TCP port 1234 and every connection attempt to 2.2.2.1:1234 will connect to your application instead, and you can do whatever you please with it.

"UDP datagrams only" socket in C

In Linux, Ubuntu 14.04:
I'm writing a code that implements socket to send pure UDP datagrams which includes UDP header+payload, without any part of IP header.
I have created the socket
sokt_fd=socket(AF_INET, SOCK_RAW, IPPROTO_UDP)
Also, I have prepared the UDP header.
I want to leave the IP encapsulation process to the kernel.
I want to send the datagram over any available IP interface. (I do not want to specify the source IP, and also leave this task to the kernel).
Do I need to specify the destination IP address before sending the datagram.
I must use "sendto()" command to send the datagram; how I must fill the "sockaddr" data structure?
#include <netinet/in.h>
struct sockaddr
{
unsigned short sa_family;// address family, AF_xxx
char sa_data[14];// 14 bytes of protocol address
};
Don't use the sockaddr structure. Use sockaddr_in instead and cast it when you have to pass a sockaddr* to a function.
struct sockaddr_in myaddr;
int s;
myaddr.sin_family = AF_INET;
myaddr.sin_port = htons(3490);
inet_aton("63.161.169.137", &myaddr.sin_addr.s_addr);
s = socket(PF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);
bind(s, (struct sockaddr*)myaddr, sizeof(myaddr));
The socket API is designed for different addressing families, others are Infrared and Bluetooth. Since AF_INET is only one of the families the API functions use the general sockaddr type in the parameters.
There is a nice explanation of this in Chapter 3, "Sockets Introduction" in the well-known book Unix Network Programming, The Sockets Networking API (Volume 1) by Richard Stevens et. al. Let me quote:
Most socket functions require a pointer to a socket address structure
as an argument. Each supported protocol suite defines its own socket
address structure. The names of these structures begin with
sockaddr_ and end with a unique suffix for each protocol suite.
For the IP (Internet protocol) suite, the structure is sockaddr_in so it follows that since your example is specifying the AF_INET address family when you created the socket that you would use the more specific sockaddr_in structure instead of the more generic sockaddr. The socket API, as a matter of efficiency uses the more generic sockaddr pointer in the signature prototype.
With regard to using send() versus sendto(), I have found that sendto() is used more commonly with UDP and send() with TCP sockets. Therefore, to answer your question in #3 above, with UDP you don't have to specify the destination address up front, but instead it is supplied as an argument to sendto().
For a given udp_datagram and datagram_length, your code might look something like this:
uint32_t address = inet_addr("1.2.3.4"); // can also provide hostname here
uint16_t port = 27890;
sockaddr_in_t dest_addr;
memset(*dest_addr, 0, sizeof(dest_addr));
dest_addr.sin_family = AF_INET;
dest_addr.sin_port = htons(port);
dest_addr.sin_addr.s_addr = htonl(address);
sendto(socket_fd,
(const char*)upd_datagram,
datagram_length,
0,
reinterpret_cast<sockaddr_t*>(&dest_addr),
sizeof(dest_addr));
The address API really wanted to be object-oriented, but had to deal with the fact that C isn't an OO language. sockaddr can be seen as the "base class" and the parameter type that bind, connect, sendto, recvfrom, etc. use when they need an address. However, you must provide a "subclassed" address matching the socket domain that you're using. This is because Berkeley sockets can be used for a wide and extensible range of protocols. IPv4 and IPv6 are the most typical, but UNIX-based installs also support sockets as filesystem objects ("addressed" by path), and, for instance, a hypervisor driver can install support for special inter-VM or guest-to-host sockets. See man 7 socket for an overview.
If you use IPv4, you need to use sockaddr_in. If you use IPv6, you need to use sockaddr_in6. In both cases, you need to cast your pointer to a sockaddr*.
To fill in a sockaddr_in, you need to do something like this:
struct sockaddr_in inet_addr;
inet_addr.sin_family = AF_INET;
inet_addr.sin_port = htons(port);
inet_addr.sin_addr.s_addr = htonl(ip_address_as_number);
struct sockaddr* addr = (struct sockaddr*)&inet_addr;
htons and htonl stand for "host to network (short)" and "host to network (long)", respectively. You need this because there was a time at which network drivers were too dumb to abstract away the machine's endianness and we can't go back in time to fix them. (The network byte order is big endian.)

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