There are two major transport layer protocols to communicate between hosts : TCP and UDP. Creating TCP Server/Client was discussed in a previous post.
Prerequisite : Creating TCP Server/Client
Theory
In UDP, the client does not form a connection with the server like in TCP and instead just sends a datagram. Similarly, the server need not accept a connection and just waits for datagrams to arrive. Datagrams upon arrival contain the address of sender which the server uses to send data to the correct client.
The entire process can be broken down into following steps :
UDP Server :
- Create UDP socket.
- Bind the socket to server address.
- Wait until datagram packet arrives from client.
- Process the datagram packet and send a reply to client.
- Go back to Step 3.
UDP Client :
- Create UDP socket.
- Send message to server.
- Wait until response from server is recieved.
- Process reply and go back to step 2, if necessary.
- Close socket descriptor and exit.
Necessary Functions :
int socket(int domain, int type, int protocol) Creates an unbound socket in the specified domain. Returns socket file descriptor.
Arguments :
domain – Specifies the communication
domain ( AF_INET for IPv4/ AF_INET6 for IPv6 )
type – Type of socket to be created
( SOCK_STREAM for TCP / SOCK_DGRAM for UDP )
protocol – Protocol to be used by socket.
0 means use default protocol for the address family.
int bind(int sockfd, const struct sockaddr *addr, socklen_t addrlen) Assigns address to the unbound socket.
Arguments :
sockfd – File descriptor of socket to be binded
addr – Structure in which address to be binded to is specified
addrlen – Size of addr structure
ssize_t sendto(int sockfd, const void *buf, size_t len, int flags, const struct sockaddr *dest_addr, socklen_t addrlen) Send a message on the socket
Arguments :
sockfd – File descriptor of socket
buf – Application buffer containing the data to be sent
len – Size of buf application buffer
flags – Bitwise OR of flags to modify socket behaviour
dest_addr – Structure containing address of destination
addrlen – Size of dest_addr structure
ssize_t recvfrom(int sockfd, void *buf, size_t len, int flags, struct sockaddr *src_addr, socklen_t *addrlen) Receive a message from the socket.
Arguments :
sockfd – File descriptor of socket
buf – Application buffer in which to receive data
len – Size of buf application buffer
flags – Bitwise OR of flags to modify socket behaviour
src_addr – Structure containing source address is returned
addrlen – Variable in which size of src_addr structure is returned
int close(int fd) Close a file descriptor
Arguments :
fd – File descriptor
In the below code, exchange of one hello message between server and client is shown to demonstrate the model.
UDPServer.c
// 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; n = recvfrom(sockfd, ( char *)buffer, MAXLINE, MSG_WAITALL, ( struct sockaddr *) &cliaddr, &len); buffer[n] = ' |