Develop Reference

Receiving messages and sending messages over NetworkStream to a Client

I have a question about sending and receiving messages from a TCPListener server to a client over a Network Stream in C#. Right now, my TCPListener instance can receive one message from a client and write it to the server console, and it can accept one input string and send it back to the client. But I wish to improve the function to accept multiple consecutive messages from a client and send multiple consecutive responses back to the client. Does anyone happen to have any pointers if the ReadAsync and WriteAsync functions of a NetworkStream can handle receiving multiple consecutive messages or sending multiple consecutive messages and if there is a better method to achieve this? Also, since the Console.ReadLine function will block in the case the server never receives any user input from ReadLine (and no Enter key is pushed), is there a way to test if there's optional user input from the keyboard? That way I could try to execute the send message commands only if the server received some kind of console input from the user, and could continue receiving client messages otherwise.
public static async Task getMessage(TcpListener server)
{
byte[] bytes = new byte[256];
using (var theStream = await server.AcceptTcpClientAsync())
{
using (var tcpStream = theStream.GetStream())
{
await tcpStream.ReadAsync(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
var msg = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(bytes);
Console.WriteLine(msg);
var payload = Console.ReadLine();
var bytes2 = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(payload);
await tcpStream.WriteAsync(bytes2, 0, bytes2.Length);
}
}
}

It is interesting to see a server implementation dedicated to only one client!
TCP is a two-way communication protocol so yes, you can, of course, send what you want and when you want and receive anything at the same time.
I tried to put comments in the source to let it explain itself.
But the critical point is declaring the TcpClient and NetworkStream instances as static variables so that the main thread (the thread which reads from the console and sends the payload to the client) can access them
Hope this helps.
public static async Task getMessage(TcpListener server)
{
byte[] bytes = new byte[256];
using (theStream = await server.AcceptTcpClientAsync())
{
using (tcpStream = theStream.GetStream())
{
// We are using an infinite loop which ends when zero bytes have been received.
// Receiving zero bytes means the transmission is over (client disconnected)
while (await tcpStream.ReadAsync(bytes, 0, bytes.Length) > 0)
{
var msg = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(bytes);
Console.WriteLine(msg);
}
Console.WriteLine("Client has disconnected");
}
}
}
/// <summary>
/// Transmists the payload to the client
/// </summary>
/// <param name="payload">The payload to transmit to the client</param>
/// <returns></returns>
static async Task Transmit(string payload)
{
var bytes2 = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(payload);
await tcpStream.WriteAsync(bytes2, 0, bytes2.Length);
}
// We are declaring the TcpClient and NetworkStream as static variables
// to be able to access them from all the threads.
private static TcpClient theStream;
public static NetworkStream tcpStream;
static void Main(string[] args)
{
TcpListener server = new TcpListener(IPAddress.Loopback, 9876);
server.Start();
// Start the task getMessage() to accept a client and receive
Task.Run(() => getMessage(server));
string payload;
while ((payload = Console.ReadLine()) != "exit")
{
// Check if the client has connected.
if (tcpStream != null)
{
// Check if they are still connected
if (theStream.Client.Connected)
{
Task.Run(() => Transmit(payload));
}
else
{
Console.WriteLine("the client connection is lost");
break;
}
}
else
{
Console.WriteLine("The client has not connected yet.");
}
}
Console.WriteLine("Stopping the server");
server.Stop();
}

TCP Client Not Reconnecting After Disconnect

I've made a server and a client. The client should re-attempt to connect to the server if I close the server. I've made it so when the try/catch during waitForCommands fails, it restarts the attemptConnection method in a new thread. The problem I have here is that it simply won't reconnect. As a test, I open my TCP server and the TCP client. The client connects to the server as usual. Then, I close the TCP Server, and the clients spits out this error: 'System.Net.Sockets.SocketException' rapidly, and never connects.
class Program
{
public static TcpClient client = new TcpClient();
public static NetworkStream stream;
public static byte[] readBuffer;
static void Main(string[] args)
{
new Thread(attemptConnection).Start();
}
public static void waitForCommands()
{
while (client.Connected)
{
try
{
readBuffer = new byte[client.ReceiveBufferSize];
int data = stream.Read(readBuffer, 0, readBuffer.Length);
string plainText = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(readBuffer, 0, data);
if (plainText.Contains("mbox"))
{
MessageBox.Show("");
}
}
catch
{
new Thread(attemptConnection).Start();
}
}
}
public static void attemptConnection()
{
while(!client.Connected)
{
try
{
client.Connect("127.0.0.1", 23154);
stream = client.GetStream();
new Thread(waitForCommands).Start();
}
catch(Exception ex)
{
Console.WriteLine(ex.Data);
}
}
}
}
An interesting thing I noticed, is that if I write 'client.Close();' on the server exit event, I get no error messages when the client tries to reconnect. It just shows a blank screen and does nothing
If you'd like to see the code that waits for connections on my server, it's really simple so I'm not sure why this problem is occuring.
public static void waitForConnection()
{
server.Start();
client = server.AcceptTcpClient();
stream = client.GetStream();
f.labelControl1.Text = "Connected";
}

To expand on my comment, I think it's due to the underlying TCP connection (the network stream) not closing automatically.
Try closing the stream manually and see what it does:
client.GetStream().Close();
You could also just close the client which closes the stream for you (see https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.sockets.tcpclient.close.aspx):
client.Close();
And another way to resolve your issue (see https://stackoverflow.com/a/38006848/4408417):
client.Client.Disconnect(true);

I changed client.Connect() to
client = new TcpClient();
client.Connect("127.0.0.1", 23154);
As Jasper recommended in the comments

Socket read freezes

I'm working on small program for learning purpose.
My program is simple Telnet console.
Using visual studio 2010 Express I created pretty cool UI now I'm trying to establish communication with remote server(Creston control processor). I copied and pasted class from this Microsoft article and when I execute the class the program freezes. I'm not sure how to properly describe what happens but in basic word all controls(including close button) stop working.
Here code for my class:(I added few debug lines);
public class StateObject
{
// Client socket.
public Socket workSocket = null;
// Size of receive buffer.
public const int BufferSize = 256;
// Receive buffer.
public byte[] buffer = new byte[BufferSize];
// Received data string.
public StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
public string TempString = string.Empty;
public int TotalBytesRead = 0;
public char[] charBuffer = new char[1000];
}
public class AsynchronousClient
{
// The port number for the remote device.
private const int port = 23;
// ManualResetEvent instances signal completion.
private static ManualResetEvent connectDone =
new ManualResetEvent(false);
private static ManualResetEvent sendDone =
new ManualResetEvent(false);
private static ManualResetEvent receiveDone =
new ManualResetEvent(false);
// The response from the remote device.
private static String response = String.Empty;
public AsynchronousClient()
{
}
public void New()
{
StartClient();
}
private static void StartClient()
{
// Connect to a remote device.
try
{
// Establish the remote endpoint for the socket.
// The name of the
// remote device is "host.contoso.com".
IPEndPoint remoteEP = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Parse("10.106.6.60"), port);
// Create a TCP/IP socket.
Socket client = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork,
SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp);
// Connect to the remote endpoint.
client.BeginConnect(remoteEP,
new AsyncCallback(ConnectCallback), client);
connectDone.WaitOne();
Console.WriteLine("StartSend");
// Send test data to the remote device.
//Send(client, "hostname\n");
//sendDone.WaitOne();
Console.WriteLine("WaitForResponse");
// Receive the response from the remote device.
Receive(client);
receiveDone.WaitOne();
// Write the response to the console.
Console.WriteLine("Read From Socket : {0}", response);
Console.WriteLine("ReleaseSocket");
// Release the socket.
client.Shutdown(SocketShutdown.Both);
client.Disconnect(true);
}
catch (Exception e)
{
Console.WriteLine(e.ToString());
}
}
private static void ConnectCallback(IAsyncResult ar)
{
try
{
// Retrieve the socket from the state object.
Socket client = (Socket)ar.AsyncState;
// Complete the connection.
client.EndConnect(ar);
Console.WriteLine("Socket connected to {0}",
client.RemoteEndPoint.ToString());
// Signal that the connection has been made.
connectDone.Set();
}
catch (Exception e)
{
Console.WriteLine(e.ToString());
}
}
private static void Receive(Socket client)
{
try
{
// Create the state object.
Console.WriteLine("Receive");
StateObject state = new StateObject();
state.workSocket = client;
// Begin receiving the data from the remote device.
client.BeginReceive(state.buffer, 0, StateObject.BufferSize, 0, new AsyncCallback(ReceiveCallback), state);
}
catch (Exception e)
{
Console.WriteLine(e.ToString());
}
}
private static void ReceiveCallback(IAsyncResult ar)
{
try
{
// Retrieve the state object and the client socket
// from the asynchronous state object.
Console.WriteLine("Start Read");
StateObject state = (StateObject)ar.AsyncState;
Socket client = state.workSocket;
// Read data from the remote device.
int bytesRead = client.EndReceive(ar);
Console.WriteLine("Bytes read: {0}", bytesRead);
if (bytesRead > 0)
{
// There might be more data, so store the data received so far.
string tsTempString = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(state.buffer, 0, bytesRead);
state.TempString += tsTempString;
Console.WriteLine("String {0}", tsTempString);
state.sb.Append(Encoding.ASCII.GetString(state.buffer, 0, bytesRead));
// Get the rest of the data.
client.BeginReceive(state.buffer, 0, StateObject.BufferSize, 0, new AsyncCallback(ReceiveCallback), state);
}
else
{
// All the data has arrived; put it in response.
if (state.sb.Length > 1)
{
response = state.sb.ToString();
}
// Signal that all bytes have been received.
receiveDone.Set();
}
}
catch (Exception e)
{
Console.WriteLine(e.ToString());
}
}
private static void Send(Socket client, String data)
{
Console.WriteLine("Send");
// Convert the string data to byte data using ASCII encoding.
byte[] byteData = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(data);
// Begin sending the data to the remote device.
client.BeginSend(byteData, 0, byteData.Length, 0,
new AsyncCallback(SendCallback), client);
}
private static void SendCallback(IAsyncResult ar)
{
try
{
Console.WriteLine("SendCallBack");
// Retrieve the socket from the state object.
Socket client = (Socket)ar.AsyncState;
// Complete sending the data to the remote device.
int bytesSent = client.EndSend(ar);
Console.WriteLine("Sent {0} bytes to server.", bytesSent);
// Signal that all bytes have been sent.
sendDone.Set();
}
catch (Exception e)
{
Console.WriteLine(e.ToString());
}
}
}
When connecting to the server it responds with following lines:
CP3 Console
Warning: Another console session is open
CP3>
When I run the program i get following output:
Socket connected to 10.106.6.60:23
StartSend
WaitForResponse
Receive
Start Read
Bytes read: 13
String CP3 Console
Start Read
Bytes read: 43
String Warning: Another console session is open
Start Read
Bytes read: 6
String
CP3>
The thread '<No Name>' (0x1d80) has exited with code 0 (0x0).
The thread '<No Name>' (0x24bc) has exited with code 0 (0x0).
I tried different methods of reading stream but no successes. The program still hangs up at the same spot.
It seems as after reading last byte ">" the program does not re-executes method "ReceiveCallback" to exit out of the loop.
I get feeling it has something with the way "ReceiveCallback" is being called but I could not figure out what client.beginReceive() parameters actually do.

To expand on Roemer's answer: EndReceive will return 0 only if the conversation has terminated. That usually means a TCP packet with the FIN or RST flag has been received, most often because the peer - in your case, the server - closed its endpoint or exited. (There are various other cases; for example, a firewall or intermediate node could generate an RST.)
(Roemer wrote "BeginReceive never returns zero...", but clearly meant EndReceive, since BeginReceive returns the IAsyncResult object.)
If the peer doesn't close its end of the conversation, EndReceive won't return 0, and you'll never enter the else branch of your callback that invokes receiveDone.Set().
It's not entirely clear from your description exactly how the server behaves, but its last send of 6 bytes was clearly a newline followed by the "CP3>" prompt. At that point it's waiting for your client to send something. It's not going to close the connection.
TCP is a bytestream service - it doesn't provide record boundaries. So there's no way for the socket layer to know when the server is "done sending", except when the server closes the connection. You have three choices for your client:
Parse the server's output as you receive it and recognize when it's waiting for input (in this case, that means recognizing the "CP3>" prompt)
Decide the server's done after some arbitrary time has passed with no further data from the server
Don't worry about it, and simply output data from the server as you receive it
That third option is the simplest one. Do your first BeginReceive after making the connection. Then, in your callback method, if the conversation is still open and no errors have occurred, process the data you've received and invoke BeginReceive again.

To be honest, this example from microsoft is really bad.
In general, client.EndReceive never returns 0 except when the connection is closed. So receiveDone.Set will never be called in your example. In a more real-live example, you should check the received data in ReceiveCallback and when a keyword (like "Login: ") occurs, set the receiveDone and start sending (the login data for example) and the start receiving again and so on. You might also want to look at the async/await keyword (.net 4.5) and maybe upgrade to Visual Studio community edition :)
There are tons of examples on codeproject or found via google (like http://blogs.msdn.com/b/pfxteam/archive/2011/12/15/10248293.aspx).

UDP Tracker not responding

Alright, so I'm trying to connect to UDP trackers using c#, but I never get a response. I also don't get any errors. Here's my code.
namespace UDPTester
{
class MainClass
{
public static bool messageReceived = false;
public static Random Random = new Random();
public static void LOG(string format, params object[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine (format,args);
}
public static void Main (string[] args)
{
LOG ("Creating Packet...");
byte[] packet;
using(var stream = new MemoryStream())
{
var bc = new MiscUtil.Conversion.BigEndianBitConverter();
using(var br = new MiscUtil.IO.EndianBinaryWriter(bc,stream))
{
LOG ("Magic Num: {0}",(Int64)0x41727101980);
br.Write (0x41727101980);
br.Write((Int32)0);
br.Write ((Int32)Random.Next());
packet = stream.ToArray();
LOG ("Packet Size: {0}",packet.Length);
}
}
LOG ("Connecting to tracker...");
var client = new System.Net.Sockets.UdpClient("tracker.openbittorrent.com",80);
UdpState s = new UdpState();
s.e = client.Client.RemoteEndPoint;
s.u = client;
StartReceiving(s);
LOG ("Sending Packet...");
client.Send(packet,packet.Length);
while(!messageReceived)
{
Thread.Sleep(1000);
}
LOG ("Ended");
}
public static void StartReceiving(UdpState state)
{
state.u.BeginReceive(ReceiveCallback,state);
}
public static void ReceiveCallback(IAsyncResult ar)
{
UdpClient u = (UdpClient)((UdpState)(ar.AsyncState)).u;
IPEndPoint e = (IPEndPoint)((UdpState)(ar.AsyncState)).e;
Byte[] receiveBytes = u.EndReceive(ar, ref e);
string receiveString = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(receiveBytes);
LOG("Received: {0}", receiveString);
messageReceived = true;
StartReceiving((UdpState)ar.AsyncState);
}
}
public class UdpState
{
public UdpClient u;
public EndPoint e;
}
}
I was using a normal BinaryWriter, but that didn't work, and I read somewhere that it wants it's data in BigEndian.
This doesn't work for any of the UDP trackers I've found, any ideas why I'm not getting a response? Did they maybe change the protocol and not tell anyone? HTTP trackers all work fine.
Trackers I've tried
udp://tracker.publicbt.com:80
udp://tracker.ccc.de:80
udp://tracker.istole.it:80
Also, I'm not interested in using MonoTorrent(and when I was using it, the UDP didn't work anyways).
Protocol Sources
http://xbtt.sourceforge.net/udp_tracker_protocol.html
http://www.rasterbar.com/products/libtorrent/udp_tracker_protocol.html

UDP is a connectionless protocol, so you won't see any errors if packets are lost or dropped at the destination.
Try following diagnostic steps:
Use packet sniffer (Wireshark is a good one) to check that UDP packets are leaving the machine.
Install some working BitTorrent client, check if it can communicate with the tracker and if yes, use packet sniffer to see how the packets sent by the working client differ from the packets your code generates.
If working client also can not communicate with the tracker, but the UDP traffic is leaving your machine, the UDP packets are likely dropped by a firewall. You can try 'traceroute' tool to diagnose where your packets are dropped (this is not always 100% reliable, because sometimes firewalls drop UDP packets generated by traceroute and do not drop normal UDP traffic).

Manage several/multiple tcp connections

I have a server application and client application with the functionality already working. Let me show you how I connect my client application to my server app:
//SERVER
// instantiate variables such as tempIp, port etc...
// ...
// ...
server = new TcpListener(tempIp, port); //tempIp is the ip address of the server.
// Start listening for client requests.
server.Start();
// Buffer for reading data
Byte[] bytes = new Byte[MaxChunkSize];
String data = null;
// Enter the listening loop.
while (disconect == false)
{
Console.Write("Waiting for a connection... ");
// Perform a blocking call to accept requests.
// You could also user server.AcceptSocket() here.
client = server.AcceptTcpClient(); // wait until a client get's connected...
Console.WriteLine("Connected!");
// Get a stream object for reading and writing
stream = client.GetStream();
// now that the connection is established start listening though data
// sent through the stream..
int i;
try
{
// Loop to receive all the data sent by the client.
while ((i = stream.Read(bytes, 0, bytes.Length)) != 0)
{
// Translate data bytes to a ASCII string.
data = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetString(bytes, 0, i);
Console.WriteLine("Received: {0}", data);
// etc..
....
ok now on the client side lets say I want to establish a connection then send some data through the stream
//Client
client = new TcpClient(serverIP, port);
// Get a client stream for reading and writing.
stream = client.GetStream();
//then if I wish to send the string hello world to the server I would do:
sendString(stream, "Hello world");
protected void sendString(NetworkStream stream, string str)
{
sendBytes(stream, textToBytes(str));
}
protected void sendBytes(NetworkStream stream, Byte[] data)
{
// Send the message to the connected TcpServer.
stream.Write(data, 0, data.Length);
}
protected static Byte[] textToBytes(string text)
{
return System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(text);
}
since I am able to send bytes I am able to send files or everything that I want. the technique that I use is that if I send the string file for example to the server then the server will start listening for a file. It will open a stream and write the received bytes to that file. If a different keyword is send the server will start listening on a different method etc..
So when dealing with one server and one client everything works great. Now I want to add more clients and need them to also connect to the server. I know that several connections can be establish on the same port just like we do it with por 80 on websites... I do not know how to manage several connections. so one thing I was thinking was to leave everything as it is. if a connection is established then tell the server to start another thread listening for other connections on the same port. with this technique I will have several threads running plus I just know the basics of multrythreading. If this technique is my best option I will start implementing it. You guys out there are really knowledgeable about all this so it will be nice if someone can point me on the right direction. Or maybe I should listen on several ports. if the server is already connected on port 7777 for example then do not accept connections from that port and start listening on port 7778 for example. I mean there could be so many different ways of achieving what I need and you guys probably know the best way. I just know the basics of networking...

You could use threading:
var client = server.AcceptTcpClient();
var t = new Thread(new ParameterizedThreadStart(AccentClient));
t.Start(client);
The target method would look like this
public void AccentClient(object clientObj)
{
var client = clientObj as TcpClient;
// Do whatever you need to do with the client
}
If you are not familiar with multithreading, it is important you learn at least the basics first.

You could implement a class that encapsulates TCP behavior. Check this class:
public class SimpleListener
{
private System.Net.Sockets.TcpListener _tcpListen;
//declare delegate to handle new connections
public delegate void _new_client(System.Net.Sockets.TcpClient tcpclient);
//declare a clients container (or something like...). OPTION 1
List<System.Net.Sockets.TcpClient> _connected_clients;
//declare an event and event handler (the same for _new_client) for new connections OPTION 2
public event _new_client new_tcp_client;
//public (The list of connected clients).
public List<System.Net.Sockets.TcpClient> ConnectedClients { get { return _connected_clients; } }
public SimpleListener(string ip, int listenport)
{
System.Net.IPAddress ipAd = System.Net.IPAddress.Parse(ip);
_tcpListen = new System.Net.Sockets.TcpListener(new System.Net.IPEndPoint(ipAd,listenport));
_connected_clients = new List<System.Net.Sockets.TcpClient>();
}
//Fire this method to start listening...
public void Listen()
{
_tcpListen.Start();
_set_listen();
}
//... and this method to stop listener and release resources on listener
public void Stop()
{
_tcpListen.Stop();
}
//This method set the socket on listening mode...
private void _set_listen()
{
//Let's do it asynchronously - Set the method callback, with the same definition as delegate _new_client
_tcpListen.BeginAcceptTcpClient(new AsyncCallback(_on_new_client), null);
}
//This is the callback for new clients
private void _on_new_client(IAsyncResult _async_client)
{
try
{
//Lets get the new client...
System.Net.Sockets.TcpClient _tcp_cl = _tcpListen.EndAcceptTcpClient(_async_client);
//Push the new client to the list
_connected_clients.Add(_tcp_cl);
//OPTION 2 : Fire new_tcp_client Event - Suscribers will do some stuff...
if (new_tcp_client != null)
{
new_tcp_client(_tcp_cl);
}
//Set socket on listening mode again... (and wait for new connections, while we can manage the new client connection)
_set_listen();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
//Do something...or not
}
}
}
You could use this in your code:
//SERVER
// instantiate variables such as tempIp, port etc...
// ...
// ...
SimpleListener server = new SimpleListener(tempIp, port); //tempIp is the ip address of the server.
//add handler for new client connections
server.new_tcp_client += server_new_tcp_client;
// Start listening for client requests.
server.Listen();
.... //No need to loop. The new connection is handled on server_new_tcp_client method
void server_new_tcp_client(System.Net.Sockets.TcpClient tcpclient)
{
// Buffer for reading data
Byte[] bytes = new Byte[MaxChunkSize];
String data = null;
Console.WriteLine("Connected!");
// Get a stream object for reading and writing
System.IO.Stream stream = tcpclient.GetStream();
// now that the connection is established start listening though data
// sent through the stream..
int i;
try
{
// Loop to receive all the data sent by the client.
while ((i = stream.Read(bytes, 0, bytes.Length)) != 0)
{
// Translate data bytes to a ASCII string.
data = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetString(bytes, 0, i);
Console.WriteLine("Received: {0}", data);
// etc..
....
}