Boost.Asio - How to send a message to multiple clients - c++

I have been looking at a lot of Boost.Asio tutorials, especially this one:
TCP daytime server
After a server creates a tcp_connection with a client, it seems like the communication is only one-way between the server and that specific client. How can I make it so a server has the ability to relay client messages to all of the clients connected? Or even choose which clients to send messages to.

TCP create only connexion between the server and a specific client. You can use UDP connexion to broadcast message to several clients.
Like JTejedor says in comments, you can also create a TCP socket for each client.

Related

Questions about UDP requests in SOCKS5

I have couple of questions about the UDP requests in SOCKS5. I've already read this paper https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1928#section-7 and i'm trying to implement it in C++.
Questions:
Do i need to use the "UDP request header" in both sending and receiving?
Can i use something like "WSASendTo" from winsock2 to redirect packets trough the SOCKS5 server?
Do i need to use the "UDP request header" in both sending and receiving?
Yes. This is covered in the document section you linked to:
A UDP-based client MUST send its datagrams to the UDP relay server at the UDP port indicated by BND.PORT in the reply to the UDP ASSOCIATE request. If the selected authentication method provides encapsulation for the purposes of authenticity, integrity, and/or confidentiality, the datagram MUST be encapsulated using the appropriate encapsulation. Each UDP datagram carries a UDP request header with it:
...
When a UDP relay server decides to relay a UDP datagram, it does so silently, without any notification to the requesting client. Similarly, it will drop datagrams it cannot or will not relay. When a UDP relay server receives a reply datagram from a remote host, it MUST encapsulate that datagram using the above UDP request header, and any authentication-method-dependent encapsulation.
That means that both UDP datagrams sent by you to the SOCKS relay, and UDP datagrams you receive from the SOCKS relay, carry the same header.
Can i use something like "WSASendTo" from winsock2 to redirect packets trough the SOCKS5 server?
You can use WSASendTo() to send your own datagrams to the SOCKS relay, yes.
But, if by redirect you mean to make other applications' UDP sockets send/receive datagarms through the SOCKS relay without their knowledge, then no.

boost::asio::tcp two-way communication on a socket

I am using boost::asio, TCP communication and C++ to create a client and a server that talk over a TCP socket. I need both the client and the server to be able send and receive data to each other. I am able to make them communicate over a socket where the server is continuously sending some data and the client is continuously reading on the socket. It works.
Now for the other way communication : For client to send some data and the server to be able to read it, can I use the same socket for this? Or Do I need to use a separate socket? Is it possible to read and write on the same socket for two applications communicating over TCP?
A boost::asio based example to illustrate this will be great if available. But I am able to find examples which are about only one-way communications.
For client to send some data & server to be able to read it, can I use the same socket for this? Or Do I need to use a separate socket ? Is it possible to read and write on the same socket for two applications communicating over TCP ?
Yes. TCP is full duplex. Applications define the protocol of what/how messages are exchanged between client and server. Weather they do asynchronously or synchronously, TCP doesn't care.
The client server paradigm in tcp is one where the client initiates the connection and the server listens for incoming connections. Once tge connection is established, it is up to higher layer protocol like http to establish how data is exchanged. As far as tcp is concerned both client and server may send or receive data any way they choose. Tcp is full duplex.

Boost asio - udp server

I saw the official async udp server example from boost doc.
There you create a single udp socket, bind it to a local port and do something like this:
socket(ioService, boost::asio::ip::udp::endpoint(boost::asio::ip::udp::v4(), port))
socket.async_receive_from(buffer(data, max_length), senderEndpoint, boost::bind(&Request::HandleReceiveFrom, this,
boost::asio::placeholders::error,
boost::asio::placeholders::bytes_transferred));
How can I handle multiple concurrent udp connections from clients, because if I try to create another socket using
socket(ioService, boost::asio::ip::udp::endpoint(boost::asio::ip::udp::v4(), port))
i get bind errors because I already have a socket bound to the same port.
EDIT
I can send clients back responses using a different server source port but they will not recognize the response even though I sent the response back to the same client ip/client destination port.
UDP is a connectionless transport so the concept of connections is meaningless as far as UDP is concerned.
If you want to send data back to the originator of the message you'll need to keep a copy of the sender_endpoint returned in the async_receive_from callback and pass it back in the async_send_to.
This also assumes that the client is also polling/reading and expecting a reply. It need not listen on the same bound port as the server (you don't need to bind with UDP on the client side).
I recommend you have a read of Beej's guide to network programming to help you understand what's going on under the hood of boost ASIO. Boost ASIO complicates things a lot IMHO.
http://beej.us/guide/bgnet/output/html/singlepage/bgnet.html#sendtorecv
If your clients send their messages to the same port on your server then the only way to distinguish them is by the remote port or a combination of remote port and remote ip.
You create some sort of mapping from client-id (e.g. pair<remote_ip, remote_port>) to a dispatcher type (e.g map< pair<remote_ip, remote_port>, dispatcher>). This then it's up to you to make it threaded in order to support concurrent requests.
As it seems the solution can be to use the same socket for sending back responses to clients. Have a look at this question response: Use same udp socket for async receive/send

Find all clients in network

I'm writing client-server application and I need my server to find all clients in some network. I've already found some info here: Discovering clients on a wifi network, but I still don't understand how to implement this. Maybe somebody can say where I can find some code examples.
Thanks in advance.
PS. Working on c++, windows.
Generally TCP/IP is used as a communication protocol between client and server. For Windows platform Winsock library is used to implement TCP/IP. The server binds and listens on a port for incoming connections. Just like a webserver like stackoverflow listens by default on port 80 and then client (browsers) connects to it.
Here is a link to start. Here is sample
Normally all the client connects to server which listens on a well defined port. The server is only one hence the IP address and port is well know to all the client and hence they can connect to it.
In you case you want your server to have ablity to discover all the clients in the network. To achieve this the server needs to broadcast to network some message. The client will receive this message and will respond to the server that they are available on such IP and they can connect to server or provide additional information to server. Normally instead of broadcast, multicast is used which is limited broadcast. All the clients and server will subscribe to the multicast group which is a special kind of IP address. When server send a message to this multicast address all the client, which are subscribers of this address will receive this message and can respond back. Here is a sample
Edit: you can also use boost lib to implement multicast: sender eg., receiver eg.

SOCKS 5 and UDP (C/C++)

I know that SOCKS 5 supports UDP and I have been over the structure of the packets that are sent/received in negotiating with a SOCKS proxy.
The one thing I am not clear on is the procedure for setting up to register with a proxy to send/receive UDP packets.
Specifically, my biggest question is, "Is the connection to the SOCKS proxy that is used to negotiate a UDP associate relationship still made with TCP/IP?". In other words, "Do you end up using a TCP/IP socket to receive UDP packets routed through a SOCKS proxy?"
I would imagine that, if you used a TCP/IP connection to establish a pathway for UDP communication, you'd kind of be missing the whole point of establishing UDP communications. However, on the other hand, if the negotiation were made using UDP (and resulted in a UDP socket), then how would the relationship be terminated when your application is shutting down and no longer needs the proxy to "remember" you?
I have been all over the net looking for an example...but can't find anything. Any help (especially an example) would be appreciated.
https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1928
"A UDP-based client MUST send its datagrams to the UDP relay server at
the UDP port indicated by BND.PORT in the reply to the UDP ASSOCIATE
request"
but
"UDP association terminates when the TCP connection that the UDP
ASSOCIATE request arrived on terminates."
I actually tried using it once, but failed, because many "socks5" proxy
implementations don't actually support the complete protocol.
So I'd suggest to set up a working test case first (find an app which
would support socks5 udp proxy, and a proxy where it would actually work).
Then any network sniffer would tell you how it really works (if it does).