Question

Sending Broadcast packets using UDP in Linux/C

Asked by: mgh_mgharish

Hi, here is a code in which we are trying to send a simple broadcast packet to all the computers on the network. But this is not working properly. The sender and receiver programs seem to get struck inside sendto and recvfrom functions respectively.

SENDER CODE:
____________________
#define PORT 2080
#define DEST_ADDR "255.255.255.255"
 
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
	int sockfd;
	int broadcast=1;
	struct sockaddr_in sendaddr;
	struct sockaddr_in recvaddr;
	int numbytes;
	
	if((sockfd = socket(PF_INET,SOCK_DGRAM,0)) == -1)
	{
		perror("sockfd");
		exit(1);
	}
	
	if((setsockopt(sockfd,SOL_SOCKET,SO_BROADCAST,
				&broadcast,sizeof broadcast)) == -1)
	{
		perror("setsockopt - SO_SOCKET ");
		exit(1);
	}
	
   /*if((setsockopt(sockfd,SOL_SOCKET,SO_DONTROUTE,
   			&broadcast,sizeof broadcast)) == -1)
   {
      perror("setsockopt - SO_DONTROUTE");
      exit(1);
   }*/
        	
	sendaddr.sin_family = AF_INET;
	sendaddr.sin_port = PORT;
	sendaddr.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY;
	memset(sendaddr.sin_zero,'\0',sizeof sendaddr.sin_zero);
	
	if(bind(sockfd, (struct sockaddr*) &sendaddr, sizeof sendaddr) == -1)
	{
		perror("bind");
		exit(1);
	}
	
	recvaddr.sin_family = AF_INET;
	recvaddr.sin_port = PORT;
	recvaddr.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr(DEST_ADDR);
	memset(recvaddr.sin_zero,'\0',sizeof recvaddr.sin_zero);
	
	while((numbytes = sendto(sockfd, "abcd", 4 , 0,
        (struct sockaddr *)&recvaddr, sizeof recvaddr)) != -1) 
   {
   		printf("Sent a packet");
   		sleep(1000);
   }
        perror("sendto");
        exit(1);
   	
	
	close(sockfd);
	
	return 0;
}
____________________
RECEIVER CODE:
____________________
#include "packetize.h"
 
#define PORT 2080
#define DEST_ADDR "10.50.41.208" //Server addr
 
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
	int sockfd;
	char buf[10];
	struct hostent *he;
	struct sockaddr_in sendaddr;
	//struct sockaddr_in recvaddr;
	int numbytes;
	int addr_len;
	
	if((sockfd = socket(PF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, 0)) == -1)
	{
		perror("socket");
		exit(1);
	}
	
	printf("Socket created\n");
	
	if ((he=gethostbyname(DEST_ADDR)) == NULL) 
	{   // get the host info
	   herror("gethostbyname");
   	exit(1);
   }
 
	printf("Host found\n");
 
	sendaddr.sin_family = AF_INET;
	sendaddr.sin_port = PORT;
	sendaddr.sin_addr = *((struct in_addr *)he->h_addr);
	memset(sendaddr.sin_zero,'\0', sizeof sendaddr.sin_zero);
	
	addr_len = sizeof sendaddr;
	if ((numbytes = recvfrom(sockfd, buf, sizeof buf, 0,
              (struct sockaddr *)&sendaddr, (socklen_t *)&addr_len)) == -1) 
	{
   	perror("recvfrom");
      exit(1);
   }
	
	printf("%s",buf);
	
	return 0;
}
____________________

                                  
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Asked On
2008-01-10 at 20:12:55ID23074851
Tags

C

,

UDP Broadcasting

Topics

User Datagram Protocol (UDP)

,

Linux Networking

,

Linux Programming

Participating Experts
2
Points
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Comments
5

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Answers

 

by: duncan_roePosted on 2008-01-11 at 01:47:22ID: 20635109

I don't think you want the sending address to be INADDR_ANY - I would think the broadcast address for the network would be more appropriate. You could hard-code it for testing (i.e. inet_addr(hardcoded dotted address)) and write the code to figure out what it is later.

 

by: mgh_mgharishPosted on 2008-01-11 at 03:55:08ID: 20635485

duncan_roe, thanks for looking into this.

sendaddr is used only for binding purpose. recvaddr is used for sending the packets using sendto().

 

by: duncan_roePosted on 2008-01-11 at 05:53:25ID: 20636182

Ok I see DEST_ADDR now. But I think you should use the Broadcast Address for your network, as ifconfig will give you:

19:01:31$ ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0C:76:6D:BC:E1  
          inet addr:10.255.255.1  Bcast:10.255.255.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:38790 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:38520 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:8229514 (7.8 Mb)  TX bytes:3361119 (3.2 Mb)
          Interrupt:16

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:139 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:139 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:137520 (134.2 Kb)  TX bytes:137520 (134.2 Kb)

The broadcast address for my LAN is 10.255.255.255

 

by: NopiusPosted on 2008-01-13 at 03:16:08ID: 20647301

Most problems where in receiver code:
1) You should use htons() to defind sin_port port numbers
2) You don't have to use gethostname() when using IP address. Moreover you shouldn't use any predefined source IP address in the receiver.
3) Most impotent, you should 'bind' before 'recvfrom'

In sender code is also slightly fixed.

Working code is in attachment.

sender.c:
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
 
 
#define PORT 2080
// #define SRC_ADDR "172.16.1.120"
#define DEST_ADDR "255.255.255.255"
 
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
        int sockfd;
        int broadcast=1;
        struct sockaddr_in sendaddr;
        struct sockaddr_in recvaddr;
        int numbytes;
 
        if((sockfd = socket(PF_INET,SOCK_DGRAM,0)) == -1)
        {
                perror("sockfd");
                exit(1);
        }
 
       if((setsockopt(sockfd,SOL_SOCKET,SO_BROADCAST,
                                &broadcast,sizeof broadcast)) == -1)
        {
                perror("setsockopt - SO_SOCKET ");
                exit(1);
        }
 
        sendaddr.sin_family = AF_INET;
        sendaddr.sin_port = htons(PORT);
        sendaddr.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY;
        memset(sendaddr.sin_zero,'\0',sizeof sendaddr.sin_zero);
 
        if(bind(sockfd, (struct sockaddr*) &sendaddr, sizeof sendaddr) == -1)
        {
                perror("bind");
                exit(1);
        }
 
        recvaddr.sin_family = AF_INET;
        recvaddr.sin_port = htons(PORT);
        recvaddr.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr(DEST_ADDR);
        memset(recvaddr.sin_zero,'\0',sizeof recvaddr.sin_zero);
 
        while((numbytes = sendto(sockfd, "abcd", 4 , 0,
        (struct sockaddr *)&recvaddr, sizeof recvaddr)) != -1)
   {
                printf("Sent a packet");
                sleep(1000);
   }
        perror("sendto");
        exit(1);
 
 
        close(sockfd);
 
        return 0;
}
 
receiver.c:
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <netdb.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
 
#define PORT 2080
#define DEST_ADDR "255.255.255.255" //broadcast addr
 
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
        int sockfd;
        char buf[10];
        struct sockaddr_in sendaddr;
        struct sockaddr_in recvaddr;
        int numbytes;
        int addr_len;
        int broadcast=1;
 
        if((sockfd = socket(PF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, 0)) == -1)
        {
                perror("socket");
                exit(1);
        }
       if((setsockopt(sockfd,SOL_SOCKET,SO_BROADCAST,
                                &broadcast,sizeof broadcast)) == -1)
        {
                perror("setsockopt - SO_SOCKET ");
                exit(1);
        }
 
        printf("Socket created\n");
 
        sendaddr.sin_family = AF_INET;
        sendaddr.sin_port = htons(PORT);
        sendaddr.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY;
        memset(sendaddr.sin_zero,'\0', sizeof sendaddr.sin_zero);
 
 
        recvaddr.sin_family = AF_INET;
        recvaddr.sin_port = htons(PORT);
        recvaddr.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY;
        memset(recvaddr.sin_zero,'\0',sizeof recvaddr.sin_zero);
        if(bind(sockfd, (struct sockaddr*) &recvaddr, sizeof recvaddr) == -1)
        {
                perror("bind");
                exit(1);
        }
 
 
        addr_len = sizeof sendaddr;
        if ((numbytes = recvfrom(sockfd, buf, sizeof buf, 0,
              (struct sockaddr *)&sendaddr, (socklen_t *)&addr_len)) == -1)
        {
        perror("recvfrom");
      exit(1);
   }
 
        printf("%s",buf);
 
        return 0;
}
                                              
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by: NopiusPosted on 2008-01-22 at 20:48:27ID: 20720884

Also check your firewall on both computers, it should allow broadcast UDP.
I have tested 'sender' on Linux, 'receiver' on FreeBSD plugged into the same switch and no firewall.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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