i have a TCP Client on a Raspberry Pi connecting to a network Printer:
sock = socket.socket(sockwt.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
sock.settimeout(5)
sock.connect((ip,port))
My Problem ist now that the socket stays open when I unplug the network cable or turn off the printer.
And sending data does not fail -
sock.send(data)
always returns the correct number of bytes
So i tried to add a keep alive
sock.setsockopt(socket.SOL_SOCKET, socket.SO_KEEPALIVE, 1)
sock.setsockopt(socket.IPPROTO_TCP, socket.TCP_KEEPIDLE, 1)
sock.setsockopt(socket.IPPROTO_TCP, socket.TCP_KEEPINTVL, 3)
sock.setsockopt(socket.IPPROTO_TCP, socket.TCP_KEEPCNT, 2)
but that changes nothing.
So why does the sock.send(data) not fail, when the server has died?
or: how can i make sock.send fail?
When I send data and the server has died, there should be no ACK. Why do I not get a information about that?
many thanks!
I am afraid that this is a TCP thing. You have a stream socket, and you asked for sending some bytes. A correct answer only means that the bytes could be sent but makes no guarantees for the peer receiving them. It is necessary because you could have a complex network with a number of switches and routers on the path.
Under normal circumstances, you should get an error at a time but possibly after sending some packets.
What could be done?
Some printer protocols have provision for commands close to Are You There? or Who Are You? that allow the client to ask the server for a message. That would be a robust way to make sure that the printer is ready.
I want to make a TCP Socket that doesn't connect to the host but instead sends data without connecting... Is that possible with the Python 3 Socket module?
TCP sockets always need to be connected before sending data. Establishing the connection involves an actual packet exchange with the peer, i.e. the TCP 3-way handshake. This is also means that the connect can fail if the target cannot be reached. This is not specific to Python but specific to how TCP sockets work.
With UDP a socket can be connected but does not need to be. Connecting a UDP socket essentially just sets the target on the local socket but does not involve any actual data transfer. This also means that the connect will usually not fail even but a later data transfer might not be able to reach the target.
I've written server and client programs with Python.
Server.py
import socket
sock = socket.socket (socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
host = socket.gethostname()
port = 5555
sock.bind((host, port))
sock.listen(1)
conn, addr = sock.accept()
data = "Hello!"
data = bytes(data, 'utf-8')
conn.send(data)
sock.close()
Client.py on Linux
import socket
sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
host = socket.gethostname()
port = 5555
sock.connect((host, port))
data = sock.recv(2048)
data = str(data, "utf-8")
print(data)
sock.close()
When I run the server and then the client on my local machine (a Linux Mint), it works correctly. I got "Hello!" in bash, and everything is fine. BUT when I ran my client program on another machine (a Windows 8) and ran it (previously I ran server on Linux, of course, and change IP address in client to my static Linux mint's IP) it says:
ConnectionRefusedError: [WinError 10061] No connection could be made
because the target machine actively refused it
client.py on Windows
import socket
sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
host = "here is my static ip"
port = 5555
sock.connect((host, port))
data = sock.recv(2048)
data = str(data, "utf-8")
print(data)
sock.close()
I must say that I had done port forwarding in my router settings on port 5555. Earlier, I had done same thing to port 80 and my own site worked correctly, but now it doesn't work to 5555 with Python sockets! Why? I can't get it! And one more thing: I tried to change the port to 80 in my server and client files, but it didn't work too. PLease, help.
You have to change the socket.gethostname() in the server script to the empty string (or just directly call socket.bind(('', port))).
Your problem is not in Python but in the usage of sockets generally. When you create a socket, you just prepare your process to receive/send some data from/to another process.
Server
The first step for creating a socket is to specify what kind of protocol will be used for communication between those processes. In your case it is the socket.AF_INET which is constant for use of IP protocol and the socket.SOCK_STREAM is specify reliable stream-oriented service. The reliable stream-oriented service means that you want to be sure that every single sent byte will be delivered to the other side and nothing can be lost during the communication (the underlying OS will use the TCP protocol for that). From this point we are using the IPv4 protocol (because we set the socket.AF_INET).
The second step is bind it to an address. The bind process assigns an address where you expect a client will join (with your socket's settings it's a IP address and the TCP port). Your PC has multiple IP address (well, at least two). It always has 127.0.0.1, which is called "callback" and works only when your applications communicate on the same PC (that is you Linux - Linux scenario in the question), and then you have your external IP address, for communication with other computers (let's pretend it is 10.0.0.1).
When you call socket.bind(('127.0.0.1', 5555)), you're setting the socket to listen only for communication from the same PC. If you call socket.bind(('10.0.0.1', 5555)), then the socket setting is ready to receive data targeted to the 10.0.0.1 address.
But what if you have 10 IPs or more and you want to receive everything (with the right TCP port)? For those scenarios you can leave the IP address in bind() empty, and it does exactly what you want.
With Python's version of bind(), you can also enter a "computer name" instead of the concrete IP. The socket.gethostname() call returns your computer's name. The problem is in the translation of "computer name" to the IP which Python performs behind your back. The translation has some rules but generally your "computer name" can be translated into any IP address which you have set on your computer. In your case, the your computer's name is converted into 127.0.0.1, and that's why communication works only between processes on the same computer.
After socket.bind(), you have the socket ready to use but it is still "inactive". The call to socket.listen() activates the socket and causes it to wait until it receives an attempted connection. When a socket receives a new connection request, it will put it into a queue and wait for processing.
That's what socket.accept() does. It pulls the connection request from the queue, accepts it, and establishes the stream (remember the socket.SOCK_STREAM when you set up the socket) between the server and the client. The new stream is actually a new socket, but is ready to communicate with other side.
What happened with the old socket? Well, it's still alive, and you can call socket.listen() again to get another stream (connection).
How is it possible to have multiple sockets on the same port?
Every connection within computer's network is defined by flow which is 5-item tuple of:
L4 protocol (usually TCP or UDP)
Source IP address
Source L4 port
Destination IP address
Destination L4 port
When you create a new connection with a client, the flow can look like this: (TCP, 192.168.0.1, 12345, 10.0.0.1, 55555). Just for clarification, the server's response flow is (TCP, 10.0.0.1, 55555, 192.168.0.1, 12345), but it isn't important for us. If you create another connection with a client, that it will differ at source TCP port (if you do it from another computer that it will differ also at the source IP). Only from this information you can distinguish every connection created to your computer.
When you create a server socket in your code and call socket.listen(), it listens for any flow with this pattern (TCP, *, *, *, 55555) (the * means "match everything"). So when you get a connection with (TCP, 192.168.0.1, 12345, 10.0.0.1, 55555), then socket.accept() creates another socket which works only with this one concrete flow while the old socket carries on accepting new connections which haven't yet been established.
When the operating system receives a packet, it looks in the packet and checks the flow. At this point, several scenarios can take place:
The packet's flow matches all 5 items exactly (without usage of *). Then the packet's content is delivered to the queue associated with that socket (you're reading the queue when you call socket.recv()).
The packet's flow matched socket with associated flow contains * then it is considered as new connection and you can call scoket.accept().
The operating system doesn't contain open socket which would match the flow. In that case the OS refuse connection (or just ignore the packet it depends on firewall settings).
Probably an example can clarify these scenarios. The operating system has something like a table where it maps flows to sockets. When you call socket.bind(), it will assign a flow to the socket. After the call, the table can look like this:
+=====================================+========+
| Flow | Socket |
+=====================================+========+
| (TCP, *, *, *, 55555) | 1 |
+-------------------------------------+--------+
When it receive a packet with flow (TCP, 1.1.1.1, 10, 10.0.0.1, 10) then it won't match any flow (last port won't match). So, the connection is refused. If it receives a packet with flow (TCP, 1.1.1.1, 10, 10.0.0.1, 55555), the packet is delivered to the socket 1 (because there is a match). The socket.accept() call creates a new socket and record in the table.
+=====================================+========+
| Flow | Socket |
+=====================================+========+
| (TCP, 1.1.1.1, 10, 10.0.0.1, 55555) | 2 |
+-------------------------------------+--------+
| (TCP, *, *, *, 55555) | 1 |
+-------------------------------------+--------+
Now you have 2 sockets for 1 port. Every received packet which matches the flow associated with the socket 2 also matches the flow associated with socket 1 (on the contrary, it does not apply). It's not a problem because the socket 2 has a preciser match (is doesn't use the *), so any data with that flow will be delivered to socket 2.
How to serve multiple connections
If you want to implement a "real" server, your application should be able to process multiple connections without restarting. There are 2 basic approaches:
Sequential processing
try:
l = prepare_socket()
while True:
l.listen()
s, a = socket.accept()
process_connection(s) # before return you should call s.close()
except KeyboardInterrupt:
l.close()
In this case, you can process only one client while others clients have to wait for accept. If the process_connection() takes too long, then others clients will timeout.
Parallel processing
import threading
threads = []
try:
l = prepare_socket()
while True:
l.listen()
s, a = socket.accept()
t = threading.Thread(target=process_connection, s)
threads.append(t)
t.start()
except KeyboardInterrupt:
for t in threads:
t.join()
l.close()
Now when you receive a new connection, it will create a new thread so that every connection is processed in parallel. The main disadvantage of this solution is that you have to solve common troubles with threading (like access to shared memory, deadlocks etc.).
Beware that the above snippets are only examples, and are not complete! For example, they don't contain code for graceful exit on unexpected exceptions.
Servers in Python
Python also contains a module called socketserver, which contains shortcuts for creating servers in Python. You can find examples of how to use it here.
Client
With the client, it's much more simpler than with the server. You just have to create a socket with some settings (same as server side), and then tell it where the server is (what its IP and TCP port are). This is accomplished through the socket.connect() call. As a bonus, it also establishes the stream between your client and server, so from this point you can communicate.
You can find more information about sockets at the Beej's Guide to Network Programming. It's written for usage with C, but the concepts are the same.
I was stuck with the same problem months ago and also wasn't able to do port forwarding. I found a way out of port forwarding Ngrock
For your information what Ngrock does is it is a useful utility to create secure tunnels to locally hosted applications using a reverse proxy. It is a utility to expose any locally hosted application over the web
For How To use it, please see the steps shown below :
If you are in Mac write this command in your terminal to download ngrock
brew install ngrok
For windows
choco install ngrok
After installing You need need to sign up on the Ngrok website
You will get your Ngrock authentication token then paste this command in the terminal
For Mac and Windows
ngrok config add-authtoken <token>
Now that Ngrock is all setup you can start a tunnel using
ngrok tcp <Your Port Number Used In Server.py>
ngrok tcp 5321
Note : Please Give the command inside the directory in which the Python Socket Server File in Located
That's it Your Socket can connect you any computer over the internet anywhere in the world
If You are still struggling to see the detailed explanation in this video
You can also refer ngrock documentation here
I'm currently working with python's socket library for the first time and i'm not very experienced with computer networking.
I'm able to connect to the server and the tcp handshake has happened as viewed by wireshark. After establishing a connection to the server(I have no control over the server), the connection stays open for a while, but after a small amount of time, the server sends a "FIN, ACK" and the connection is terminated. I'm trying to understand how I can keep this connection alive while the client is capable of reaching the server.
Looking at a tcp connection, it seems a packet can be sent every so often. Maybe a sort of keep alive message. I had thought using socket.send('hello') every 5 seconds in another thread would keep the connection with the server open, but I still get the "FIN, ACK" after some time.
In the documentation I found a setsockopt() but using this made no noticeable difference. I've tried client.setsockopt(socket.SOL_SOCKET, socket.SO_KEEPALIVE, 1) both before and after the connection is made. I don't completely understand how this method is supposed to work, so maybe I used it incorrectly. There isn't much mention of this. I read somewhere about it being broken on windows. I don't know the truth in that.
What am I missing? The documentation for sockets doesn't seem to have anything about this unless I may have missed something.
import socket
import time
import threading
SERVER_IP = 'THE SERVER'
SERVER_PORT = SERVER_PORT
SOURCE_IP = socket.gethostname()
SOURCE_PORT = 57004
KEEP_ALIVE_INTERVAL = 5
client = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
def keep_alive(interval):
data = 'hello'
while True:
client.send(data)
time.sleep(interval)
client.connect((SERVER_IP, SERVER_PORT))
t = threading.Thread(target=keep_alive, args = (KEEP_ALIVE_INTERVAL,))
t.start()
while True:
data = client.recv(1024)
if not data:
break
print data
client.close()
For enabling keep alive there is a duplicate question at How to change tcp keepalive timer using python script?
Keep in mind some servers and intermediate proxies forcibly close long lived connections regardless of keep alives being used or not, in which case you will see a FIN,ACK after X amount of time no matter what.
I have questions about the time limit for the tcp binding socket in server side.
In my survey, I found if the tcp client socket send the close message to the server, the client will enter to TIME_WAIT state last for 2 MSL.
If the client socket connect to server, but didn't send the close message. And it's also not send any data to server. Do the server side socket bind this socket continuously and not to close it forever until server down?
Is there a limited timeout for the tcp binding socket in the server side?
Thank you for your read and hopefully for your reply.
No there's no time limit. A connected socket stays connected until the connection is closed.
If you want to make sure that both ends of a connection is still alive, you could add such a "is alive" message to your protocol, and if the the other doesn't answer within some time limit you can close the connection. There is also the builtin functionality of SO_KEEPALIVE socket option which will handle this for you, but the default timeout is two hours for that.