Non blocking WebSocket Server with POCO C++ - c++

I'm trying to build a WebSocket server with POCO.
My Server should send data to the client and all the time within a time intervall. And when the client sends some data, the sever should manipulate the data it send to the client.
My handleRequest method within my WebSocketRequestHandler:
void handleRequest(HTTPServerRequest& request, HTTPServerResponse& response)
{
WebSocket ws(request, response);
char buffer[1024];
int flags = 0;
int n = 0;
do {
// recieving message
n = ws.receiveFrame(buffer, sizeof(buffer), flags);
// ... do stuff with the message
// sending message
char* msg = (char *) "Message from server"; // actually manipulated, when message recieved
n = sizeof(msg);
ws.sendFrame(msg, strlen(msg), WebSocket::FRAME_TEXT);
sleep(1); // time intervall sending messages
} while (n > 0 || (flags & WebSocket::FRAME_OP_BITMASK) != WebSocket::FRAME_OP_CLOSE);
}
The problem is, that the method get stucked in we.recieveFrame() until it gets a frame.
So how can i solve this, that receiveFrame() is not blocking the loop.
Is the a better way to solve this complete problem?
Thanks.

You should set a receive timeout.
ws.setReceiveTimeout(timeout);
So, you will get a Poco::TimeoutException each timeout microseconds and you can do all you need, included send data by that websocket.
ws.setReceiveTimeout(1000000);//a second
do{
try{
int n = ws.receiveFrame(buffer, sizeof(buffer), flags);
//your code to manipulate the buffer
}
catch(Poco::TimeoutException&){
....
}
//your code to execute each second and/or after receive a frame
} while (condition);

Use a std::thread or pthread and call the blocking function in the thread's function

Related

C++ ZMQ Pub and Sub not connecting

I am currently working on a project that requires me to connect two terminals via ZMQ sockets, and my current solution does so via the PUB-SUB Socket functionality. However, when I run the programs, while the publisher sends the messages, the subscriber never receives any of the messages. I've tried changing the IP address between them, and trying to "brute force send" message between the sub and the pub, but to no avail.
Reduced form of the code:
Server.cpp:
#include <zmq.h>
const char* C_TO_S = "tcp://127.0.0.1:5557";
const char* S_TO_C = "tcp://127.0.0.1:5558";
int main() {
zmq::context_t context(1);
zmq::socket_t pub(context, ZMQ_PUB);
zmq::socket_t sub(context, ZMQ_SUB);
int sndhwm = 0;
sub.connect(C_TO_S);
pub.bind(S_TO_C);
sub.setsockopt(ZMQ_SUBSCRIBE, &sndhwm, sizeof(sndhwm));
//cout << C_TO_S << endl;
while(true) {
zmq::message_t rx_msg;
sub.recv(&rx_msg);
cout << "b\n";
// other code goes here
}
}
Client.cpp:
#incldue <zmq.h>
const char* C_TO_S = "tcp://127.0.0.1:5557";
const char* S_TO_C = "tcp://127.0.0.1:5558";
void network_thread() {
zmq::context_t context(1);
zmq::socket_t pub(context, ZMQ_PUB);
zmq::socket_t sub(context, ZMQ_SUB);
int sndhwm = 0;
sub.connect(S_TO_C);
pub.connect(C_TO_S);
sub.setsockopt(ZMQ_SUBSCRIBE, &sndhwm, sizeof(sndhwm));
while (true) {
cout << pub.send("a", strlen("a"), 0);
cout << "AA\n";
}
// Other code that doesn't matter
}
The main in Client.cpp calls network_thread in a separate thread, and then spams the publisher to send the message "a" to the server. However, the server does not get any message from the client. If the server got any message, it would print out "b", however it never does that. I also know that the publisher is sending messages because it prints out "1" upon execution.
Also, assume that the client subscriber and the server publisher has a purpose. While they don't work atm either, a fix to the other set should translate into a fix of those.
I have tried changing the port, spamming send messages, etc. Nothing resulted in the server receiving any messages.
Any help would be appreciated, thank you.
You set a message filter option on the SUB socket. This means that you will only receive messages that begin with the bytes set by the filter.
This code:
int sndhwm = 0;
sub.setsockopt(ZMQ_SUBSCRIBE, &sndhwm, sizeof(sndhwm));
Sets the filter to sizeof(sndhwm) bytes with value 0x00. But your message does not begin with this number of 0x00 bytes. Hence the message is ignored by the SUB socket.
You should remove the setsockopt call.
If your intent was to clear the message filter, you can do this with:
sub.setsockopt(ZMQ_SUBSCRIBE, nullptr, 0);

ZMQ_HEARTBEAT_TTL does not discard outgoing queue even if ZMQ_LINGER is set

I have a server which uses a ZMQ_ROUTER to communicate with ZMQ_DEALER clients. I set the ZMQ_HEARTBEAT_IVL and ZMQ_HEARTBEAT_TTL options on the client socket to make the client and server ping pong each other. Beside, because of the ZMQ_HEARTBEAT_TTL option, the server will timeout the connection if it does not receive any pings from the client in a time period, according to zmq man page:
The ZMQ_HEARTBEAT_TTL option shall set the timeout on the remote peer for ZMTP heartbeats. If
this option is greater than 0, the remote side shall time out the connection if it does not
receive any more traffic within the TTL period. This option does not have any effect if
ZMQ_HEARTBEAT_IVL is not set or is 0. Internally, this value is rounded down to the nearest
decisecond, any value less than 100 will have no effect.
Therefore, what I expect the server to behave is that, when it does not receive any traffic from a client in a time period, it will close the connection to that client and discard all the messages in the outgoing queue after the linger time expires. I create a toy example to check if my hypothesis is correct and it turns out that it is not. The chain of events is as followed:
The server sends a bunch of data to the client.
The client receives and processes the data, which is slow.
All send commands return successfully.
While the client is still receiving the data, I unplug the internet cable.
After a few seconds (set by the ZMQ_HEARTBEAT_TTL option), the server starts sending FIN signals to the client, which are not being ACKed back.
The outgoing messages are not discarded (I check the memory consumption) even after a while. They are discarded only if I call zmq_close on the router socket.
So my question is, is this suppose to be how one should use the ZMQ heartbeat mechanism? If it is not then is there any solution for what I want to achieve? I figure that I can do heartbeat myself instead of using ZMQ's built in. However, even if I do, it seems that ZMQ does not provide a way to close a connection between a ZMQ_ROUTER and a ZMQ_DEALER, although that another version of ZMQ_ROUTER - ZMQ_STREAM provides a way to do this by sending an identity frame followed by an empty frame.
The toy example is below, any help would be thankful.
Server's side:
#include <zmq.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
void *context = zmq_ctx_new();
void *router = zmq_socket(context, ZMQ_ROUTER);
int router_mandatory = 1;
zmq_setsockopt(router, ZMQ_ROUTER_MANDATORY, &router_mandatory, sizeof(router_mandatory));
int hwm = 0;
zmq_setsockopt(router, ZMQ_SNDHWM, &hwm, sizeof(hwm));
int linger = 3000;
zmq_setsockopt(router, ZMQ_LINGER, &linger, sizeof(linger));
char bind_addr[1024];
sprintf(bind_addr, "tcp://%s:%s", argv[1], argv[2]);
if (zmq_bind(router, bind_addr) == -1) {
perror("ERROR");
exit(1);
}
// Receive client identity (only 1)
zmq_msg_t identity;
zmq_msg_init(&identity);
zmq_msg_recv(&identity, router, 0);
zmq_msg_t dump;
zmq_msg_init(&dump);
zmq_msg_recv(&dump, router, 0);
printf("%s\n", (char *) zmq_msg_data(&dump)); // hello
zmq_msg_close(&dump);
char buff[1 << 16];
for (int i = 0; i < 50000; ++i) {
if (zmq_send(router, zmq_msg_data(&identity),
zmq_msg_size(&identity),
ZMQ_SNDMORE) == -1) {
perror("ERROR");
exit(1);
}
if (zmq_send(router, buff, 1 << 16, 0) == -1) {
perror("ERROR");
exit(1);
}
}
printf("OK IM DONE SENDING\n");
// All send commands have returned successfully
// While the client is still receiving data, I unplug the intenet cable on the client machine
// After a while, the server starts sending FIN signals
printf("SLEEP before closing\n"); // At this point, the messages are not discarded (memory usage is high).
getchar();
zmq_close(router);
zmq_ctx_destroy(context);
}
Client's side:
#include <zmq.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
void *context = zmq_ctx_new();
void *dealer = zmq_socket(context, ZMQ_DEALER);
int heartbeat_ivl = 3000;
int heartbeat_timeout = 6000;
zmq_setsockopt(dealer, ZMQ_HEARTBEAT_IVL, &heartbeat_ivl, sizeof(heartbeat_ivl));
zmq_setsockopt(dealer, ZMQ_HEARTBEAT_TIMEOUT, &heartbeat_timeout, sizeof(heartbeat_timeout));
zmq_setsockopt(dealer, ZMQ_HEARTBEAT_TTL, &heartbeat_timeout, sizeof(heartbeat_timeout));
int hwm = 0;
zmq_setsockopt(dealer, ZMQ_RCVHWM, &hwm, sizeof(hwm));
char connect_addr[1024];
sprintf(connect_addr, "tcp://%s:%s", argv[1], argv[2]);
zmq_connect(dealer, connect_addr);
zmq_send(dealer, "hello", 6, 0);
size_t size = 0;
int i = 0;
while (size < (1ll << 16) * 50000) {
zmq_msg_t msg;
zmq_msg_init(&msg);
if (zmq_msg_recv(&msg, dealer, 0) == -1) {
perror("ERROR");
exit(1);
}
size += zmq_msg_size(&msg);
printf("i = %d, size = %ld, total = %ld\n", i, zmq_msg_size(&msg), size); // This causes the cliet to be slow
// Somewhere in this loop I unplug the internet cable.
// The client starts sending FIN signals as well as trying to reconnect. The recv command hangs forever.
zmq_msg_close(&msg);
++i;
}
zmq_close(dealer);
zmq_ctx_destroy(context);
}
PS: I know that setting the highwater mark to unlimited is bad practice, however I figure that the problem will be the same even if the highwater mark is low so let's ignore it for now.

Not all data is transfered via Socket

I can't send too large data packets over my setup (currently sending to 127.0.0.1), at about 30kB this functionality starts to fail. For testing I have an application that just starts a Receiver and a Sender, starts two threads, one for the sending, one for receiving, and when both have finished, compares if the sending string is the same as the received string.
void SenderThread(int count)
{
messageOut = "";
messageOut.append(count, 'A');
sender->sendData(messageOut);
}
void ReceivingThread()
{
receiver->ReceiveData(message);
}
main()
{
receiver = new utility::Receiver();
sender = new utility::Sender();
receiver->startSocket(9000);
sender->connectToSocket("127.0.0.1", 9000);
receiver->accept();
for (int count = 100; count < 1024 * 1024; count += 100)
{
std::thread sendThread(SenderThread, count);
std::thread recvThread(ReceivingThread);
sendThread.join();
recvThread.join();
printf("Sent data of length %d ", messageOut.length());
if (message == messageOut)
printf("successfully.\n");
else
{
printf("not successfully.\n");
printf("Length of original message: %d, Length of received message: %d.\n", messageOut.length(), message.length());
break;
}
}
delete receiver;
delete sender;
}
I have following code for my sending socket:
bool utility::Sender::sendData(const std::string & message)
{
int numBytes = 0;
int totalSent = 0;
// Break condition: send() fails, or whole message was transfered
while (totalSent < message.length() && send(message.substr(totalSent).c_str(), message.length() - totalSent, numBytes))
{
totalSent += numBytes;
}
return false;
}
bool utility::Sender::send(const char* pBuffer, int32_t lengthOfBuffer, int32_t &numBytes)
{
numBytes = ::send(connectSocket, pBuffer, lengthOfBuffer, 0);
if (numBytes == SOCKET_ERROR)
return false;
return true;
}
The receiving side:
bool utility::Receiver::ReceiveData(std::string& message)
{
int32_t numBytes = 0;
char data[defaultBufferLength];
// Set to blocking for the first data package
u_long iMode = 0;
ioctlsocket(tcpSocket, FIONBIO, &iMode);
bool success = receive(data, defaultBufferLength, numBytes);
message = std::string(data, numBytes);
// Set to non-blocking for the rest of the journey
iMode = 1;
ioctlsocket(tcpSocket, FIONBIO, &iMode);
while (numBytes == defaultBufferLength && receive(data, defaultBufferLength, numBytes))
{
message.append(data, numBytes);
}
return success;
}
bool utility::Receiver::receive(char* pBuffer, int32_t lengthOfBuffer, int32_t& numBytes)
{
int32_t flags = 0;
numBytes = recv(tcpSocket, pBuffer, lengthOfBuffer, flags);
if (numBytes == -1)
{
numBytes = 0;
if (errno == EAGAIN || errno == EWOULDBLOCK)
return false;
else
close();
}
return true;
}
The output I am getting is
Sent data of length 39200 successfully.
Sent data of length 39300 successfully.
Sent data of length 39400 successfully.
Sent data of length 39500 successfully.
Sent data of length 39600 successfully.
Sent data of length 39700 successfully.
Sent data of length 39800 successfully.
Sent data of length 39900 successfully.
Sent data of length 40000 successfully.
Sent data of length 40100 successfully.
Sent data of length 40200 successfully.
Sent data of length 40300 successfully.
Sent data of length 40400 successfully.
Sent data of length 40500 not successfully.
Length of original message: 40500, Length of received message: 29200.
The thing which is the most irritating, and probably the cause of this, is the ::send(...). I can give it 2 MB of char*, and it will just send it in one swoop (but the receiver fails miserably). What can I do about that?
TCP is a byte-oriented protocol, not message oriented.
send does not create a message. recv does not receive a message. They work on blocks of bytes, and multiple send calls can be combined at the network layer (for efficiency) or broken into multiple TCP packets. In practice, even if you turn off Nagle's algorithm, if a frame is lost at the physical layer and TCP has to retry the transmission, the retransmit will include as much data added to the buffer afterward as it can fit in an outgoing datagram.
So you can't rely on any particular mapping between send calls and recv calls. The only guarantee is that the bytes are delivered to your socket in the same order they were sent. If boundaries are important, you have to create them yourself. Length prefixes are popular in combination with TCP, special framing sequences less so.
You do already have a loop for reassembling messages... but you break out of the loop when you see EAGAIN / EWOULDBLOCK or a partly filled buffer, and continue processing. That's a problem, because you only have a partial message at that point. You need a way to delay processing until you have a complete message.
Adding to ben-voigt answer, you need to create an higher level message system for your socket, so you can send to the server the message size and on your socket receive method create a session or buffer storage that you append the received data till the message size match the total data received, once that requirement is met then you can process the data

Two programs blocking each other while communicating in local loop

I've programmed a simple c++ client which should communicate with another program using a listener thread (a downloaded EchoServer in Java) over the local loop on Ubuntu 14.04. However, there's a problem in the following situation:
Client connects to server
Server sends greeting message
Client receives message and sends a new message to server
Client waits for an answer; the main thread sleeps and the listener thread waits for an answer using recv()
In the next step, the server should receive the message sent by the server, but it doesn't. Instead it first receives the message once the client terminates.
I think that the problem is that the client blocks resources and thus not allowing the server to receive the message, but I'm not sure. Unfortunately I don't have the option to test this on two separate machines.
Code snippets:
// main method
int main(void) {
Client client("127.0.0.1", 13050);
std::cout << client.open() << std::endl;
client.attachListener(foo);
usleep(1000 * 1000 * 2);
std::cout << client.send("hello") << std::endl;
usleep(1000 * 1000 * 5);
}
// send method
int Client::send(const char* msg) {
return write(sockfd, msg, strlen(msg));
}
// listener function
void* Client::listen() {
char buffer[256];
unsigned int receive_size = 0;
while(true) {
receive_size = 0;
while((receive_size = recv(sockfd, &buffer, 256, 0)) > 0) {
buffer[receive_size] = '\0';
msgHandler(buffer);
bzero(&buffer, 256);
}
if(receive_size == 0) {
msgHandler("Server disconnected");
} else if(receive_size == 1) {
msgHandler("Connection failure!");
}
}
return NULL;
}
Output:
1
Welcome to the Java EchoServer. Type 'bye' to close.
6
The EchoServer implementations typically want to see a newline on the message you send before they'll echo it back. Instead of client.send("hello") try client.send("hello\n").
Also, though this isn't really necessary for an application you're just experimenting with, you might want to turn off the Nagle algorithm on your client socket so that small messages get sent immediately. Add code like this just after the point where you call connect with client socket:
int flag = 1;
int res = setsockopt(sockfd, IPPROTO_TCP, TCP_NODELAY, &flag, sizeof flag);
if (res < 0) // handle setsockopt failure here...
This code requires these header files:
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <netinet/tcp.h>

Winsocks Send and Receive

I'm using the WSAEventSelect I/O model in Windows Sockets and now I want to know that how may I know that my send and receive operations have sent and received all of the data?
After I know that, how should I design a way so that it sends the data fully? Any examples would be really appreciated.
Here is the code (sample code from the book I'm learning from):
SOCKET SocketArray [WSA_MAXIMUM_WAIT_EVENTS];
WSAEVENT EventArray [WSA_MAXIMUM_WAIT_EVENTS],
NewEvent;
SOCKADDR_IN InternetAddr;
SOCKET Accept, Listen;
DWORD EventTotal = 0;
DWORD Index, i;
WSANETWORKEVENTS NetworkEvents;
// Set up socket for listening etc...
// ....
NewEvent = WSACreateEvent();
WSAEventSelect(Listen, NewEvent,
FD_ACCEPT │ FD_CLOSE);
listen(Listen, 5);
SocketArray[EventTotal] = Listen;
EventArray[EventTotal] = NewEvent;
EventTotal++;
while(TRUE)
{
// Wait for network events on all sockets
Index = WSAWaitForMultipleEvents(EventTotal,
EventArray, FALSE, WSA_INFINITE, FALSE);
Index = Index - WSA_WAIT_EVENT_0;
// Iterate through all events to see if more than one is signaled
for(i=Index; i < EventTotal ;i++
{
Index = WSAWaitForMultipleEvents(1, &EventArray[i], TRUE, 1000,
FALSE);
if ((Index == WSA_WAIT_FAILED) ││ (Index == WSA_WAIT_TIMEOUT))
continue;
else
{
Index = i;
WSAEnumNetworkEvents(
SocketArray[Index],
EventArray[Index],
&NetworkEvents);
// Check for FD_ACCEPT messages
if (NetworkEvents.lNetworkEvents & FD_ACCEPT)
{
if (NetworkEvents.iErrorCode[FD_ACCEPT_BIT] != 0)
{
printf("FD_ACCEPT failed with error %d\n",
NetworkEvents.iErrorCode[FD_ACCEPT_BIT]);
break;
}
// Accept a new connection, and add it to the
// socket and event lists
Accept = accept(
SocketArray[Index],
NULL, NULL);
NewEvent = WSACreateEvent();
WSAEventSelect(Accept, NewEvent,
FD_READ │ FD_CLOSE);
EventArray[EventTotal] = NewEvent;
SocketArray[EventTotal] = Accept;
EventTotal++;
printf("Socket %d connected\n", Accept);
}
// Process FD_READ notification
if (NetworkEvents.lNetworkEvents & FD_READ)
{
if (NetworkEvents.iErrorCode[FD_READ_BIT] != 0)
{
printf("FD_READ failed with error %d\n",
NetworkEvents.iErrorCode[FD_READ_BIT]);
break;
}
// Read data from the socket
recv(SocketArray[Index - WSA_WAIT_EVENT_0],
buffer, sizeof(buffer), 0);
// here I do some processing on the data received
DoSomething(buffer);
// now I want to send data
send(SocketArray[Index - WSA_WAIT_EVENT_0],
buffer, sizeof(buffer), 0);
// how can I be assured that the data is sent completely
}
// FD_CLOSE handling here
// ......
// ......
}
}
}
What I thought, that I would set a boolean flag to determine that the receive has completed (the message will have its length prefixed) and then start processing that data. But what about send()? Can you please tell me the possibilities.
**EDIT:**See the FD_READ event part
Unless the protocol (application layer) you are handling gives you any information about how many data you're about to receive, the only way to determine if there is nothing more to received is when the peer disconnects. If the server simply stop sending, you can't determine if its the end or its just busy. It ends when it ends. You also can't determine if the server disconnected because its the end or because the connection was broken.
Thats why most protocols inform the peer about how many bytes it is going to be sent before sending it, or by placing a boundary in the end of the data.
About sending, you must be aware of the buffer you're using. When you send(), it goes to a buffer (with 64KB by default). send() returns the number of bytes placed in the buffer, if its less then the bytes you were trying to send, you have to manage it to try again in the next time you receive a FD_WRITE event.
You can't have sure about how much data was already received by the peer unless it keeps you informed (mIRC DDC does that).
Not sure it clearfyed your doubts, hope it helped :)
When you are doing the recv, you need to save the return status to determine if the data was received. recv returns the number of bytes received, and I would use the flag MSG_WAITALL instead of zero for the fourth parameter to receive all of the message (based on the buffer size). If the status recv returns is negative, there was an error of some nature, such as connection was close from the other end or there was some other issue.
As for the send, you should save the return value as it also as the status, but in this case, there is not a flag to have all the data sent before returning. You will have to determine the amount send and adjust the buffer and send size based on the value. As with recv, a negative value indicates an error has occurred.
I would read the function descriptions on the Microsoft website for recv and send for more information on the return values and flags.