IPC SOCKET

1. Introduction
2. Types
 Stream Sockets
 Sequential Sockets
 Datagram Sockets
 Raw Sockets
3. Creating a Socket
4. Binding a Socket
5. Using a Socket
 Connection
 Sending Data
 Receiving Data
 Other Operations
6. UNIX Socket Domain
9/13/2013 Socket Inter-Process Communication

What is a socket?
 End point of communication
 Used for IPC
• Within same machine
• Across networks
 Connection to network protocols (TCP/IP,
UDP...)
 Usage is similar to file (through file descriptors)
 This presentation will provide a very condensed
explanations of sockets, although this concept is
vast

Types of Sockets in UNIX
 Stream Sockets
 Sequential Sockets
 Datagram Sockets
 Raw Sockets

Stream Sockets
 Provides bidirectional, reliable, sequenced, and
unduplicated flow of data
 Designed to prevent the loss or duplication of data
 Default protocol in AF_INET domain is TCP
 Requires a connection before communication
 When using a stream socket for data transfer, an
application program needs to perform the following
sequence:
i. Create a connection to another socket using
the connect subroutine.
ii. Use the read and write subroutines
(or send and recv) to transfer data.
iii. Use the close subroutine to finish the session.

Sequential Sockets
 Provides sequenced, reliable, and unduplicated flow of
information
 Not very frequently used
 Difference between SOCK_STREAM and SOCK_SEQPACKET:
i. SOCK_STREAM is supported by windows and all major
versions of Linux but SOCK_SEQPACKET is compatible with
only certain builds.
ii. Both SOCK_SEQPACKET and SOCK_STREAM handle
backpressure by tossing out the offending packet but:
• SOCK_SEQPACKET returns an error to the sending
socket, whereas
• SOCK_STREAM asks for it to be retransmitted when the
buffer has space

Datagram Sockets
 Provides unreliable, non-sequenced and
datagrams, which are connectionless messages of
a fixed maximum length
 Designed for short messages
 Data packets may be duplicated
 Application program to sends datagrams to
correspondents named in send
 Application programs can receive datagrams
through sockets using the recv

Raw Sockets
 Provides access to internal network protocols and
interfaces
 allow an application to have direct access to lower-
level communication protocols
 intended for advanced users who want to take
advantage of some protocol feature that is not directly
accessible through a normal interface, or who want to
build new protocols on top of existing low-level
protocols
 Like datagram sockets, these are datagram-oriented.
 Superuser privileges required

 Before using a socket, it has to be made
 Its access is similar to a file descriptor
 For socket creation, the socket function is called:
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
int socket(int domain, int type, int protocol);
 Returns a socket descriptor if creation is successful or -
1 on error
 Domain specifies the nature of the communication
where the values include:
• AF_INET and AF_INET6 for Internet Domain
(IPV4 and IPV6 respectively)
• AF_UNIX for the UNIX domain
• AF_UNSPEC for unspecified or “any” domain

 Type is for the type of socket used:
• SOCK_DGRAM – Datagram socket
• SOCK_STREAM – Stream socket
• SOCK_SEQPACKET – Sequential socket
• SOCK_RAW – Raw socket
 Protocol is usually 0 indicating that default protocol is
used.
 For example, to create a stream socket in the Internet
domain:
s = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);
 Similar to calling open and obtaining file descriptor
 Some functions which accept file descriptor can also be
used with a socket including close(), read(), write(),
fchmod(),….etc.
 close() is used for closing (or deallocating) a socket9/13/2013 Socket Inter-Process Communication

 Created sockets cannot be used without associating
with an address (or a name, basically)
 An address identifies a socket endpoint in a particular
communication domain
 Informs a process “WHERE” to look for incoming
messages
 For binding a socket with an address:
int bind(int sock_fd,const struct sockaddr *addr);
 Returns 0 if success or -1 if error in binding

 Format for the address is:
struct sockaddr {
sa_family_t sa_family;
char sa_data[];
..
…
};
 Internet address is specified in <netinet/in.h> by the
in_addr structure.

Connection
 For connection-oriented service like Sequential and
Stream Socket
 Prior connection between client and server is required
before data exchange
 For connection:
int connect(int sock_fd,const struct sockaddr *addr,
socklen_t len);
 Returns 0 if successful or -1 if error occurs
 If a socket is not bound before connect() is called then
the system will bind a default address to it
 Can also be used with connection-less sockets for
optimization

Sending Data
 For connection-oriented service write() can also be
used, provided a connection is established
 Three specific socket data transfer functions are
available if we want to specify options, or receive
packets from multiple clients,...etc
• ssize_t send(int sock_fd,const void *buff, size_t nbytes,
int flags);
• ssize_t sendto(int sock_fd,const void *buff, size_t nbytes,
int flags,const struct sockaddr *des_addr, socklen_t
deslen);
• ssize_t sendmsg(int sock_fd,const struct msghdr *msg,
int flags);
 Returns number of bytes sent if successful or -1 if error
occurs
 buff and nbytes have the same meaning as with write

Sending Data
 Sendmsg is for specifying multiple buffers from which
to transmit data.
 Structure of msghdr is:
struct msghdr {
void *msg_name;
socklen_t msg_namelen;
...
}
 Flags have special purposes which include sending
out-of-bound data, preventing packet to route out of
network, etc
 Flags are specifies by the constants:
MSG_DONTROUTE, MSG_DONTWAIT, MSG_OOB,
MSG_EOR

Receiving Data
 For connection-oriented service read() can also be used,
provided a connection is established
 Three specific socket data transfer functions are
available if we want to specify options, or receive
packets from multiple clients,...etc
• ssize_t recv(int sock_fd,const void *buff, size_t nbytes, int
flags);
• ssize_t recvfrom(int sock_fd,const void *buff, size_t
nbytes, int flags,const struct sockaddr *des_addr,
socklen_t deslen);
• ssize_t recvmsg(int sock_fd,const struct msghdr *msg,
int flags);
 Returns number of bytes sent if successful or -1 if error
occurs9/13/2013 Socket Inter-Process Communication

Other Operations
1) Shutdown:
 We can “disable” I/O on a socket with the shutdown()
function.
int shutdown (int sockfd, int how);
 Returns 0 if successful or -1 if an error occurs
 Values for how:
• SHUT_RD – Reading is disabled
• SHUT_WR –Writing is disabled
• SHUT_RDWR – Reading and writing is disabled

Other Operations
2) Close:
 Deallocates the socket (similar to closing file
descriptors).
int close (int sockfd);
 Returns 0 if successful or -1 if an error occurs
 Closing occurs only last active referenced is closed (in
case dup is used)
3) Socket Options:
 Control the behaviour of sockets or allow special
behaviour
 Set and get option a particular socket
int setsockopt(int sockfd, int level, int option, const
void *val, socklen_t len);

Other Operations
int getsockopt(int sockfd, int level, int option, void
*restrict val, socklen_t *restrict lenp);
 level specifies the protocol to which the option applies
 val points to a data structure or an integer (depending
on the option)
 len specifies the size of the object specified by val
 We can set and get three kinds of options:
• Generic options which work with all sockets
• Options managed at socket level but depends
on the protocol
• Protocol-specific options
 Single UNIX Specification specifies only socket-
layer options.

Other Operations
4) Other:
 Other operations include some function having a file
descriptor argument.
 Examples are:
• Duplication through the use of dup and dup2
• lseek

 UNIX domain sockets are used for IPC within a
machine.
 Internet Domain sockets can be used for above purpose
as well as for inter-machine communication
 UNIX domain sockets are more efficient for processes
running in the same machine.
 Used only for copying data but have no
acknowledgements to send, no nw headers to
add/remove, no checksums to calculate and so on.
 Provide stream as well as datagram interface.
 Datagram sockets here are however, much reliable and
ordered than in internet domain
 It is like cross b/w sockets and pipes.

 UNIX domain sockets are specified with the
sockaddr_un structure and it differs from one
implementation to another.
 Sockets can not be used with out binding.
 Socket without a name is same as a file descriptor with
out a file name or address in file system.

IPC SOCKET

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IPC SOCKET

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