I am using UdpClient class in .net 3.5
I need to bind multiple applications to the same port .
So, if UDP servers broadcast any request - all the applications thats listen on the port can receive the message but the problem is, when I try bind to an application to the same port, only one application receive the message and the other does not.
Below is some sample code for the two application:
UdpClient udpClient = new UdpClient();
Thread thread;
IPEndPoint endPoint = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Loopback, 11000);
public Form1()
{
//CheckForIllegalCrossThreadCalls = false;
InitializeComponent();
udpClient.ExclusiveAddressUse = false;
udpClient.Client.SetSocketOption(
SocketOptionLevel.Socket, SocketOptionName.ReuseAddress, true);
udpClient.Client.Bind(endPoint);
}
private void MainForm_KeyDown(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
{
if (e.KeyCode == Keys.Escape)
{
thread.Abort();
udpClient.Close();
Close();
}
}
private void ReceiveMessage()
{
//while (true)
//{
// IPEndPoint remoteIPEndPoint = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, 11000);
// byte[] content = udpClient.Receive(ref endPoint);
udpClient.BeginReceive(new AsyncCallback(Read_Callback), null);
//if (content.Length > 0)
//{
// string message = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(content);
// this.Invoke(myDelegate, new object[] { message });
//}
// }
}
public void Read_Callback(IAsyncResult ar)
{
try
{
byte[] buffer = udpClient.EndReceive(ar, ref endPoint);
// Process buffer
string s = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(buffer);
// richTextBox1.Text = s;
udpClient.BeginReceive(new AsyncCallback(Read_Callback), null);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{ }
}
PS : I am unable to figure out the reason or am I missing something. ?
That's the nature of sockets. Even in cases (such as UDP) where multiple applications can access the same port, the data is handed out first-come, first-serve. UDP is also designed with minimum overhead, so there isn't even an opportunity to "check the queue," like you (hypothetically) could with TCP.
It's designed around having multiple processes share a server load, alternating who receives the request based on who's idle.
You'd need to build something external to get around this, like a retransmission protocol or a database to make sure every inbound message is shared.
If you can deal with the changes, a smarter way to handle this would be UDP Multicast, where multiple programs essentially enroll to receive group messages. In that case, the single-port restriction can (and should) be abandoned.
I'm writing an application that deals with a server and a client. I don't necessarily know how to get the server to handle multiple clients, this is where I'm having problems with. Right now the server side only handles one client.
So how can I handle multiple clients.
You can keep the TcpListener open and accept multiple connections. To handle multiple connections efficiently, you will need to multi-thread the server code.
static void Main(string[] args)
{
while (true)
{
Int32 port = 14000;
IPAddress local = IPAddress.Parse("127.0.0.1");
TcpListener serverSide = new TcpListener(local, port);
serverSide.Start();
Console.Write("Waiting for a connection with client... ");
TcpClient clientSide = serverSide.AcceptTcpClient();
Task.Factory.StartNew(HandleClient, clientSide);
}
}
static void HandleClient(object state)
{
TcpClient clientSide = state as TcpClient;
if (clientSide == null)
return;
Console.WriteLine("Connected with Client");
clientSide.Close();
}
Now you can do all of the processing you need to do in HandleClient while the main loop will continue to listen for additional connections.
While testing my Client-Server program, I encountered a weird exception when trying to connect to the server on a different router:
"A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond."
The client can connect to the server perfectly in the local network, however it doesn't work when it is over the internet.
I port forwarded port 1250 (the one I'm using), and using SimplePortForwarding (http://www.simpleportforwarding.com/) I verified that the port was open and working.
I based my implementation on this tutorial:
http://www.developerfusion.com/article/3918/socket-programming-in-c-part-1/
Any idea what is wrong?
Thanks!
Here is the server listen method:
public void startListening(int port)
{
lock(_locker)
{
_listeningSocket = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp);
try
{
// Bind socket to local endpoint, and listen for incoming connections
IPEndPoint ipEndpoint = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, port);
_listeningSocket.Bind(ipEndpoint);
_listeningSocket.Listen(10);
waitForNewClient();
// successfully started listening
_isListening = true;
} catch (SocketException e)
{
// failed for some strange reason
_isListening = false;
}
}
}
Here is the client connect code:
public String connect(String ipAddress, int port)
{
lock(_locker)
{
if (!_connecting)
{
_socket = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp);
IPEndPoint endpoint = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Parse(ipAddress), port);
try
{
_socket.Connect(endpoint);
_connected = true;
waitForData();
_eventManager.queueEvent(new PlayerJoinedEvent(PlayerJoinedEvent.PLAYER_JOINED, name));
} catch (SocketException e)
{
// Exception is thrown HERE
return e.Message;
}
}
}
return "";
}
Make it sure that your Server IP address is public unless it is not reachable.
Check this link for private address spaces.
You opened port 1250 on the server or the client router? It needs to be opened on the server router. You may need to make sure your server is connected to your DMZ port and/or have DMZ enabled on your server router.
Hope this helps.
I Fixed the problem.
The IP Address I used was the internal ip address I got from ipconfig, but the IP address I needed to use was the external one, the one you get from services like http://www.whatsmyip.org/.
I'm still confused as to why these two numbers are different.
I need to poll a server, which is running some propriatary software, to determine if this service is running. Using wireshark, I've been able to narrow down the TCP port its using, but it appears that the traffic is encrypted.
In my case, its a safe bet that if the server is accepting connections (i.e. telnet serverName 1234) the service is up and all is OK. In other words, I don't need do any actual data exchange, just open a connection and then safely close it.
I'm wondering how I can emulate this with C# and Sockets. My network programming basically ends with WebClient, so any help here is really appreciated.
The process is actually very simple.
using (var socket = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp))
{
try
{
socket.Connect(host, port);
}
catch (SocketException ex)
{
if (ex.SocketErrorCode == SocketError.ConnectionRefused)
{
// ...
}
}
}
Just use TcpClient try to connect to the server, TcpClient.Connect will throw an exception if the connection fails.
bool IsListening(string server, int port)
{
using(TcpClient client = new TcpClient())
{
try
{
client.Connect(server, port);
}
catch(SocketException)
{
return false;
}
client.Close();
return true;
}
}
I've used the following code. There is one caveat ... in a high transaction environment, the client's available ports may run out as the sockets are not released by the OS at the same rate they are released by the .NET code.
If anyone's got a better idea, please post. I've seen snowball issues arise where the server can no longer make outgoing connections. I'm working on a better solution ...
public static bool IsServerUp(string server, int port, int timeout)
{
bool isUp;
try
{
using (TcpClient tcp = new TcpClient())
{
IAsyncResult ar = tcp.BeginConnect(server, port, null, null);
WaitHandle wh = ar.AsyncWaitHandle;
try
{
if (!wh.WaitOne(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(timeout), false))
{
tcp.EndConnect(ar);
tcp.Close();
throw new SocketException();
}
isUp = true;
tcp.EndConnect(ar);
}
finally
{
wh.Close();
}
}
}
catch (SocketException e)
{
LOGGER.Warn(string.Format("TCP connection to server {0} failed.", server), e);
isUp = false;
}
return isUp;
Use the TcpClient class to connect the server.
In C# to use a TcpClient or generally to connect to a socket how can I first check if a certain port is free on my machine?
more info:
This is the code I use:
TcpClient c;
//I want to check here if port is free.
c = new TcpClient(ip, port);
Since you're using a TcpClient, that means you're checking open TCP ports. There are lots of good objects available in the System.Net.NetworkInformation namespace.
Use the IPGlobalProperties object to get to an array of TcpConnectionInformation objects, which you can then interrogate about endpoint IP and port.
int port = 456; //<--- This is your value
bool isAvailable = true;
// Evaluate current system tcp connections. This is the same information provided
// by the netstat command line application, just in .Net strongly-typed object
// form. We will look through the list, and if our port we would like to use
// in our TcpClient is occupied, we will set isAvailable to false.
IPGlobalProperties ipGlobalProperties = IPGlobalProperties.GetIPGlobalProperties();
TcpConnectionInformation[] tcpConnInfoArray = ipGlobalProperties.GetActiveTcpConnections();
foreach (TcpConnectionInformation tcpi in tcpConnInfoArray)
{
if (tcpi.LocalEndPoint.Port==port)
{
isAvailable = false;
break;
}
}
// At this point, if isAvailable is true, we can proceed accordingly.
You're on the wrong end of the Intertube. It is the server that can have only one particular port open. Some code:
IPAddress ipAddress = Dns.GetHostEntry("localhost").AddressList[0];
try {
TcpListener tcpListener = new TcpListener(ipAddress, 666);
tcpListener.Start();
}
catch (SocketException ex) {
MessageBox.Show(ex.Message, "kaboom");
}
Fails with:
Only one usage of each socket address (protocol/network address/port) is normally permitted.
When you set up a TCP connection, the 4-tuple (source-ip, source-port, dest-ip, dest-port) has to be unique - this is to ensure packets are delivered to the right place.
There is a further restriction on the server side that only one server program can bind to an incoming port number (assuming one IP address; multi-NIC servers have other powers but we don't need to discuss them here).
So, at the server end, you:
create a socket.
bind that socket to a port.
listen on that port.
accept connections on that port.
and there can be multiple connections coming in (one per client).
On the client end, it's usually a little simpler:
create a socket.
open the connection.
When a client opens the connection, it specifies the ip address and port of the server. It can specify its source port but usually uses zero which results in the system assigning it a free port automatically.
There is no requirement that the destination IP/port be unique since that would result in only one person at a time being able to use Google, and that would pretty well destroy their business model.
This means you can even do such wondrous things as multi-session FTP since you set up multiple sessions where the only difference is your source port, allowing you to download chunks in parallel. Torrents are a little different in that the destination of each session is usually different.
And, after all that waffling (sorry), the answer to your specific question is that you don't need to specify a free port. If you're connecting to a server with a call that doesn't specify your source port, it'll almost certainly be using zero under the covers and the system will give you an unused one.
Thanks for this tip. I needed the same functionality but on the Server side to check if a Port was in use so I modified it to this code.
private bool CheckAvailableServerPort(int port) {
LOG.InfoFormat("Checking Port {0}", port);
bool isAvailable = true;
// Evaluate current system tcp connections. This is the same information provided
// by the netstat command line application, just in .Net strongly-typed object
// form. We will look through the list, and if our port we would like to use
// in our TcpClient is occupied, we will set isAvailable to false.
IPGlobalProperties ipGlobalProperties = IPGlobalProperties.GetIPGlobalProperties();
IPEndPoint[] tcpConnInfoArray = ipGlobalProperties.GetActiveTcpListeners();
foreach (IPEndPoint endpoint in tcpConnInfoArray) {
if (endpoint.Port == port) {
isAvailable = false;
break;
}
}
LOG.InfoFormat("Port {0} available = {1}", port, isAvailable);
return isAvailable;
}
TcpClient c;
//I want to check here if port is free.
c = new TcpClient(ip, port);
...how can I first check if a certain port is free on my machine?
I mean that it is not in use by any other application.
If an application is using a port others can't use it until it becomes free. – Ali
You have misunderstood what's happening here.
TcpClient(...) parameters are of server ip and server port you wish to connect to.
The TcpClient selects a transient local port from the available pool to communicate to the server. There's no need to check for the availability of the local port as it is automatically handled by the winsock layer.
In case you can't connect to the server using the above code fragment, the problem could be one or more of several. (i.e. server ip and/or port is wrong, remote server not available, etc..)
thanks for the #jro answer. I had to tweak it for my usage. I needed to check if a port was being listened on, and not neccessarily active. For this I replaced
TcpConnectionInformation[] tcpConnInfoArray = ipGlobalProperties.GetActiveTcpConnections();
with
IPEndPoint[] objEndPoints = ipGlobalProperties.GetActiveTcpListeners();.
I iterated the array of endpoints checking that my port value was not found.
To answer the exact question of finding a free port (which is what I needed in my unit tests) in dotnet core 3.1 I came up this
public static int GetAvailablePort(IPAddress ip) {
TcpListener l = new TcpListener(ip, 0);
l.Start();
int port = ((IPEndPoint)l.LocalEndpoint).Port;
l.Stop();
Log.Info($"Available port found: {port}");
return port;
}
note: based the comment by #user207421 about port zero I searched and found this and slightly modified it.
string hostname = "localhost";
int portno = 9081;
IPAddress ipa = (IPAddress) Dns.GetHostAddresses(hostname)[0];
try
{
System.Net.Sockets.Socket sock = new System.Net.Sockets.Socket(System.Net.Sockets.AddressFamily.InterNetwork, System.Net.Sockets.SocketType.Stream, System.Net.Sockets.ProtocolType.Tcp);
sock.Connect(ipa, portno);
if (sock.Connected == true) // Port is in use and connection is successful
MessageBox.Show("Port is Closed");
sock.Close();
}
catch (System.Net.Sockets.SocketException ex)
{
if (ex.ErrorCode == 10061) // Port is unused and could not establish connection
MessageBox.Show("Port is Open!");
else
MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);
}
From the available ports I would exclude:
active TCP connections
active TCP listeners
active UDP listeners
With the following import:
using System.Net.NetworkInformation;
You can use the following function to check if a port is available or not:
private bool isPortAvailable(int myPort)
{
var availablePorts = new List<int>();
var properties = IPGlobalProperties.GetIPGlobalProperties();
// Active connections
var connections = properties.GetActiveTcpConnections();
availablePorts.AddRange(connections);
// Active tcp listners
var endPointsTcp = properties.GetActiveTcpListeners();
availablePorts.AddRange(endPointsTcp);
// Active udp listeners
var endPointsUdp = properties.GetActiveUdpListeners();
availablePorts.AddRange(endPointsUdp);
foreach (int p in availablePorts){
if (p == myPort) return false;
}
return true;
}
I give you a similar function for those who use VB.NET:
Imports System.Net.NetworkInformation
Private Function isPortAvailable(ByVal myPort As Integer) As Boolean
Dim props As IPGlobalProperties = IPGlobalProperties.GetIPGlobalProperties()
' ignore active connections
Dim tcpConnInfoArray() As TcpConnectionInformation = props.GetActiveTcpConnections()
For Each tcpi As Net.NetworkInformation.TcpConnectionInformation In tcpConnInfoArray
If tcpi.LocalEndPoint.Port = myPort Then
Return False
End If
Next tcpi
' ignore active TCP listeners
Dim activeTcpListeners() As Net.IPEndPoint = props.GetActiveTcpListeners
For Each tcpListener As Net.IPEndPoint In activeTcpListeners
If tcpListener.Port = myPort Then
Return False
End If
Next tcpListener
' ignore active UPD listeners
Dim activeUdpListeners() As Net.IPEndPoint = props.GetActiveUdpListeners
For Each udpListener As Net.IPEndPoint In activeUdpListeners
If udpListener.Port = myPort Then
Return False
End If
Next udpListener
Return True
End Function
netstat! That's a network command line utility which ships with windows. It shows all current established connections and all ports currently being listened to. You can use this program to check, but if you want to do this from code look into the System.Net.NetworkInformation namespace? It's a new namespace as of 2.0. There's some goodies there. But eventually if you wanna get the same kind of information that's available through the command netstat you'll need to result to P/Invoke...
Update: System.Net.NetworkInformation
That namespace contains a bunch of classes you can use for figuring out things about the network.
I wasn't able to find that old pice of code but I think you can write something similar yourself. A good start is to check out the IP Helper API. Google MSDN for the GetTcpTable WINAPI function and use P/Invoke to enumerate until you have the information you need.
If I'm not very much mistaken, you can use System.Network.whatever to check.
However, this will always incur a race condition.
The canonical way of checking is try to listen on that port. If you get an error that port wasn't open.
I think this is part of why bind() and listen() are two separate system calls.
ipGlobalProperties.GetActiveTcpConnections() doesn't return connections in Listen State.
Port can be used for listening, but with no one connected to it the method described above will not work.
You say
I mean that it is not in use by any
other application. If an application
is using a port others can't use it
until it becomes free.
But you can always connect to a port while others are using it if something's listening there. Otherwise, http port 80 would be a mess.
If your
c = new TcpClient(ip, port);
fails, then nothing's listening there. Otherwise, it will connect, even if some other machine/application has a socket open to that ip and port.
Be aware the time window between you make check and the moment you try to make connection some process may take the port - classical TOCTOU. Why don't you just try to connect? If it fails then you know the port is not available.
You don't have to know what ports are open on your local machine to connect to some remote TCP service (unless you want to use a specific local port, but usually that is not the case).
Every TCP/IP connection is identified by 4 values: remote IP, remote port number, local IP, local port number, but you only need to know remote IP and remote port number to establish a connection.
When you create tcp connection using
TcpClient c;
c = new TcpClient(remote_ip, remote_port);
Your system will automatically assign one of many free local port numbers to your connection. You don't need to do anything.
You might also want to check if a remote port is open. but there is no better way to do that than just trying to connect to it.
public static bool TestOpenPort(int Port)
{
var tcpListener = default(TcpListener);
try
{
var ipAddress = Dns.GetHostEntry("localhost").AddressList[0];
tcpListener = new TcpListener(ipAddress, Port);
tcpListener.Start();
return true;
}
catch (SocketException)
{
}
finally
{
if (tcpListener != null)
tcpListener.Stop();
}
return false;
}
Check for error code 10048
try
{
TcpListener tcpListener = new TcpListener(ipAddress, portNumber);
tcpListener.Start();
}
catch(SocketException ex)
{
if(ex.ErrorCode == 10048)
{
MessageBox.Show("Port " + portNumber + " is currently in use.");
}
return;
}
I simply needed to verify if a port was available for listening. Condensing #Melloware example above to a one-liner as static method strictly for the purpose of indicating if the port is available works for me (.NET6).
using System.Net.NetworkInformation;
namespace MyNamespace
{
public static class NetworkValidation
{
public static bool IsListeningPortAvailable(int port) =>
!IPGlobalProperties.GetIPGlobalProperties().GetActiveTcpListeners().Any(x => x.Port == port);
}
}
Implementation as simple console app:
using MyNamespace;
int port = 5000;
var available = NetworkValidation.IsListeningPortAvailable(port);
Console.WriteLine($"Port:{port} available == {available}");
test_connection("ip", port);
public void test_connection(String hostname, int portno) {
IPAddress ipa = (IPAddress)Dns.GetHostAddresses(hostname)[0];
try {
System.Net.Sockets.Socket sock = new System.Net.Sockets.Socket(System.Net.Sockets.AddressFamily.InterNetwork, System.Net.Sockets.SocketType.Stream, System.Net.Sockets.ProtocolType.Tcp);
sock.Connect(ipa, portno);
if (sock.Connected == true) {
MessageBox.Show("Port is in use");
}
sock.Close();
}
catch (System.Net.Sockets.SocketException ex) {
if (ex.ErrorCode == 10060) {
MessageBox.Show("No connection.");
}
}
}
try this, in my case the port number for the created object wasn't available so I came up with this
IPEndPoint endPoint;
int port = 1;
while (true)
{
try
{
endPoint = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, port);
break;
}
catch (SocketException)
{
port++;
}
}