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C# Getting the IP Address of the client which the UDP server socket received data from

I have a very strange problem. I'm not able to find the IP Address of the client which my server receives data from. Below is my UDP Listener class.
The IPPacketInformation does not contain the IP. The clientEndPoint which I reference in my EndReceiveMessageFrom does neither.
When I
Console.Writeline(((IPEndPoint)clientEndPoint).Address);
I get the IP Address of the server. I have the server hosted on my own machine so I get my own IP Address. When I try to access clientEndPoint.remoteEndPoint it throws an error because the socket isn't connected (due to being UDP).
So basically, a client from an external IP is able to send data, but I can't answer the client since I'm not able to retrieve it's IP. Any help is appreciated!
public class UdpListener
{
private Socket s;
public byte[] ReceiveBuffer = new byte[2048];
public UdpListener()
{
s = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Dgram, ProtocolType.Udp);
s.SetSocketOption(SocketOptionLevel.IP, SocketOptionName.PacketInformation, true);
s.Bind(new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, 36200));
}
public void Listen()
{
try
{
EndPoint remoteEndPoint = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, 0);
s.BeginReceiveMessageFrom(ReceiveBuffer, 0, ReceiveBuffer.Length, SocketFlags.None, ref remoteEndPoint, Recv, s);
}
catch (Exception e)
{
Console.WriteLine(e.ToString());
throw;
}
}
private void Recv(IAsyncResult res)
{
try
{
Socket receiveSocket = (Socket)res.AsyncState;
EndPoint clientEndPoint = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, 0);
IPPacketInformation packetInfo;
SocketFlags flags = SocketFlags.None;
int udpMessageLength = receiveSocket.EndReceiveMessageFrom(res, ref flags, ref clientEndPoint, out packetInfo);
byte[] udpMessage = new byte[udpMessageLength];
Array.Copy(ReceiveBuffer, udpMessage, udpMessageLength);
Console.WriteLine(
"{0} bytes received from {1} to {2}",
ReceiveBuffer,
clientEndPoint,
packetInfo.Address
);
EndPoint remoteEndPoint = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, ((IPEndPoint)receiveSocket.LocalEndPoint).Port);
s.BeginReceiveMessageFrom(ReceiveBuffer, 0, ReceiveBuffer.Length, SocketFlags.None, ref remoteEndPoint, Recv, s);
//Process data
RaiseDataReceived(new ReceivedDataArgs(packetInfo.Address, ((IPEndPoint)clientEndPoint).Port, udpMessage));
}
catch (Exception e)
{
Console.WriteLine(e.ToString());
throw;
}
}
public delegate void DataReceived(ReceivedDataArgs args);
public event DataReceived DataReceivedEvent;
private void RaiseDataReceived(ReceivedDataArgs args)
{
DataReceivedEvent?.Invoke(args);
}
}
I've tried to disable my firewall but that does not help. I've also done Port Forwarding on my router thus I can receive data from external clients.
EDIT to clarify the problem:
Server hosted on my machine behind a NAT with public IP 214.214.214.214.
The client is another machine, behind another NAT with public IP 910.910.910.910.
The client sends a message to the server, server receives it and able to read the content. When server get the IPEndPoint of the client, the displayed IP is 214.214.214.214 (IP of the server, not the Client)
EDIT Maybe I should say that I wasn't able to receive messages from clients on external networks until I ordered a "Dynamic IP" from my ISP. Still can't get the public IP of the source.
EDIT When using Wireshark and sniff a packet sent from external client to my server I can see it's the wrong src IP as well. In the picture below the src IP is my server IP and not the IP of the client that sent the data.

After several days of reading everything I possibly could on routers, network and writing different examples of Receive, ReceiveFrom, ReceiveMessageFrom, BeginReceive, BeginReceiveFrom, BeginReceiveMessageFrom, and ReceiveAsync - I've solved my issue.
I changed my router. I can now get the source IP of the external client using a very old router. The router I was using before was a new Docsis 3.1.
Why it works with an old router, I don't know, but for some reason, the Docsis 3.1 changed the source IP to its own IP before letting the UDP message to my machine.

With using the UdpClient class you can actually retrieve the remote endpoint when receiving a message.
I have used a solution like the following to solve this task:
public void StartServer()
{
var udpServer = new UdpClient(new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, ConnectionInformation.DETECTION_PORT));
udpServer.BeginReceive(new AsyncCallback(detectionCallback), udpServer);
}
private void detectionCallback(IAsyncResult ar)
{
var client = (ar.AsyncState as UdpClient);
if (client.Client == null) return;
var endPoint = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, ConnectionInformation.DETECTION_PORT);
var bytes = client.EndReceive(ar, ref endPoint);
Debug.WriteLine($"Detection request from: {endPoint}");
}

Cannot capture received datagram with UdpClient

I'm trying to send a UDP command to a device and receive a UDP response from that same device. The sending works fine. I can see the datagram depart (via WireShark). I can also see the datagram return from the device (again, via WireShark). The turnaround time between command departure and response reception is about 15 milliseconds.
Code
Byte[] button_click(Byte[] command)
{
// Device exists at a particular IP address and listens for UDP commands on a particular port
IPEndPoint SendingEndpoint = new IPEndPoint(DEVICE_IP, DEVICE_PORT);
// Device always sends from port 32795 to whatever port the command originated from on my machine
IPEndPoint ReceivingEndpoint = new IPEndPoint(DEVICE_IP, 32795);
// Sending client
sendingClient = new UdpClient();
sendingClient.Connect(SendingEndpoint);
// Receiving client
receivingClient = new UdpClient();
receivingClient.Client.ReceiveTimeout = RECEIVE_TIMEOUT; // timeout after 4 seconds
receivingClient.Connect(receivingEndpoint);
// Send command and wait for response
Byte[] response = null;
try
{
sendingClient.Connect(DEVICE_IP, DEVICE_PORT);
sendingClient.Send(command, command.Length);
response = receivingClient.Receive(ref receivingEndpoint);
}
catch (SocketException e)
{
// If we timeout, discard SocketException and return null response
}
return response;
}
Problem
I cannot capture the received datagram in my application. When I run the above code, I get the following exception:
"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."
There are similar posts on StackOverflow, but none of them appear to address my situation. And I've verified that my packets are not being swept up in my firewall.
What am I doing wrong?

I solved the problem. The solution required two things:
The sending and receiving clients had to use the same local port
The sending client had to use an IPEndPoint declared with IPAddress.Any and the receiving client had to use an IPEndPoint declared with the exact IP address of my local machine
Code
// Create endpoints
IPEndPoint DeviceEndPoint = new IPEndPoint(DEVICE_IP, DEVICE_PORT);
IPEndPoint localEndPointAny = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, LOCAL_PORT); // helps satisfy point 2
IPEndPoint localEndPointExplicit = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Parse(GetLocalIPAddress()), LOCAL_PORT); // helps satisfy point 2
IPEndPoint incomingEndPoint = null; // Later populated with remote sender's info
// Create sending client
UdpClient sendingClient = new UdpClient();
sendingClient.ExclusiveAddressUse = false; // Going to use same port for outgoing and incoming (helps satisfy point 1)
sendingClient.Client.SetSocketOption(SocketOptionLevel.Socket, SocketOptionName.ReuseAddress, true); // helps satisfy point 1
sendingClient.Client.Bind(localEndPointAny); // Any outgoing IP address will do
// Create receiving client
UdpClient receivingClient = new UdpClient();
receivingClient.Client.ReceiveTimeout = RECEIVE_TIMEOUT; // 4000 milliseconds
receivingClient.ExclusiveAddressUse = false; // Going to use same port for outgoing and incoming (helps satisfy point 1)
receivingClient.Client.SetSocketOption(SocketOptionLevel.Socket, SocketOptionName.ReuseAddress, true); // helps satisfy point 1
receivingClient.Client.Bind(localEndPointExplicit); // Must explicitly give machine's outgoing IP address
The code for getting a local IP address can be found here.

If you use the sendingClient to receive, then you can get the proper message. The reason is that the IP is consisted of Host+Port+Protocol, when the sending point connect to the device and send the message, the device receive the Endpoint and the UDP paired with the sending Endpoint. When receive client try to receive the message, there is nothing happen since UDP is Peer to Peer, and the receive client's port must be different to the send client, as a result, receive client get nothing. The following is my sample code for your reference.
IPAddress address;
IPAddress.TryParse("127.0.0.1", out address);
IPEndPoint recPoint = new IPEndPoint(address, 13154);
// IPEndPoint sendPoint = new IPEndPoint(address, 9999);
UdpClient send = new UdpClient(9999);
send.Connect(recPoint);
Byte[] response = null;
Byte[] command = System.Text.Encoding.Default.GetBytes("NO one");
try
{
send.Send(command, command.Length);
response = send.Receive(ref recPoint);
}
catch(Exception ex) {
Console.WriteLine(ex.ToString());
}
According to Alex's answer, I update a full example code for reference.
using System;
using System.Threading;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Collections.Concurrent;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.IO;
using System.Net.Sockets;
using System.Text;
using System.Net;
namespace console
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
IPAddress address;
IPAddress.TryParse("192.168.14.173", out address);
IPEndPoint recPoint = new IPEndPoint(address, 13154);
IPEndPoint recAnyPoint = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, 13154);
IPEndPoint ipPoint = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Parse("192.168.14.174"), 13154);
// IPEndPoint sendPoint = new IPEndPoint(address, 9999);
UdpClient send = new UdpClient();
send.ExclusiveAddressUse = false;
// no need to use the low level socketoption
// send.Client.SetSocketOption(SocketOptionLevel.Socket, SocketOptionName.ReuseAddress, true);
send.Client.Bind(recAnyPoint);
send.Connect(ipPoint);
UdpClient receive = new UdpClient();
receive.ExclusiveAddressUse = false;
// receive.Client.SetSocketOption(SocketOptionLevel.Socket, SocketOptionName.ReuseAddress, true);
receive.Client.Bind(recPoint);
receive.Connect(ipPoint);
Byte[] response = null;
Byte[] command = System.Text.Encoding.Default.GetBytes("NO one");
try
{
send.Send(command, command.Length);
response = receive.Receive(ref ipPoint);
Console.WriteLine(System.Text.Encoding.Default.GetString(response));
}
catch(Exception ex) {
Console.WriteLine(ex.ToString());
}
}
}
}

Sending/receiving UDP packets on thousands of port numbers

I have a set of requirements for a client/server application as listed below:
1) Program sends a statuscheck message to a host which is listening on a predefined UDP port. This message is sent on a source port number given by the OS.
2) The program needs to listen on the source port number initiated in step 1 to receive the response from the remote host. The program therefore must listen on thousands of port at the same time.
3) This process needs to be done for thousands of hosts per minute
Below I've created a sample example that sends a large number of requests to an Echo Server to mimic this behaviour. The problem that I'm facing is that although I close each socket after receiving data from the remote host, after about 16,000 requests an exception is thrown saying system lacked sufficient buffer space or queue was full.
What would be a way to achieve such requirements?
public void SendChecks()
{
IPEndPoint ip = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Parse("1.1.1.1"), 7);
for (int i = 0; i < 200000; i++)
{
Socket _UdpSocket = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Dgram, ProtocolType.Udp);
stateobject so = new stateobject(_UdpSocket);
IPEndPoint sender = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, 0);
EndPoint tempRemoteEP = (EndPoint)sender;
_UdpSocket.Bind(tempRemoteEP);
string welcome = "Hello";
byte[] data = new byte[5];
data = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(welcome);
_UdpSocket.BeginSendTo(data, 0, data.Length, SocketFlags.None, ip, new AsyncCallback(OnSend), _UdpSocket);
//Start listening to the message send by the user
EndPoint newClientEP = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, 0);
_UdpSocket.BeginReceiveFrom(so.buffer, 0, so.buffer.Length, SocketFlags.None, ref newClientEP, new AsyncCallback(DoReceiveFrom), so);
}
}
private void DoReceiveFrom(IAsyncResult ar)
{
try
{
stateobject so = (stateobject)ar.AsyncState;
Socket s = so.sock;
// Creates a temporary EndPoint to pass to EndReceiveFrom.
IPEndPoint sender = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, 0);
EndPoint tempRemoteEP = (EndPoint)sender;
int read = s.EndReceiveFrom(ar, ref tempRemoteEP);
so.sb.Append(Encoding.ASCII.GetString(so.buffer, 0, read))
//All the data has been read, so displays it to the console.
string strContent;
strContent = so.sb.ToString();
Console.WriteLine(String.Format("Read {0} byte from socket" +"data = {1} ", strContent.Length, strContent));
s.Close();
s.Dispose();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
Console.WriteLine(ex);
}
}
private void OnSend(IAsyncResult ira)
{
Socket s = (Socket)ira.AsyncState;
Console.WriteLine("Sent Data To Sever on port {0}",((IPEndPoint)s.LocalEndPoint).Port);
s.EndSend(ira);
}
}

I think the best way to go in terms of performance and simplicity would be to simply use a single port number anywhere between:
1025 - 65553
Then when listening for thousands of messages from other peers they also send to a predefined known port number and you can process them asynchronously.
To listen to a known port number, in this case 60000:
mySocket.Bind(new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, 60000));
Also do not close the socket after each operation! Keep it open and re-use it.
Properly written it would be walk in the park for .Net and the OS to handle your requirements.

Sending data over UDP to a destination with multiple clients open

I am currently using this function to send data from the server to the clients
private static void send_message(string ip, string message)
{
byte[] packetData = System.Text.UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(message);
int port = 11000;
IPEndPoint ep = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Parse(ip), port);
Socket client = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Dgram, ProtocolType.Udp);
client.SendTo(packetData, ep);
}
But this would mean a destination IP/port can only have one client open to receive the data, because having two clients open would mean one client can retrieve data that was meant for another (if I'm correct).. how do I solve this?
Receiving function:
private static Int32 port = 11000;
private static UdpClient udpClient = new UdpClient(port);
public static void receive_threaded()
{
Thread t = new Thread(() =>
{
while (true)
{
IPEndPoint remoteIPEndPoint = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, port);
byte[] content = udpClient.Receive(ref remoteIPEndPoint);
if (content.Length > 0)
{
string message = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(content);
parseMessage(message);
}
}
});
t.Start();
}

1) You should implement some kind of protocol so that your server has a "well known" port to accept connections. Use this port to inform your client ANOTHER port where the client must connect. Use a different port for each client.
Your client conects to the server at 11000. Your server assigns a unique port for the client, let's say 11001 for the firts client. Then the server opens a connection at 11001. The client closes connection at 11000 and opens a new connection at 11001 to receive the data.
2) Why UDP?

I don't see why you need to open a new socket at all. You already have each client's address and port, from the first packet they sent you. Just send a packet to that address:port. I absolutely don't get the other suggestion of setting up extra ports either.

Socket.Bind and Connect using local addresses

To test my server/client application, where each client is known by its IP address, I created several network adapters (see How to Create a Virtual Network Adapter in .NET?). Both 192.168.0.10 and 11 now correspond to local ethernet adaptors (10 being the "real" one, 11 being a loopback adapter).
The client can Connect itself to the server as long as it doesn't Bind its socket to a specific address. But if it does, the server doesn't notice anything and a timeout occurs in the client (I want to use Bind as for security reasons the server automatically detects which client is connecting itself by looking at the IP address of the remote end point of the new connection: the server will drop the connection at once if it doesn't know the IP address - previously I was using several virtual machines, but it uses a lot more RAM and is less practical to use).
Here's the code in my server, listening eg on 192.168.0.10:1234
IPEndPoint myEP = new IPEndPoint(myAddress, myPort);
Socket listeningSocket = new Socket(myAddress.AddressFamily, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp);
listeningSocket.Bind(myEP);
listeningSocket.Listen(50);
Socket acceptedSocket = listeningSocket.Accept();
Here's the code in my client, binding eg to 192.168.0.11 (any port) and connecting to 192.168.0.10:1234
Socket socket = new Socket(svrAddress.AddressFamily, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp);
socket.Bind(new IPEndPoint(myAddress, 0)); // Bind to local address using automatic port
socket.Connect(new IPEndPoint(svrAddress, svrPort)); // Works fine without Bind, timeout with Bind
I've tried the same using the corresponding IPv6 addresses but I get the exact same result.
If I Bind the client on the same address (using a different port than the server), it works fine.
Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
EDIT Here is my test projects (it might be useful to someone)
Server part:
using System;
using System.Net;
using System.Net.Sockets;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace Server
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
IPAddress[] ips = Dns.GetHostEntry(Dns.GetHostName()).AddressList;
string line = string.Empty;
while (line != "q")
{
// Gets the IP address to listen on.
Console.WriteLine("IP to listen on:");
int count = 0;
foreach (IPAddress ip in ips)
Console.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", ++count, ip.ToString());
string numString = Console.ReadLine();
int pos = Convert.ToInt32(numString) - 1;
IPAddress myAddress = ips[pos]; // Removing or not the scope ID doesn't change anything as "localEndPoint" below will contain it no matter what
// Binds and starts listening.
IPEndPoint myEP = new IPEndPoint(myAddress, 12345);
Socket listeningSocket = new Socket(myAddress.AddressFamily, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp);
listeningSocket.Bind(myEP);
listeningSocket.Listen(50);
IPEndPoint localEndPoint = (IPEndPoint)listeningSocket.LocalEndPoint;
Console.WriteLine("Listening on {0}:{1}", localEndPoint.Address, localEndPoint.Port);
Task.Factory.StartNew(() =>
{
try
{
// Accepts new connections and sends some dummy byte array, then closes the socket.
Socket acceptedSocket = listeningSocket.Accept();
IPEndPoint remoteEndPoint = (IPEndPoint)acceptedSocket.RemoteEndPoint;
Console.WriteLine("Accepted connection from {0}:{1}.", remoteEndPoint.Address, remoteEndPoint.Port);
acceptedSocket.Send(new byte[] { 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 });
acceptedSocket.Close(5000);
Console.WriteLine("-= FINISHED =- Type q to quit, anything else to continue");
}
catch (Exception ex)
{ }
});
line = Console.ReadLine();
// Closes the listening socket.
listeningSocket.Close();
}
}
}
}
Client part
using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Net;
using System.Net.Sockets;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace Client
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
IPAddress[] ips = Dns.GetHostEntry(Dns.GetHostName()).AddressList;
string line = string.Empty;
while (line != "q")
{
// Gets the IP address to connect to (removes the "scope ID" if it's an IPv6).
Console.WriteLine("IP to connect to:");
int count = 0;
foreach (IPAddress ip in ips)
Console.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", ++count, ip.ToString());
string numString = Console.ReadLine();
int pos = Convert.ToInt32(numString) - 1;
IPAddress svrAddress = ips[pos].AddressFamily == AddressFamily.InterNetworkV6
? new IPAddress(ips[pos].GetAddressBytes())
: ips[pos];
Console.WriteLine("Connecting to " + svrAddress);
// Gets the IP address to bind on (can chose "none" - also removes the "scope ID" if it's an IPv6).
Console.WriteLine("IP to bind to:");
Console.WriteLine("0: none");
count = 0;
IPAddress[] filteredIps = ips.Where(i => i.AddressFamily == svrAddress.AddressFamily).ToArray();
foreach (IPAddress ip in filteredIps)
Console.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", ++count, ip.ToString());
numString = Console.ReadLine();
pos = Convert.ToInt32(numString) - 1;
IPEndPoint localEndPoint = (pos == -1)
? null
: new IPEndPoint(
filteredIps[pos].AddressFamily == AddressFamily.InterNetworkV6
? new IPAddress(filteredIps[pos].GetAddressBytes())
: filteredIps[pos]
, 0);
Console.WriteLine("Binding to " + (localEndPoint == null ? "none" : localEndPoint.Address.ToString()));
// Binds to an address if we chose to.
Socket socket = new Socket(svrAddress.AddressFamily, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp);
if (localEndPoint != null)
socket.Bind(localEndPoint);
Task.Factory.StartNew(() =>
{
try
{
// Connects to the server and receives the dummy byte array, then closes the socket.
socket.Connect(new IPEndPoint(svrAddress, 12345));
IPEndPoint remoteEndPoint = (IPEndPoint)socket.RemoteEndPoint;
Console.WriteLine("Connected to {0}:{1}", remoteEndPoint.Address, remoteEndPoint.Port);
byte[] buffer = new byte[10];
Console.WriteLine((socket.Receive(buffer) == buffer.Length) ? "Received message" : "Incorrect message");
socket.Close();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
// An exception occured: should be a SocketException due to a timeout if we chose to bind to an address.
Console.WriteLine("ERROR: " + ex.ToString());
}
Console.WriteLine("-= FINISHED =- Type q to quit, anything else to continue");
});
line = Console.ReadLine();
}
}
}
}

Actually it was a configuration issue with my network adapters and it has to do with "Weak and Strong Host model".
From what I've read ( Using a specific network interface for a socket in windows ) binding on Windows previous to Vista would only work for incoming traffic, and it wouldn't do anything for outgoing traffic.
Starting with Vista it's possible but by default it won't work: you need to allow the "weak host model" using
netsh interface ipv4 set interface "loopback" weakhostreceive=enabled
netsh interface ipv4 set interface "loopback" weakhostsend=enabled
See https://web.archive.org/web/20150402200610/http://blog.loadbalancer.org/direct-server-return-on-windows-2008-using-loopback-adpter/ for more info.
EDIT
Actually, instead of creating several loopback adapters and changing their host model, it's a lot better and easier to just create one loopback adapter, give it several IP addresses on a different network than your real IP, and then only use those IPs for your test. That way there's no routing issue, and you're sure everything stays local (as there's no routing between the real and loopback adapter).

Use below code in the server for binding the connection on all the interface on the same port.
// Binds and starts listening.
IPEndPoint myEP = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, 12345);