How can I detect that a client has disconnected from my server?
I have the following code in my AcceptCallBack method
static Socket handler = null;
public static void AcceptCallback(IAsyncResult ar)
{
//Accept incoming connection
Socket listener = (Socket)ar.AsyncState;
handler = listener.EndAccept(ar);
}
I need to find a way to discover as soon as possible that the client has disconnected from the handler Socket.
I've tried:
handler.Available;
handler.Send(new byte[1], 0,
SocketFlags.None);
handler.Receive(new byte[1], 0,
SocketFlags.None);
The above approaches work when you are connecting to a server and want to detect when the server disconnects but they do not work when you are the server and want to detect client disconnection.
Any help will be appreciated.
Since there are no events available to signal when the socket is disconnected, you will have to poll it at a frequency that is acceptable to you.
Using this extension method, you can have a reliable method to detect if a socket is disconnected.
static class SocketExtensions
{
public static bool IsConnected(this Socket socket)
{
try
{
return !(socket.Poll(1, SelectMode.SelectRead) && socket.Available == 0);
}
catch (SocketException) { return false; }
}
}
Someone mentioned keepAlive capability of TCP Socket.
Here it is nicely described:
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/TCP-Keepalive-HOWTO/overview.html
I'm using it this way: after the socket is connected, I'm calling this function, which sets keepAlive on. The keepAliveTime parameter specifies the timeout, in milliseconds, with no activity until the first keep-alive packet is sent. The keepAliveInterval parameter specifies the interval, in milliseconds, between when successive keep-alive packets are sent if no acknowledgement is received.
void SetKeepAlive(bool on, uint keepAliveTime, uint keepAliveInterval)
{
int size = Marshal.SizeOf(new uint());
var inOptionValues = new byte[size * 3];
BitConverter.GetBytes((uint)(on ? 1 : 0)).CopyTo(inOptionValues, 0);
BitConverter.GetBytes((uint)keepAliveTime).CopyTo(inOptionValues, size);
BitConverter.GetBytes((uint)keepAliveInterval).CopyTo(inOptionValues, size * 2);
socket.IOControl(IOControlCode.KeepAliveValues, inOptionValues, null);
}
I'm also using asynchronous reading:
socket.BeginReceive(packet.dataBuffer, 0, 128,
SocketFlags.None, new AsyncCallback(OnDataReceived), packet);
And in callback, here is caught timeout SocketException, which raises when socket doesn't get ACK signal after keep-alive packet.
public void OnDataReceived(IAsyncResult asyn)
{
try
{
SocketPacket theSockId = (SocketPacket)asyn.AsyncState;
int iRx = socket.EndReceive(asyn);
}
catch (SocketException ex)
{
SocketExceptionCaught(ex);
}
}
This way, I'm able to safely detect disconnection between TCP client and server.
This is simply not possible. There is no physical connection between you and the server (except in the extremely rare case where you are connecting between two compuers with a loopback cable).
When the connection is closed gracefully, the other side is notified. But if the connection is disconnected some other way (say the users connection is dropped) then the server won't know until it times out (or tries to write to the connection and the ack times out). That's just the way TCP works and you have to live with it.
Therefore, "instantly" is unrealistic. The best you can do is within the timeout period, which depends on the platform the code is running on.
EDIT:
If you are only looking for graceful connections, then why not just send a "DISCONNECT" command to the server from your client?
"That's just the way TCP works and you have to live with it."
Yup, you're right. It's a fact of life I've come to realize. You will see the same behavior exhibited even in professional applications utilizing this protocol (and even others). I've even seen it occur in online games; you're buddy says "goodbye", and he appears to be online for another 1-2 minutes until the server "cleans house".
You can use the suggested methods here, or implement a "heartbeat", as also suggested. I choose the former. But if I did choose the latter, I'd simply have the server "ping" each client every so often with a single byte, and see if we have a timeout or no response. You could even use a background thread to achieve this with precise timing. Maybe even a combination could be implemented in some sort of options list (enum flags or something) if you're really worried about it. But it's no so big a deal to have a little delay in updating the server, as long as you DO update. It's the internet, and no one expects it to be magic! :)
Implementing heartbeat into your system might be a solution. This is only possible if both client and server are under your control. You can have a DateTime object keeping track of the time when the last bytes were received from the socket. And assume that the socket not responded over a certain interval are lost. This will only work if you have heartbeat/custom keep alive implemented.
I've found quite useful, another workaround for that!
If you use asynchronous methods for reading data from the network socket (I mean, use BeginReceive - EndReceive methods), whenever a connection is terminated; one of these situations appear: Either a message is sent with no data (you can see it with Socket.Available - even though BeginReceive is triggered, its value will be zero) or Socket.Connected value becomes false in this call (don't try to use EndReceive then).
I'm posting the function I used, I think you can see what I meant from it better:
private void OnRecieve(IAsyncResult parameter)
{
Socket sock = (Socket)parameter.AsyncState;
if(!sock.Connected || sock.Available == 0)
{
// Connection is terminated, either by force or willingly
return;
}
sock.EndReceive(parameter);
sock.BeginReceive(..., ... , ... , ..., new AsyncCallback(OnRecieve), sock);
// To handle further commands sent by client.
// "..." zones might change in your code.
}
This worked for me, the key is you need a separate thread to analyze the socket state with polling. doing it in the same thread as the socket fails detection.
//open or receive a server socket - TODO your code here
socket = new Socket(....);
//enable the keep alive so we can detect closure
socket.SetSocketOption(SocketOptionLevel.Socket, SocketOptionName.KeepAlive, true);
//create a thread that checks every 5 seconds if the socket is still connected. TODO add your thread starting code
void MonitorSocketsForClosureWorker() {
DateTime nextCheckTime = DateTime.Now.AddSeconds(5);
while (!exitSystem) {
if (nextCheckTime < DateTime.Now) {
try {
if (socket!=null) {
if(socket.Poll(5000, SelectMode.SelectRead) && socket.Available == 0) {
//socket not connected, close it if it's still running
socket.Close();
socket = null;
} else {
//socket still connected
}
}
} catch {
socket.Close();
} finally {
nextCheckTime = DateTime.Now.AddSeconds(5);
}
}
Thread.Sleep(1000);
}
}
The example code here
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.sockets.socket.connected.aspx
shows how to determine whether the Socket is still connected without sending any data.
If you called Socket.BeginReceive() on the server program and then the client closed the connection "gracefully", your receive callback will be called and EndReceive() will return 0 bytes. These 0 bytes mean that the client "may" have disconnected. You can then use the technique shown in the MSDN example code to determine for sure whether the connection was closed.
Expanding on comments by mbargiel and mycelo on the accepted answer, the following can be used with a non-blocking socket on the server end to inform whether the client has shut down.
This approach does not suffer the race condition that affects the Poll method in the accepted answer.
// Determines whether the remote end has called Shutdown
public bool HasRemoteEndShutDown
{
get
{
try
{
int bytesRead = socket.Receive(new byte[1], SocketFlags.Peek);
if (bytesRead == 0)
return true;
}
catch
{
// For a non-blocking socket, a SocketException with
// code 10035 (WSAEWOULDBLOCK) indicates no data available.
}
return false;
}
}
The approach is based on the fact that the Socket.Receive method returns zero immediately after the remote end shuts down its socket and we've read all of the data from it. From Socket.Receive documentation:
If the remote host shuts down the Socket connection with the Shutdown method, and all available data has been received, the Receive method will complete immediately and return zero bytes.
If you are in non-blocking mode, and there is no data available in the protocol stack buffer, the Receive method will complete immediately and throw a SocketException.
The second point explains the need for the try-catch.
Use of the SocketFlags.Peek flag leaves any received data untouched for a separate receive mechanism to read.
The above will work with a blocking socket as well, but be aware that the code will block on the Receive call (until data is received or the receive timeout elapses, again resulting in a SocketException).
Above answers can be summarized as follow :
Socket.Connected properity determine socket state depend on last read or receive state so it can't detect current disconnection state until you manually close the connection or remote end gracefully close of socket (shutdown).
So we can use the function below to check connection state:
bool IsConnected(Socket socket)
{
try
{
if (socket == null) return false;
return !((socket.Poll(5000, SelectMode.SelectRead) && socket.Available == 0) || !socket.Connected);
}
catch (SocketException)
{
return false;
}
//the above code is short exp to :
/* try
{
bool state1 = socket.Poll(5000, SelectMode.SelectRead);
bool state2 = (socket.Available == 0);
if ((state1 && state2) || !socket.Connected)
return false;
else
return true;
}
catch (SocketException)
{
return false;
}
*/
}
Also the above check need to care about poll respone time(block time)
Also as said by Microsoft Documents : this poll method "can't detect proplems like a broken netwrok cable or that remote host was shut down ungracefuuly".
also as said above there is race condition between socket.poll and socket.avaiable which may give false disconnect.
The best way as said by Microsoft Documents is to attempt to send or recive data to detect these kinds of errors as MS docs said.
The below code is from Microsoft Documents :
// This is how you can determine whether a socket is still connected.
bool IsConnected(Socket client)
{
bool blockingState = client.Blocking; //save socket blocking state.
bool isConnected = true;
try
{
byte [] tmp = new byte[1];
client.Blocking = false;
client.Send(tmp, 0, 0); //make a nonblocking, zero-byte Send call (dummy)
//Console.WriteLine("Connected!");
}
catch (SocketException e)
{
// 10035 == WSAEWOULDBLOCK
if (e.NativeErrorCode.Equals(10035))
{
//Console.WriteLine("Still Connected, but the Send would block");
}
else
{
//Console.WriteLine("Disconnected: error code {0}!", e.NativeErrorCode);
isConnected = false;
}
}
finally
{
client.Blocking = blockingState;
}
//Console.WriteLine("Connected: {0}", client.Connected);
return isConnected ;
}
//and heres comments from microsoft docs*
The socket.Connected property gets the connection state of the Socket as of the last I/O operation. When it returns false, the Socket was either never connected, or is no longer connected.
Connected is not thread-safe; it may return true after an operation is aborted when the Socket is disconnected from another thread.
The value of the Connected property reflects the state of the connection as of the most recent operation.
If you need to determine the current state of the connection, make a nonblocking, zero-byte Send call. If the call returns successfully or throws a WAEWOULDBLOCK error code (10035), then the socket is still connected; //otherwise, the socket is no longer connected .
Can't you just use Select?
Use select on a connected socket. If the select returns with your socket as Ready but the subsequent Receive returns 0 bytes that means the client disconnected the connection. AFAIK, that is the fastest way to determine if the client disconnected.
I do not know C# so just ignore if my solution does not fit in C# (C# does provide select though) or if I had misunderstood the context.
Using the method SetSocketOption, you will be able to set KeepAlive that will let you know whenever a Socket gets disconnected
Socket _connectedSocket = this._sSocketEscucha.EndAccept(asyn);
_connectedSocket.SetSocketOption(SocketOptionLevel.Socket, SocketOptionName.KeepAlive, 1);
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/1011kecd(v=VS.90).aspx
Hope it helps!
Ramiro Rinaldi
i had same problem , try this :
void client_handler(Socket client) // set 'KeepAlive' true
{
while (true)
{
try
{
if (client.Connected)
{
}
else
{ // client disconnected
break;
}
}
catch (Exception)
{
client.Poll(4000, SelectMode.SelectRead);// try to get state
}
}
}
This is in VB, but it seems to work well for me. It looks for a 0 byte return like the previous post.
Private Sub RecData(ByVal AR As IAsyncResult)
Dim Socket As Socket = AR.AsyncState
If Socket.Connected = False And Socket.Available = False Then
Debug.Print("Detected Disconnected Socket - " + Socket.RemoteEndPoint.ToString)
Exit Sub
End If
Dim BytesRead As Int32 = Socket.EndReceive(AR)
If BytesRead = 0 Then
Debug.Print("Detected Disconnected Socket - Bytes Read = 0 - " + Socket.RemoteEndPoint.ToString)
UpdateText("Client " + Socket.RemoteEndPoint.ToString + " has disconnected from Server.")
Socket.Close()
Exit Sub
End If
Dim msg As String = System.Text.ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetString(ByteData)
Erase ByteData
ReDim ByteData(1024)
ClientSocket.BeginReceive(ByteData, 0, ByteData.Length, SocketFlags.None, New AsyncCallback(AddressOf RecData), ClientSocket)
UpdateText(msg)
End Sub
You can also check the .IsConnected property of the socket if you were to poll.
Im trying to connect to my router inside local network. I've used the TcpClient so far.
Check my code:
public static void RouterConnect()
{
TcpClient tcpClient = new TcpClient("192.168.180.1",23); <-- Timeout comes up here
tcpClient.ReceiveTimeout = 2000; // Not working
tcpClient.SendTimeout = 2000; // Also not working
NetworkStream nStream = tcpClient.GetStream(); <-- thought Timeout would raise here
// Further code here. But already tested while commented out.
// So everything else expect the code above shouldnt be relevant.
}
I would like to add a settings-form (router-ip/user/password). Therefore there could be a fail on the user-side where the user types in a not existing host-ip.
The current timeout is at about 20 seconds which is way too high. TcpClient.ReceiveTimeout and TcpClient.SendTimeout arnt the right timeouts to set as I already tried it. Google wasnt helping me out with this.
So, anyone knows how to set the timeout in the right way for this? I've read about async. connections which I wouldnt like to use. A cleaner 1-line-timeout-set would be nice. Possible?
Thanks very much!
Edit 1:
With a closer look while debugging I noticed, the timeout is already raising at the initialization of the tcpClient (as edited above in my code) not as I thought before at .GetStream().
EDIT SOLUTION:
As no one posted the working code from the solution I picked, here it is how its working:
public static void RouterConnect()
{
TcpClient tcpClient = new TcpClient();
if(tcpClient.ConnectAsync("192.168.80.1",23).Wait(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(2)))
{
NetworkStream nStream = tcpClient.GetStream();
}
else
{
MessageBox.Show("Could not connect!");
}
}
The only way i know is to use the Async methods.
There is a nice new async method in .Net 4.5 which returns a Task that you could Wait like this:
tcpClient.ConnectAsync().Wait(timeout)
It returns a false if it doesn't succeed.
Yeah the cleanest way I suppose would be to use the TcpClient.BeginConnect
method.
So you would have a asynchronous feedback whether you could connect to the endpoint or not.
Also see this:
Async Connect
The current constructor overloading method your using is also connecting and thus blocking you until it get connected.
Furthermore, There are no properties on TcpClient to control the TcpClient timeout.
From MSDN: TcpClient(String, Int32)
Initializes a new instance of the TcpClient class and connects to the
specified port on the specified host.
Alternative code from Social MSDN
using (vartcp = new TcpClient())
{
IAsyncResult ar = tcp.BeginConnect("192.168.180.1", 23, null, null);
System.Threading.WaitHandle wh = ar.AsyncWaitHandle;
try
{
if (!ar.AsyncWaitHandle.WaitOne(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(2), false))
{
tcp.Close();
throw new TimeoutException();
}
tcp.EndConnect(ar);
}
finally
{
wh.Close();
}
}
I have two applications, one connects to another via TCP Socket. I was having an issue and after a long troubleshooting I begun to think the root cause is due to the disconnection of the Socket, aka the Socket.state changes to Disconnected.
The reasons I came to above conclusion are just purely from reading the codes and analyze them. I need to prove that is the case and therefore my question is have you ever came accross this type of issue that the socket actually keep getting disconnected even after trying to connect to them?
Below is my Connect code, I have a loop that constantly check for the socket's state itself, if I detect the state is "Disconnected" I call this Connect() function again. Upon each and every time I call Connect() I noticed my socket state is back to Connected again.
So my questions are:
1. Have you seen this behavior yourself before?
2. Do you see any problem in me calling multiple Connect() again and again?
3. Is there a way to simulate this type of socket disconnections? I tried but I can't set the Socket.Connected flag.
public override void Connect()
{
try
{
sState = Defs.STATE_CONNECTING;
// send message to UI
string sMsg = "<Msg SocketStatus=\"" + sState + "\" />";
HandleMessage(sMsg);
// Create the socket object
sSock = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp);
string sIP = "";
// Define the Server address and port
if (Validate.IsIPAddress(sServer.ToString()))
{
sIP = sServer.ToString();
}
else
{
IPHostEntry iphost = Dns.GetHostEntry(sServer.ToString());
sIP = iphost.AddressList[0].ToString();
}
IPEndPoint epServer = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Parse(sIP), 1234);
// Connect to Server non-Blocking method
sSock.Blocking = false;
AsyncCallback onconnect = new AsyncCallback(OnConnect);
sSock.BeginConnect(epServer, onconnect, sSock);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
LogException(new Object[] { ex });
}
}
I have specified the ReceiveTimout as 40 ms. But it takes more than 500ms for the receive to timeout. I am using a Stopwatch to compute the timetaken.
The code is shown below.
Socket TCPSocket = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Stream,
ProtocolType.Tcp);
TCPSocket.ReceiveTimeout = 40;
try
{
TCPSocket.Receive(Buffer);
} catch(SocketException e) { }
You can synchronously poll on the socket with any timeout you wish. If Poll() returns true, you can be certain that you can make a call to Receive() that won't block.
Socket s;
// ...
// Poll the socket for reception with a 10 ms timeout.
if (s.Poll(10000, SelectMode.SelectRead))
{
s.Receive(); // This call will not block
}
else
{
// Timed out
}
I recommend you read Stevens' UNIX Network Programming chapters 6 and 16 for more in-depth information on non-blocking socket usage. Even though the book has UNIX in its name, the overall sockets architecture is essentially the same in UNIX and Windows (and .net)
You cannot use timeout values which are less than 500ms.
See here for SendTimeout: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.sockets.socket.sendtimeout
Even though MSDN doesn't state the same requirement for the ReceiveTimeout, my experience shows that this restriction is still there.
You can also read more about this on several SO posts:
Setting socket send/receive timeout to less than 500ms in .NET
WinSock recv() timeout: setsockopt()-set value + half a second?
I found this one:
Socket socket = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp);
IAsyncResult result = socket.BeginConnect( sIP, iPort, null, null );
bool success = result.AsyncWaitHandle.WaitOne( 40, true );
if ( !success )
{
socket.Close();
throw new ApplicationException("Failed to connect server.");
}
I am wondering whether I can set a timeout value for UdpClient receive method.
I want to use block mode, but because sometimes udp will lost packet, my program udpClient.receive will hang there forever.
any good ideas how I can manage that?
There is a SendTimeout and a ReceiveTimeout property that you can use in the Socket of the UdpClient.
Here is an example of a 5 second timeout:
var udpClient = new UdpClient();
udpClient.Client.SendTimeout = 5000;
udpClient.Client.ReceiveTimeout = 5000;
...
What Filip is referring to is nested within the socket that UdpClient contains (UdpClient.Client.ReceiveTimeout).
You can also use the async methods to do this, but manually block execution:
var timeToWait = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10);
var udpClient = new UdpClient( portNumber );
var asyncResult = udpClient.BeginReceive( null, null );
asyncResult.AsyncWaitHandle.WaitOne( timeToWait );
if (asyncResult.IsCompleted)
{
try
{
IPEndPoint remoteEP = null;
byte[] receivedData = udpClient.EndReceive( asyncResult, ref remoteEP );
// EndReceive worked and we have received data and remote endpoint
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
// EndReceive failed and we ended up here
}
}
else
{
// The operation wasn't completed before the timeout and we're off the hook
}
There is a ReceiveTimeout property you can use.
Actually, it appears that UdpClient is broken when it comes to timeouts. I tried to write a server with a thread containing only a Receive which got the data and added it to a queue. I've done this sort of things for years with TCP. The expectation is that the loop blocks at the receive until a message comes in from a requester. However, despite setting the timeout to infinity:
_server.Client.ReceiveTimeout = 0; //block waiting for connections
_server.Client.SetSocketOption(SocketOptionLevel.Socket, SocketOptionName.ReceiveTimeout, 0);
the socket times out after about 3 minutes.
The only workaround I found was to catch the timeout exception and continue the loop. This hides the Microsoft bug but fails to answer the fundamental question of why this is happening.
you can do like this:
udpClient.Client.SetSocketOption(SocketOptionLevel.Socket, SocketOptionName.ReceiveTimeout, 5000);