By : Basant pandey

INTRODUCTION TO SOCKET
Provides an abstraction for
interprocess communication

 Socket: An interface between an application

process and transport layer.
The application process can send/receive messages
to/from another application process (local or remote) via a
socket.
In Unix jargon, a socket is a file descriptor an
integer associated with an open file.
Types of Sockets: Internet Sockets, unix sockets,
X.25 sockets etc.
Internet sockets characterized by IP Address (4 bytes),
port number (2 bytes)

Basically, it says this: a packet is born, the packet is

wrapped ("encapsulated") in a header (and rarely a footer)
by the first protocol (say, the TFTP protocol), then the whole
thing (TFTP header included) is encapsulated again by the
next protocol (say, UDP), then again by the next (IP), then
again by the final protocol on the hardware (physical) layer
(say, Ethernet).

When another computer receives the packet, the hardware

strips the Ethernet header, the kernel strips the IP and UDP
headers, the TFTP program strips the TFTP header, and it
finally has the data.

SOCK_STREAM
a.k.a. TCP
reliable delivery
in-order guaranteed
connection-oriented
bidirectional

App
3

SOCK_DGRAM
a.k.a. UDP
unreliable delivery
no order guarantees
no notion of connection
app indicates dest. for
each packet
can send or receive

D1

App
socket

Dest.
3 2

D2

socket

D3
6

Each host has

65,536 ports
Some ports are
reserved for specific
apps

Port 0
Port 1

Port 65535

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

Client

Server

Create a socket
Setup the server address

Connect to the server

Read/write data
Shutdown connection

Server high level view

Create a socket
Bind the socket
Listen for connections
Accept new client connections
Read/write to client connections
Shutdown connection

socket()

TCP Server

bind() Well-known port

TCP Client

listen()

Socket()

accept()
Connection establishment blocks until connection from client
connect()
Data(request)
write()
read()
process request
read()
close()

Data(reply)
End-of-file n
otification

write()

read()
close()

struct sockaddr_in {
short int
unsigned short int
struct in_addr
unsigned char
};
Here is the description of the
Attribute
Values

sin_family;
sin_port;
sin_addr;
sin_zero[8];
member fields:
Description

sa_family

AF_INET
It represents an address family. In most of the
AF_UNIX
Internet-based applications, we use AF_INET.
AF_NS
AF_IMPLINK

sin_port

Service Port A 16-bit port number in Network Byte Order.

sin_addr

IP Address

A 32-bit IP address in Network Byte Order.

sin_zero

Not Used

You just set this value to NULL as this is not being

used.

Address and port are stored as

integers
struct in_addr {
u_short sin_port; (16 bit)
u_long s_addr;
in_addr sin_addr; (32 bit)
};
Problem:

different machines / OSs use different word orderings

little-endian: lower bytes first
big-endian: higher bytes first

these machines may communicate with one another over the network

128.119.40.12
128

Big-Endian
machine
119

40

12

!!
12.40.119.128
!
G
N
O

Little-Endian
machine
119
R
W

128

40

12

16

Defs:
Host Byte-Ordering: the byte ordering used by
a host (big or little)
Network Byte-Ordering: the byte ordering used
by the network always big-endian

Any words sent through the network should be

converted to Network Byte-Order prior to
transmission (and back to Host Byte-Order
once received)

Q: should the socket perform the conversion

automatically?
17

Byte Ordering

Two types of Byte ordering

Network Byte Order: High-order byte of the number is
stored in memory at the lowest address
-

Host Byte Order: Low-order byte of the number is

stored in memory at the lowest address
-

Network stack (TCP/IP) expects Network Byte

Order

- htons() - Host to Network Short

Conversions:
-

htonl() - Host to Network Long

ntohs() - Network to Host Short

ntohl() - Network to Host Long

u_long htonl(u_long x);

u_short htons(u_short x);

u_long ntohl(u_long x);

u_short ntohs(u_short x);

On big-endian machines, these routines do nothing

On little-endian machines, they reverse the byte order

hto

128

119

40

12

Little-Endian 12
machine
128

119

40

40
128.119.40.12
119 128

12

ntohl

nl

128
119 40
128.119.40.12

Big-Endian
12machine

Same code would have worked regardless of endian-ness of

the two machines

19

bind() - what port am I on?

Used to associate a socket with a port on the local

machine

The port number is used by the kernel to match an

incoming packet to a process
-

int bind(int sockfd, struct sockaddr *my_addr, int addrlen)

-

sockfd is the socket descriptor returned by socket()

my_addr is pointer to struct sockaddr that contains

information about your IP address and port

addrlen is set to sizeof(struct sockaddr)

returns -1 on error

my_addr.sin_port = 0; //choose an unused port at

random

my_addr.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY; //use my IP

adr

connect() - Hello!

Connects to a remote host

int connect(int sockfd, struct sockaddr *serv_addr, int
addrlen)
-

sockfd is the socket descriptor returned by socket()

serv_addr is pointer to struct sockaddr that

contains information on destination IP address and
port

addrlen is set to sizeof(struct sockaddr)

returns -1 on error

No need to bind(), kernel will choose a port

listen() - Call me please!

Waits for incoming connections

int listen(int sockfd, int backlog);

-

sockfd is the socket file descriptor returned by

socket()

backlog is the number of connections allowed on

the incoming queue

listen() returns -1 on error

Need to call bind() before you can listen()

socket()

bind()

listen()

accept()

accept() - Thank you for calling !

accept() gets the pending connection on the
port you are listen()ing on

int accept(int sockfd, void *addr, int *addrlen);

-

sockfd is the listening socket descriptor

information about incoming connection is stored in

addr which is a pointer to a local struct sockaddr_in

addrlen is set to sizeof(struct sockaddr_in)

accept returns a new socket file descriptor to use

for this accepted connection and -1 on error

send() and recv() - Let's talk!

The two functions are for communicating over

stream sockets or connected datagram sockets.
int send(int sockfd, const void *msg, int len, int
flags);
-

sockfd is the socket descriptor you want to send data to

(returned by socket() or got from accept())

msg is a pointer to the data you want to send

len is the length of that data in bytes

set flags to 0 for now

sent() returns the number of bytes actually sent (may

be less than the number you told it to send) or -1 on
error

send() and recv() - Let's talk!

int recv(int sockfd, void *buf, int len, int flags);

-

sockfd is the socket descriptor to read from

buf is the buffer to read the information into

len is the maximum length of the buffer

set flags to 0 for now

recv() returns the number of bytes actually read into

the buffer or -1 on error

If recv() returns 0, the remote side has closed

connection on you

sendto() and recvfrom() - DGRAM

style

int sendto(int sockfd, const void *msg, int len, int

flags, const struct sockaddr *to, int tolen);
-

to is a pointer to a struct sockaddr which contains the

destination IP and port

tolen is sizeof(struct sockaddr)

int recvfrom(int sockfd, void *buf, int len, int flags,

struct sockaddr *from, int *fromlen);
-

from is a pointer to a local struct sockaddr that will be

filled with IP address and port of the originating
machine

fromlen will contain length of address stored in from

close() - Bye Bye!

int close(int sockfd);

-

Closes connection corresponding to the socket

descriptor and frees the socket descriptor

Will prevent any more sends and recvs

Summary
Sockets help application process to communicate
with each other using standard Unix file
descriptors

Two types of Internet sockets: SOCK_STREAM

and SOCK_DGRAM

Many routines exist to help ease the process

of
communication

References

Books:
Unix Network Programming, volumes 1-2 by W.
Richard Stevens.
-

TCP/IP Illustrated, volumes 1-3 by W. Richard

Stevens and Gary R. Wright
-

Web Resources:
-

Beej's Guide to Network Programming

www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~beej/guide/net/