C# UDP Server with multiple users - c#

Consider the code:
class UPDServer {
//start listener
public void start() {
UdpClient listener = new UdpClient(this._porta);
IPEndPoint ipEndPoint = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, 10000);
State s = new State();
s.listener = listener;
s.ipEndPoint = ipEndPoint;
// begin to listen again
listener.BeginReceive(new AsyncCallback(ReceiveCallback), s);
}
//receive data
public void ReceiveCallback(IAsyncResult ar)
{
// we got data
State s = (State)(ar.AsyncState);
Byte[] received = e.escuta.EndReceive(ar, ref e.ipEndPoint);
string text = ""; = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(received);
// ... do somenthing with text
// begin to listen again
s.listener.BeginReceive(new AsyncCallback(ReceiveCallback), e);
}
}
On the code above there is a time span between the EndReceive and the next BeginReceive that no one is listening, i think if there is a message in this time span it will be lost.
Well, i guess there isw some kind o buffer, but even so if the buffer fill up in the time span where no one is listening for messages, messages will be lost.
I remember someone saying that this could be solved very simple by calling BeginReceive on the same end point several times, so i tried this:
for( int x = 0; x < 5;x++) {
escuta.BeginReceive(new AsyncCallback(ReceiveCallback), e);
}
Oddly calling begin receive on the same socket does no throw errors but every time a message is received all five beginReceive fires and all five got the same message.
Is there any way to improve the code?

Firstly, there is no guarantee that you will get all your data when using UDP, so you have to make your code/protocol fault tolerant regardless.
Unless your processing is very intensive and you're expecting huge amounts of data to flood in you probably don't need to do things differently. Just add some error detection code so you will know if your code is failing to cope.
However, if you need to keep your receive loop fast, when you receive the data, copy it onto a queue for another thread to process so that you can begin reading again quickly. Or under some circumstances you may be able to write your end-receive so it can handle going re-entrant if several packets come in back to back.

Related

When I send a command to server from client , the client receives the response only if the request is sent twice

I am trying to send commands to the server , like for example requesting the server to send back the list of files in it's directory. The problem is that when I send the "list" command to the server, I have to send it twice in order for the server to send back the list of files to the client. I am sure that the server receives the command in both times as on the server side I print the result that is supposed to be sent to the client on the console and it appears both times.
I am using C# and TCPListeners to listen for incoming responses or commands, and TCPClient to send responses or commands between the server and the client.
The client code
private TcpListener tcpListener = new TcpListener(9090);
private void button3_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Byte[] bytesToSend = ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes("list");
try
{
TcpClient clientSocket = new TcpClient(serverIPFinal, 8080);
if (clientSocket.Connected)
{
NetworkStream networkStream = clientSocket.GetStream();
networkStream.Write(bytesToSend, 0, bytesToSend.Length);
// networkStream.Close();
// clientSocket.Close();
thdListener = new Thread(new ThreadStart(listenerThreadList));
thdListener.Start();
}
}
catch
{
isConnectedLbl.Text = "Server not running";
}
}
//Listener Thread to receive list of files.
public void listenerThreadList()
{
tcpListener.Start();
while (true)
{
handlerSocket = tcpListener.AcceptSocket();
if (handlerSocket.Connected)
{
Control.CheckForIllegalCrossThreadCalls = false;
lock (this)
{
if (handlerSocket != null)
{
nSockets.Add(handlerSocket);
}
}
ThreadStart thdstHandler = new
ThreadStart(handlerThreadList);
Thread thdHandler = new Thread(thdstHandler);
thdHandler.Start();
}
}
}
//Handler Thread to receive list of files.
public void handlerThreadList()
{
Socket handlerSocketList = (Socket)nSockets[nSockets.Count - 1];
NetworkStream networkStreams = new NetworkStream(handlerSocketList);
int requestRead = 0;
string dataReceived;
byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
//int iRx = soc.Receive(buffer);
requestRead = networkStreams.Read(buffer, 0, 1024);
char[] chars = new char[requestRead];
System.Text.Decoder d = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetDecoder();
int charLen = d.GetChars(buffer, 0, requestRead, chars, 0);
dataReceived = new System.String(chars);
Console.WriteLine(dataReceived);
MessageBox.Show(dataReceived);
//tcpListener.Stop();
thdListener.Abort();
}
The Server code:
TcpListener tcpListener = new TcpListener(8080);
public void listenerThreadCommands()
{
tcpListener.Start();
while (true)
{
handlerSocket = tcpListener.AcceptSocket();
if (handlerSocket.Connected)
{
Control.CheckForIllegalCrossThreadCalls = false;
connections.Items.Add(
handlerSocket.RemoteEndPoint.ToString() + " connected.");
// clientIP = handlerSocket.RemoteEndPoint.ToString();
lock (this)
{
nSockets.Add(handlerSocket);
}
ThreadStart thdstHandler = new
ThreadStart(handlerThreadCommands);
Thread thdHandler = new Thread(thdstHandler);
thdHandler.Start();
//tcpListener.Stop();
//handlerSocket.Close();
}
}
}
//Handler Thread to receive commands
public void handlerThreadCommands()
{
Socket handlerSocketCommands = (Socket)nSockets[nSockets.Count - 1];
NetworkStream networkStream = new NetworkStream(handlerSocketCommands);
int requestRead = 0;
string dataReceived;
byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
requestRead = networkStream.Read(buffer, 0, 1024);
char[] chars = new char[requestRead];
System.Text.Decoder d = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetDecoder();
int charLen = d.GetChars(buffer, 0, requestRead, chars, 0);
dataReceived = new System.String(chars);
//connections.Items.Add(dataReceived);
if (dataReceived.Equals("list"))
{
localDate = DateTime.Now;
Files = Directory.GetFiles(System.IO.Directory.GetCurrentDirectory())
.Select(Path.GetFileName)
.ToArray();
String FilesString = "";
for (int i = 0; i < Files.Length; i++)
{
FilesString += Files[i] + "\n";
}
String clientIP = handlerSocketCommands.RemoteEndPoint.ToString();
int index = clientIP.IndexOf(":");
clientIP = clientIP.Substring(0, index);
WriteLogFile(logFilePath, clientIP, localDate.ToString(), " ", "list");
Console.WriteLine(clientIP);
Console.WriteLine(FilesString);
Byte[] bytesToSend = ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes(FilesString);
try
{
WriteLogFile(logFilePath, clientIP, localDate.ToString(), " ", "list-response");
TcpClient clientSocket = new TcpClient(clientIP, 9090);
if (clientSocket.Connected)
{
NetworkStream networkStreamS = clientSocket.GetStream();
networkStreamS.Write(bytesToSend, 0, bytesToSend.Length);
networkStreamS.Close();
clientSocket.Close();
networkStream.Close();
//tcpListener.Stop();
// handlerSocketAuthenticate.Close();
}
}
catch
{
Console.WriteLine("Cant send");
}
}
else if (dataReceived.Equals("downloadfile"))
{
// handlerSocketAuthenticate.Close();
// tcpListener.Stop();
networkStream.Close();
thdListenerDownload = new Thread(new ThreadStart(listenerThreadDownloading));
thdListenerDownload.Start();
}
else
{
String clientIP1 = handlerSocketCommands.RemoteEndPoint.ToString();
int index = clientIP1.IndexOf(":");
clientIP1 = clientIP1.Substring(0, index);
// handlerSocketAuthenticate.Close();
CommandExecutor(dataReceived, clientIP1);
}
}
There are so many different things wrong with the code you posted, it's hard to know where to start, and it's impossible to have confidence that in the context of a Stack Overflow, one could sufficiently address all of the deficiencies. That said, in the interest of helping, it seems worth a try:
Sockets are bi-directional. There is no need for the client to use TcpListener at all. (By convention, the "server" is the endpoint that "listens" for new connections, and the "client" is the endpoint that initiates new connections, by connecting to a listening server.)You should just make a single connection from client to server, and then use that socket both for sending to and receiving from the server.
You are setting the CheckForIllegalCrossThreadCalls property to false. This is evil. The exceptions that occur are there to help you. Setting that property to false disables the exceptions, but does nothing to prevent the problems that the exceptions are designed to warn you about.You should use some mechanism to make sure that when you access UI objects, you do so only in the thread that owns those objects. The most primitive approach to this is to use Control.Invoke(). In modern C#, you are better off using async/await. With TcpClient, this is easy: you already are using GetStream() to get the NetworkStream object that represents the socket, so just use the asynchronous methods on that object, such as ReadAsync(), or if you wrap the stream in a StreamWriter and StreamReader, use the asynchronous methods on that object, such as ReadLineAsync().
You are checking the Connected property of the TcpClient object. This is pointless. When the Connect() method returns, you are connected. If you weren't, an exception would have been thrown.
You are not sufficiently synchronizing access to your nSockets object. In particular, you use its indexer in the handlerThreadList() method. This is safe when using the object concurrently only if you have guaranteed that no other thread is modifying the object, which is not the case in your code.
You are writing to the stream using ASCII encoding, but reading using UTF8 encoding. In practice, this is not really a problem, because ASCII includes only the code points 0-127, and those map exactly to the same character code points in UTF8. But it's really bad form. Pick one encoding, stick with it.
You are accepting using AcceptSocket(), but then just wrapping that in a NetworkStream anyway. Why not just use AcceptTcpClient() and call GetStream() on that? Both Socket and TcpClient are fine APIs, but it's a bit weird to mix and match in the same program, and will likely lead to some confusion later on, trying to keep straight which you're using where and why.
Your code assumes that the handlerThreadCommands() method will always be called in exactly the same order in which connections are accepted. That is, you retrieve the current socket with nSockets[nSockets.Count - 1]. But, due to the way Windows thread scheduling works, it is entirely possible that two or more connections could be accepted before any one of the threads meant to handle the connection is started, with the result that only the most recent connection is handled, and it is handled by those multiple threads.
You are assuming that command strings will be received as complete units. But this isn't how TCP works. TCP guarantees only that if you receive a byte, it will be in order relative to all the bytes sent before it. But you can receive any number of bytes. In particular, you can receive just a single byte, or you can receive multiple commands concatenated with each other, or you can receive half a command string, then the other half later, or the second half of one command and the first half of the next, etc. In practice, these problems don't show up in early testing because the server isn't operating under load, but later on they very well may be. And the code needs to be designed from the outset to work properly under these conditions; trying to patch bad code later is much more difficult.
I can't say that's the above are the only things wrong with the code, but they are most glaring, and in any case I think the above is sufficient food for thought for you at the moment.
Bottom line: you really should spend more time looking at good networking examples, and really getting to understand how they work and why they are written the way they do. You'll need to develop a good mental model for yourself of how the TCP protocol works, and make sure you are being very careful to follow the rules.
One resource I recommend highly is The Winsock Programmer's FAQ. It was written long ago, for a pre-.NET audience, but most of the information contained within is still very much relevant when using the higher-level networking APIs.
Alternatively, don't try to write low-level networking code yourself. There are a number of higher-level APIs that use various serialization techniques to encode whole objects and handle all of the lower-level network transport mechanics for you, allowing you to concentrate on the value-added features in your own program, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.

UDP Client after several send/receives stops receiving and blocks port

I'm trying to send and receive to/from a UDP multicast address using UWP. It works perfectly the first few times, but after a while of this send-receive process, it will lock on the receiving part. I changed from an async approach to a synchronous one but still the same. Even if I instantiate a new UDP client, the port is blocked until the app is restarted. Anything I'm doing wrong?
private UdpClient udp;
//inside main function:
if (udp == null)
{
udp = new UdpClient(new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, portNumber));
//^the second time this is called, it will complain about port reuse
udp.Client.ReceiveTimeout = udp.Client.SendTimeout = 3000;
//udp.Client.SetSocketOption(SocketOptionLevel.Udp, SocketOptionName.ReuseAddress, true);
//^invalid
}
//await udp.SendAsync(data, data.Length, , portNumber);
//I changed from async to synchronous in case it was the issue, but no.
udp.Client.SendTo(data, new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Parse(ipString), portNumber));
//the receive used to be async, too
byte[] receivedByte = new byte[udp.Client.ReceiveBufferSize];
try
{
udp.Client.Receive(receivedByte);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
udp.Client.Shutdown(SocketShutdown.Both);
udp = null; // added these, but port still blocked until restart
}
I'm using UWP, and there are methods on class library that aren't here.
After putting UdpClient in a using () statement instead of declaring it as a private field, and limiting its scope by putting it in a short async method, I am not having these problems anymore.

Delay in processing command from socket listener

I have a special socket listener, that works in it's thread. It's job to get commands from external program that updates database. When command comes on socket i am calling special method, that updates my application cache from database.
I have a problem, that is delay between sending command from external program and processing that command in my app (ASP .NET Application). Every day my app restarting at 4 a.m. and by the end of the day i have delay about 1-2 hours.
How i can reduce this delay?
You can find code of my listener below.
Thanks.
public delegate void OnECIGetCommand( string command );
public class ECIMain
{
protected Socket socket;
protected string ip;
protected int port;
private static ECIMain INSTANCE = null;
const int receivedDataSize = 250;
protected static byte[] buffer = new byte[ receivedDataSize ];
protected static StringBuilder sb;
protected static DoWorkEventHandler onCommand;
private ECIMain()
{
socket = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork,
SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp);
sb = new StringBuilder();
}
private void StartSocket()
{
sb.Clear();
socket.Listen(1);
socket.BeginAccept(null, receivedDataSize,
new AsyncCallback(AcceptReceiveDataCallback), socket);
}
private static void AcceptReceiveDataCallback(IAsyncResult ar)
{
// Get the socket that handles the client request.
Socket listener = (Socket)ar.AsyncState;
// End the operation and display the received data on the console.
byte[] Buffer;
int bytesTransferred;
Socket handler = listener.EndAccept(out Buffer,
out bytesTransferred, ar);
HandleBuff(bytesTransferred, Buffer);
// Create the state object for the asynchronous receive.
handler.BeginReceive(buffer, 0, receivedDataSize,
SocketFlags.None, new AsyncCallback(ReadCallback), handler);
}
private static void HandleBuff(int size, byte[] buff )
{
if (size > 0)
{
// There might be more data, so store the data received so far.
sb.Append(Encoding.ASCII.GetString(buff, 0, size));
// Check for end-of-file tag. If it is not there, read more data.
var content = sb.ToString();
int pos = -1;
if ((pos = content.IndexOf("</cmd>")) > -1)
{
// All the data has been read from the
// client.
pos += 6;
if( pos < content.Length )
content = content.Remove(pos);
var startPos = content.LastIndexOf("<cmd>");
if( startPos > -1 )
{
if (startPos > 0)
content = content.Remove(0, startPos);
BackgroundWorker worker = new BackgroundWorker();
worker.DoWork += onCommand;
worker.RunWorkerAsync(content);
}
sb.Remove(0, pos);
}
}
}
private static void ReadCallback(IAsyncResult ar)
{
// Retrieve the state object and the handler socket
// from the asynchronous state object.
Socket handler = (Socket)ar.AsyncState;
SocketError error;
// Read data from the client socket.
int bytesRead = handler.EndReceive(ar, out error );
if (error == SocketError.Success)
{
if (bytesRead > 0)
{
HandleBuff(bytesRead, buffer);
handler.BeginReceive(buffer, 0, receivedDataSize,
SocketFlags.None, new AsyncCallback(ReadCallback), handler);
}
else
{
handler.Disconnect(true);
INSTANCE.StartSocket();
}
}
else if (error == SocketError.Shutdown || error == SocketError.ConnectionReset)
{
INSTANCE.StartSocket();
}
}
public static string InitECI(int port, DoWorkEventHandler commandHandler)
{
if (INSTANCE == null)
{
INSTANCE = new ECIMain();
INSTANCE.port = port;
onCommand += commandHandler;
IPHostEntry ipHostInfo = Dns.GetHostEntry(Dns.GetHostName());
IPAddress ipAddress = ipHostInfo.AddressList
.FirstOrDefault(a => a.AddressFamily == AddressFamily.InterNetwork);
IPEndPoint localEndPoint = new IPEndPoint(ipAddress, port);
INSTANCE.ip = ipAddress.ToString();
try
{
INSTANCE.socket.Bind(localEndPoint);
}
catch (System.Net.Sockets.SocketException e)
{
if (e.SocketErrorCode == System.Net.Sockets
.SocketError.AddressAlreadyInUse)
{
//INSTANCE.socket.Bind(localEndPoint);
}
throw e;
}
INSTANCE.StartSocket();
}
return INSTANCE.ip;
}
public static void ShutDownECI()
{
if( INSTANCE.socket.Connected )
INSTANCE.socket.Disconnect(false);
INSTANCE.socket.Close();
}
}
When using the TCP Stack (either sending or receiving) one must look at the stack as it's own system, which is bullet proof and works very well... Most of these types of issues deal with the fact that the application layer is easily able to fire off as many async actions as it wants, but that doesn't mean the TCP Stack is going to be faster, especially if it's overwhelmed. What it means instead is that it will queue up and process tasks as it's able.
One of the symptoms of the stack being overwhelmed is the presence of many half session states visualized via the Netstat command. Anything that has the word "Wait" is an indicator of a half state. This occurs when one side posts a packet but the other doesn't respond right away. From there it's all downhill because TCP kicks in and attempts to keep the sessions alive by re-sending the same packet. Multiply this by the number of active sessions and the fact that TCP retries up to 10 times for each packet before timing out, you can see this is the last thing an overwhelmed stack needs.
Your situation could be that the network traffic is exceeding the capacity of the single Network adapter. This is usually solved by adding more network cards and using other means to do load balancing. One way is what they call DNS round robin and it's the least expensive. The other way is an F5 device.
Bottom line, it sounds like your network adapter is being overwhelmed.
Here's few things to check at both side of the wire.
Are all of the sockets being fully closed when the gig is up for each session?
Are you able to run a network monitor to review the overall loads... You typically want 60% or less utilization on any single network adapter.
If your loads are too high then you can talk to DNS folks about using round robin, and put in another card into the same server (it will have different address)
Sometimes it's due to lack of compression of the data being sent on the wire. You can investigate compression techniques too.
Sometimes switches go bad which give MAC-To-MAC connect-ability.
Improper router configuration can allow for re-tranmissions on the wire from different access points.
Incorrectly configured servers can also broadcast too much noise (total junk)
Wireless Access Points are notorious for going flaky they could be the source of noise too.
There's a lot to getting to the root of this type of issue, but hope that some of these ideas will help you.

TcpClient missing data

I am trying to write network part for my game in C# using System.Net.Sockets and TcpClient class.
Each update server is sending information to client.
All information is built into 2kb packets, so in 1 update 1-2-3-5-10 packets can be sent.
Client is checking information and if information has right format - then reading it.
Everything is working fine, until server starts trying to send too many packets.
When it happens client time to time is receiving packets with wrong data 1 of 20-50 packets usually.
For example, 1-2 packets for 1 update usually are received fine, 3-10 packets for update giving wrong data streams.
If I am starting several clients in 1 time, that should get same data streams from server - they get different numbers of success and fail data streams.
What am I doing wrong, and how can I evade this wrong data streams?
Am I just sending too much data in 1 ms and it is needed to send it over time?
This is the sending information:
TcpClient client;
public void SendData(byte[] b)
{
//Try to send the data. If an exception is thrown, disconnect the client
try
{
lock (client.GetStream())
{
client.GetStream().BeginWrite(b, 0, b.Length, null, null);
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);
}
}
This is the receiving information:
byte[] readBuffer;
int byfferSize = 2048;
private void StartListening()
{
client.GetStream().BeginRead(readBuffer, 0, bufferSize, StreamReceived, null);
}
private void StreamReceived(IAsyncResult ar)
{
int bytesRead = 0;
try
{
lock (client.GetStream())
{
bytesRead = client.GetStream().EndRead(ar); // просмотр длины сообщения
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{ MessageBox.Show(ex.Message); }
//An error happened that created bad data
if (bytesRead == 0)
{
Disconnect();
return;
}
//Create the byte array with the number of bytes read
byte[] data = new byte[bytesRead];
//Populate the array
for (int i = 0; i < bytesRead; i++)
data[i] = readBuffer[i];
//Listen for new data
StartListening();
//Call all delegates
if (DataReceived != null)
DataReceived(this, data);
}
It is main network code.
I don't know what you do with the data after you've received it, but it's quite possible that you're not reading all of the data from the connection. You have:
bytesRead = client.GetStream().EndRead(ar);
There's no guarantee that the number of bytes you've read are all of the bytes that the server sent. For example, the server could have sent 2,048 bytes, but when you called Read, there were only 1,024 bytes available. The rest of them are still "in transit." As the documentation for NetworkStream.Read says:
The Read operation reads as much data as is available, up to the number of bytes specified by the size parameter
You could be getting partial packets. If your DataReceived handlers assume that the data buffer contains a complete packet, then you're going to have problems.
To reliably read from a network stream, you need to know how much data you're supposed to read, or you need a record separator. Something has to make sure that if you're expecting a complete packet that you get a complete packet before you try to process it. Your code just checks to see if bytesRead is not 0. If it's anything else, you just pass it on. This is going to be a problem unless your DataReceived handlers know how to buffer partial packets.
On another note, you really don't need to lock the network stream. Unless you can have several threads reading from the same stream. And that would be disastrous. Ditch the lock. You don't need it.

Receive the latest UDP packet in C#

I'm using Unity to visualize a simulation where the data from the simulation is being sent to it via UDP packets from Simulink. The problem I'm having stems from the rate at which Simulink sends out UDP packets and the rate at which my script in Unity tries to receive data from the UDP client.
For my Unity script, I create a thread that executes a simple function with a while loop and sleeps for the same amount of time it takes for the client to timeout (which is arbitrarily set by me):
public void Start() {
// Setup listener.
this.mSenderAddress = IPAddress.Parse("127.0.0.1");
this.mSender = new IPEndPoint(this.mSenderAddress, 30001);
// Setup background UDP listener thread.
this.mReceiveThread = new Thread(new ThreadStart(ReceiveData));
this.mReceiveThread.IsBackground = true;
this.mReceiveThread.Start();
}
// Function to receive UDP data.
private void ReceiveData() {
try {
// Setup UDP client.
this.mClient = new UdpClient(30001);
this.mClient.Client.ReceiveTimeout = 250;
// While thread is still alive.
while(Thread.CurrentThread.IsAlive) {
try {
// Grab the data.
byte[] data = this.mClient.Receive(ref this.mSender);
// Convert the data from bytes to doubles.
double[] convertedData = new double[data.Length / 8];
for(int ii = 0; ii < convertedData.Length; ii++)
convertedData[ii] = BitConverter.ToDouble(data, 8 * ii);
// DO WHATEVER WITH THE DATA
// Sleep the thread.
Thread.Sleep(this.mClient.Client.ReceiveTimeout);
} catch(SocketException e) {
continue;
}
}
} catch(Exception e) {
Debug.Log(e.ToString());
}
}
Here, if the timeout / sleep time is greater than the difference in time that Simulink sends out a UDP packet, my visualization will fall behind the simulation because it will read the next packet that was sent out and not the last packet that was sent out. It is regarding the packets as a queue.
Is there anyway to just get data from the last packet received? I know that there is at least one way around this, because if I use a Rate Transfer Block set to an equal or greater sample time as the UdpClient timeout it will work; but I'd like to make it more robust than that.
Since my packets contain full information about the state of my simulation (position, orientation, time, etc...) it doesn't matter if I never use data from intermediate packets; so long as I get the most up-to-date data, which would be from the last packet.
UDP is unreliable and the packets are not guaranteed to be received in the same order they are sent. My suggestion is to use TCP or put some sort of sequence number in your packets headers and keep reading the UDP packets and only select the newest packets.

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