Network Programming

Introduction
Based on Classes in the java.net
package
TCP and UDP
Network programming basics
Identifying a machine
Servers and Clients
Ports and sockets
Data transfer using sockets
1

TCP and UDP

Lots of java programs use Transmission
Control Protocol (TCP)
Connection-based (where java stream sockets
provides continuous data stream), reliable,
data streams will always get there. Also high
overhead. We will focus on TCP/IP sockets.
User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is not
connection-based (connectionless service with
datagram sockets allowing one message, an
unreliable protocol which is much faster, but
the message wont always get there

Network Programming
Basics
The classes in java.net: Java
programs can use TCP or UDP to
communicate over the Internet. The
URL, URLConnection (for
Web applications), Socket,
and ServerSocket (client-server
applications) classes all use TCP to
communicate over the network.
The DatagramPacket,
DatagramSocket, and
MulticastSocket classes are for
use with UDP.

Network Programming
Basics
Historically error-prone, difficult,
complex
JAVA has complete network package,
java.net
I/O stream library works quite well for
TCP/IP
Threading is also very useful and
relatively easy here

Identifying a Machine
Uniquely identify a machine from all
the others in the world
IP (Internet Protocol) address that
can exist in two forms:

Identify a Machine
(Continue)
DNS(Domain Name Service) form
java.sun.com
Dotted quad form:
123.255.28.120

static InetAddress.getByName()
produces java object containing
address

Servers and Clients

Two machines must connect
Server waits for connection
Client initiates connection (create
socket)
Once the connection is made, server
& client look identical

Testing w/o a network

For testing your program, you can do
it w/o network. (server & client on
same machine)
Localhost: the IP address for testing
without a network
Three ways to identify:

Test w/o networking

(Continue)
InetAddress
addr=InetAddress.getByName(null);

Equivalently:
InetAddress.getByName(localhost);

Or using the reserved IP number for

the loopback:
InetAddress.getByName(127.0.0.1);

Port number
IP address isnt enough to identify a
unique server
many servers can exist on one
machine
port number: Unique in a Machine
Not a physical location, but a
software abstraction to represent a
service

Port number (Continue)

When set up client and server, you
must specify IP address and port.
Port number range: 0 to 65,535
1-1024 are reserved, others may be
used.

Sockets
Software
abstraction used to
represent the
connection
between two
machines
Socket is the actual
2-way connector.

Sockets
The following sequence establishes
a socket from the client class
InetAddress addr =
InetAddress.getByName(null);
Socket socket =
new Socket(addr, 8080);

Sockets
At the server class, the following
establishes the server port, and
waits for a client request to establish
a socket
ServerSocket s =
new
ServerSocket(8080);
Socket socket = s.accept();

Data transfer using sockets

Once you have a Socket, you call
getInputStream() and
getOutputStream() to produce the
corresponding InputStream and
OutputStream objects
You can convert these to readers and
writers, wrap them in a
BufferedReader or BufferedWriter and
PrintWriter

Data transfer using sockets

(continue)
At the server and client classes
BufferedReader in =
new BufferedReader(
new InputStreamReader(
socket.getInputStream()));
PrintWriter out =
new PrintWriter(
new BufferedWriter(
new OutputStreamWriter(
socket.getOutputStream())),true);

Data transfer using sockets

(continue)
From then on, its like reading and writing
any other I/O stream!
while (true) {
String str = in.readLine();
if (str.equals("END")) break;
System.out.println("Echoing: " +
str);
out.println(str);
}