Socket Communications

What Is a Socket?

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Normally, a server runs on a specific computer and has a socket that is bound to a specific port number. The server just waits, listening to the socket for a client to make a connection request.
On the client-side: The client knows the hostname of the machine on which the server is running and the port number on which the server is listening. To make a connection request, the client tries to rendezvous with the server on the server's machine and port. The client also needs to identify itself to the server so it binds to a local port number that it will use during this connection. This is usually assigned by the system.


If everything goes well, the server accepts the connection. Upon acceptance, the server gets a new socket bound to the same local port and also has its remote endpoint set to the address and port of the client. It needs a new socket so that it can continue to listen to the original socket for connection requests while tending to the needs of the connected client.


On the client side, if the connection is accepted, a socket is successfully created and the client can use the socket to communicate with the server.
The client and server can now communicate by writing to or reading from their sockets.

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Definition: A socket is one endpoint of a two-way communication link between two programs running on the network. A socket is bound to a port number so that the TCP layer can identify the application that data is destined to be sent.

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An endpoint is a combination of an IP address and a port number. Every TCP connection can be uniquely identified by its two endpoints. That way you can have multiple connections between your host and the server.
The java.net package in the Java platform provides a class, Socket, that implements one side of a two-way connection between your Java program and another program on the network. The Socket class sits on top of a platform-dependent implementation, hiding the details of any particular system from your Java program. By using the java.net.Socket class instead of relying on native code, your Java programs can communicate over the network in a platform-independent fashion.
Additionally, java.net includes the ServerSocket class, which implements a socket that servers can use to listen for and accept connections to clients. This lesson shows you how to use the Socket and ServerSocket classes.
If you are trying to connect to the Web, the URL class and related classes (URLConnection, URLEncoder) are probably more appropriate than the socket classes. In fact, URLs are a relatively high-level connection to the Web and use sockets as part of the underlying implementation. See Working with URLs for information about connecting to the Web via URLs.

Reading from and Writing to a Socket

Let's look at a simple example that illustrates how a program can establish a connection to a server program using the Socket class and then, how the client can send data to and receive data from the server through the socket.
The example program implements a client, EchoClient, that connects to the Echo server. The Echo server simply receives data from its client and echoes it back. The Echo server is a well-known service that clients can rendezvous with on port 7.
EchoClient creates a socket thereby getting a connection to the Echo server. It reads input from the user on the standard input stream, and then forwards that text to the Echo server by writing the text to the socket. The server echoes the input back through the socket to the client. The client program reads and displays the data passed back to it from the server:

import java.io.*;
import java.net.*;

public class EchoClient {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {

        Socket echoSocket = null;
        PrintWriter out = null;
        BufferedReader in = null;

        try {
            echoSocket = new Socket("taranis", 7);
            out = new PrintWriter(echoSocket.getOutputStream(), true);
            in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
                                        echoSocket.getInputStream()));
        } catch (UnknownHostException e) {
            System.err.println("Don't know about host: taranis.");
            System.exit(1);
        } catch (IOException e) {
            System.err.println("Couldn't get I/O for "
                               + "the connection to: taranis.");
            System.exit(1);
        }

 BufferedReader stdIn = new BufferedReader(
                                   new InputStreamReader(System.in));
 String userInput;

 while ((userInput = stdIn.readLine()) != null) {
     out.println(userInput);
     System.out.println("echo: " + in.readLine());
 }

 out.close();
 in.close();
 stdIn.close();
 echoSocket.close();
    }
}

Note that EchoClient both writes to and reads from its socket, thereby sending data to and receiving data from the Echo server.
Let's walk through the program and investigate the interesting parts. The three statements in the try block of the main method are critical. These lines establish the socket connection between the client and the server and open a PrintWriter and a BufferedReader on the socket:

echoSocket = new Socket("taranis", 7);
out = new PrintWriter(echoSocket.getOutputStream(), true);
in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
                             echoSocket.getInputStream()));

The first statement in this sequence creates a new Socket object and names it echoSocket. The Socket constructor used here requires the name of the machine and the port number to which you want to connect. The example program uses the host name taranis. This is the name of a hypothetical machine on our local network. When you type in and run this program on your machine, change the host name to the name of a machine on your network. Make sure that the name you use is the fully qualified IP name of the machine to which you want to connect. The second argument is the port number. Port number 7 is the port on which the Echo server listens.
The second statement gets the socket's output stream and opens a PrintWriter on it. Similarly, the third statement gets the socket's input stream and opens a BufferedReader on it. The example uses readers and writers so that it can write Unicode characters over the socket.
To send data through the socket to the server, EchoClient simply needs to write to the PrintWriter. To get the server's response, EchoClient reads from the BufferedReader. The rest of the program achieves this. If you are not yet familiar with the Java platform's I/O classes, you may wish to read Basic I/O.
The next interesting part of the program is the while loop. The loop reads a line at a time from the standard input stream and immediately sends it to the server by writing it to the PrintWriter connected to the socket:

String userInput;

while ((userInput = stdIn.readLine()) != null) {
    out.println(userInput);
    System.out.println("echo: " + in.readLine());
}

The last statement in the while loop reads a line of information from the BufferedReader connected to the socket. The readLine method waits until the server echoes the information back to EchoClient. When readline returns, EchoClient prints the information to the standard output.
The while loop continues until the user types an end-of-input character. That is, EchoClient reads input from the user, sends it to the Echo server, gets a response from the server, and displays it, until it reaches the end-of-input. The while loop then terminates and the program continues, executing the next four lines of code:

out.close();
in.close();
stdIn.close();
echoSocket.close();

These lines of code fall into the category of housekeeping. A well-behaved program always cleans up after itself, and this program is well-behaved. These statements close the readers and writers connected to the socket and to the standard input stream, and close the socket connection to the server. The order here is important. You should close any streams connected to a socket before you close the socket itself.
This client program is straightforward and simple because the Echo server implements a simple protocol. The client sends text to the server, and the server echoes it back. When your client programs are talking to a more complicated server such as an HTTP server, your client program will also be more complicated. However, the basics are much the same as they are in this program:

1. Open a socket.
2. Open an input stream and output stream to the socket.
3. Read from and write to the stream according to the server's protocol.
4. Close the streams.
5. Close the socket.

Only step 3 differs from client to client, depending on the server. The other steps remain largely the same.

Writing the Server Side of a Socket

This section shows you how to write a server and the client that goes with it. The server in the client/server pair serves up Knock Knock jokes. Knock Knock jokes are favored by children and are usually vehicles for bad puns. They go like this:
Server: "Knock knock!"
Client: "Who's there?"
Server: "Dexter."
Client: "Dexter who?"
Server: "Dexter halls with boughs of holly."
Client: "Groan."
The example consists of two independently running Java programs: the client program and the server program. The client program is implemented by a single class, KnockKnockClient, and is very similar to the EchoClient example from the previous section. The server program is implemented by two classes: KnockKnockServer and KnockKnockProtocol, KnockKnockServer contains the main method for the server program and performs the work of listening to the port, establishing connections, and reading from and writing to the socket. KnockKnockProtocol serves up the jokes. It keeps track of the current joke, the current state (sent knock knock, sent clue, and so on), and returns the various text pieces of the joke depending on the current state. This object implements the protocol-the language that the client and server have agreed to use to communicate.
The following section looks in detail at each class in both the client and the server and then shows you how to run them.

The Knock Knock Server

This section walks through the code that implements the Knock Knock server program. Here is the complete source for the KnockKnockServer class.
The server program begins by creating a new ServerSocket object to listen on a specific port (see the statement in bold in the following code segment). When writing a server, choose a port that is not already dedicated to some other service. KnockKnockServer listens on port 4444 because 4 happens to be my favorite number and port 4444 is not being used for anything else in my environment:

try {
    serverSocket = new ServerSocket(4444);
} catch (IOException e) {
    System.out.println("Could not listen on port: 4444");
    System.exit(-1);
}

ServerSocket is a java.net class that provides a system-independent implementation of the server side of a client/server socket connection. The constructor for ServerSocket throws an exception if it can't listen on the specified port (for example, the port is already being used). In this case, the KnockKnockServer has no choice but to exit.
If the server successfully binds to its port, then the ServerSocket object is successfully created and the server continues to the next step--accepting a connection from a client (shown in bold):

Socket clientSocket = null;
try {
    clientSocket = serverSocket.accept();
} catch (IOException e) {
    System.out.println("Accept failed: 4444");
    System.exit(-1);
}

The accept method waits until a client starts up and requests a connection on the host and port of this server (in this example, the server is running on the hypothetical machine taranis on port 4444). When a connection is requested and successfully established, the accept method returns a new Socket object which is bound to the same local port and has its remote address and remote port set to that of the client. The server can communicate with the client over this new Socket and continue to listen for client connection requests on the original ServerSocket This particular version of the program doesn't listen for more client connection requests. However, a modified version of the program is provided in Supporting Multiple Clients.
After the server successfully establishes a connection with a client, it communicates with the client using this code:

PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(
                      clientSocket.getOutputStream(), true);
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(
                        new InputStreamReader(
                            clientSocket.getInputStream()));
String inputLine, outputLine;

// initiate conversation with client
KnockKnockProtocol kkp = new KnockKnockProtocol();
outputLine = kkp.processInput(null);
out.println(outputLine);

while ((inputLine = in.readLine()) != null) {   
    outputLine = kkp.processInput(inputLine);
    out.println(outputLine);
    if (outputLine.equals("Bye."))
        break;
}

This code:

1. Gets the socket's input and output stream and opens readers and writers on them.
2. Initiates communication with the client by writing to the socket (shown in bold).
3. Communicates with the client by reading from and writing to the socket (the while loop).

Step 1 is already familiar. Step 2 is shown in bold and is worth a few comments. The bold statements in the code segment above initiate the conversation with the client. The code creates a KnockKnockProtocol object-the object that keeps track of the current joke, the current state within the joke, and so on.
After the KnockKnockProtocol is created, the code calls KnockKnockProtocol's processInput method to get the first message that the server sends to the client. For this example, the first thing that the server says is "Knock! Knock!" Next, the server writes the information to the PrintWriter connected to the client socket, thereby sending the message to the client.
Step 3 is encoded in the while loop. As long as the client and server still have something to say to each other, the server reads from and writes to the socket, sending messages back and forth between the client and the server.
The server initiated the conversation with a "Knock! Knock!" so afterwards the server must wait for the client to say "Who's there?" As a result, the while loop iterates on a read from the input stream. The readLine method waits until the client responds by writing something to its output stream (the server's input stream). When the client responds, the server passes the client's response to the KnockKnockProtocol object and asks the KnockKnockProtocol object for a suitable reply. The server immediately sends the reply to the client via the output stream connected to the socket, using a call to println. If the server's response generated from the KnockKnockServer object is "Bye." this indicates that the client doesn't want any more jokes and the loop quits.
The KnockKnockServer class is a well-behaved server, so the last several lines of this section of KnockKnockServer clean up by closing all of the input and output streams, the client socket, and the server socket:

out.close();
in.close();
clientSocket.close();
serverSocket.close();

The Knock Knock Protocol

The KnockKnockProtocol class implements the protocol that the client and server use to communicate. This class keeps track of where the client and the server are in their conversation and serves up the server's response to the client's statements. The KnockKnockServer object contains the text of all the jokes and makes sure that the client gives the proper response to the server's statements. It wouldn't do to have the client say "Dexter who?" when the server says "Knock! Knock!"
All client/server pairs must have some protocol by which they speak to each other; otherwise, the data that passes back and forth would be meaningless. The protocol that your own clients and servers use depends entirely on the communication required by them to accomplish the task.

The Knock Knock Client

The KnockKnockClient class implements the client program that speaks to the KnockKnockServer. KnockKnockClient is based on the EchoClient program in the previous section, Reading from and Writing to a Socket and should be somewhat familiar to you. But we'll go over the program anyway and look at what's happening in the client in the context of what's going on in the server.
When you start the client program, the server should already be running and listening to the port, waiting for a client to request a connection. So, the first thing the client program does is to open a socket that is connected to the server running on the hostname and port specified:

kkSocket = new Socket("taranis", 4444);
out = new PrintWriter(kkSocket.getOutputStream(), true);
in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(
                            kkSocket.getInputStream()));

When creating its socket, KnockKnockClient uses the host name taranis, the name of a hypothetical machine on our network. When you type in and run this program, change the host name to the name of a machine on your network. This is the machine on which you will run the KnockKnockServer.
The KnockKnockClient program also specifies the port number 4444 when creating its socket. This is a remote port number--the number of a port on the server machine--and is the port to which KnockKnockServer is listening. The client's socket is bound to any available local port--a port on the client machine. Remember that the server gets a new socket as well. That socket is bound to local port number 4444 on its machine. The server's socket and the client's socket are connected.
Next comes the while loop that implements the communication between the client and the server. The server speaks first, so the client must listen first. The client does this by reading from the input stream attached to the socket. If the server does speak, it says "Bye." and the client exits the loop. Otherwise, the client displays the text to the standard output and then reads the response from the user, who types into the standard input. After the user types a carriage return, the client sends the text to the server through the output stream attached to the socket.

while ((fromServer = in.readLine()) != null) {
    System.out.println("Server: " + fromServer);
    if (fromServer.equals("Bye."))
        break;
    fromUser = stdIn.readLine();
    if (fromUser != null) {
        System.out.println("Client: " + fromUser);
        out.println(fromUser);
    }
}

The communication ends when the server asks if the client wishes to hear another joke, the client says no, and the server says "Bye."
In the interest of good housekeeping, the client closes its input and output streams and the socket:

out.close();
in.close();
stdIn.close();
kkSocket.close();

Running the Programs

You must start the server program first. To do this, run the server program using the Java interpreter, just as you would any other Java application. Remember to run the server on the machine that the client program specifies when it creates the socket.
Next, run the client program. Note that you can run the client on any machine on your network; it does not have to run on the same machine as the server.
If you are too quick, you might start the client before the server has a chance to initialize itself and begin listening on the port. If this happens, you will see a stack trace from the client. If this happens, just restart the client.
If you forget to change the host name in the source code for the KnockKnockClient program, you will see the following error message:

Don't know about host: taranis

To fix this, modify the KnockKnockClient program and provide a valid host name for your network. Recompile the client program and try again.
If you try to start a second client while the first client is connected to the server, the second client just hangs. The next section, Supporting Multiple Clients, talks about supporting multiple clients.
When you successfully get a connection between the client and server, you will see the following text displayed on your screen:

Server: Knock! Knock!

Now, you must respond with:

Who's there?

The client echoes what you type and sends the text to the server. The server responds with the first line of one of the many Knock Knock jokes in its repertoire. Now your screen should contain this (the text you typed is in bold):

Server: Knock! Knock!
Who's there?
Client: Who's there?
Server: Turnip

Now, you respond with:

Turnip who?"

Again, the client echoes what you type and sends the text to the server. The server responds with the punch line. Now your screen should contain this:

Server: Knock! Knock!
Who's there?
Client: Who's there?
Server: Turnip
Turnip who?
Client: Turnip who?
Server: Turnip the heat, it's cold in here! Want another? (y/n)

If you want to hear another joke, type y; if not, type n. If you type y, the server begins again with "Knock! Knock!" If you type n, the server says "Bye." thus causing both the client and the server to exit.
If at any point you make a typing mistake, the KnockKnockServer object catches it and the server responds with a message similar to this:

Server: You're supposed to say "Who's there?"!

The server then starts the joke over again:

Server: Try again. Knock! Knock!

Note that the KnockKnockProtocol object is particular about spelling and punctuation but not about capitalization.

Supporting Multiple Clients

To keep the KnockKnockServer example simple, we designed it to listen for and handle a single connection request. However, multiple client requests can come into the same port and, consequently, into the same ServerSocket. Client connection requests are queued at the port, so the server must accept the connections sequentially. However, the server can service them simultaneously through the use of threads - one thread per each client connection.
The basic flow of logic in such a server is this:

while (true) {
    accept a connection ;
    create a thread to deal with the client ;
end while

The thread reads from and writes to the client connection as necessary.

What are Sockets and Threads?

A socket is a software endpoint that establishes bidirectional communication between a server program and one or more client programs. The socket associates the server program with a specific hardware port on the machine where it runs so any client program anywhere in the network with a socket associated with that same port can communicate with the server program.
A server program typically provides resources to a network of client programs. Client programs send requests to the server program, and the server program responds to the request.
One way to handle requests from more than one client is to make the server program multi-threaded. A multi-threaded server creates a thread for each communication it accepts from a client. A thread is a sequence of instructions that run independently of the program and of any other threads.
Using threads, a multi-threaded server program can accept a connection from a client, start a thread for that communication, and continue listening for requests from other clients.

About the Examples

The examples for this lesson consist of two versions of the client and server program pair adapted from the FileIO.java application presented in Part 1, Lesson 6: File Access and Permissions.
Example 1 sets up a client and server communication between one server program and one client program. The server program is not multi-threaded and cannot handle requests from more than one client.
Example 2 converts the server program to a multi-threaded version so it can handle requests from more than one client.

Example 1: Client-Side Behavior

The client program presents a simple user interface and prompts for text input. When you click the Click Me button, the text is sent to the server program. The client program expects an echo from the server and prints the echo it receives on its standard output.

Example 1: Server-Side Behavior

The server program presents a simple user interface, and when you click the Click Me button, the text received from the client is displayed. The server echoes the text it receives whether or not you click the Click Me button.

Example 1: Compile and Run

To run the example programs, start the server program first. If you do not, the client program cannot establish the socket connection. Here are the compiler and interpreter commands to compile and run the example.

javac SocketServer.java javac SocketClient.java java SocketServer java SocketClient

Example 1: Server-Side Program

The server program establishes a socket connection on Port 4321 in its listenSocket method. It reads data sent to it and sends that same data back to the server in its actionPerformed method.

listenSocket Method

The listenSocket method creates a ServerSocket object with the port number on which the server program is going to listen for client communications. The port number must be an available port, which means the number cannot be reserved or already in use. For example, Unix systems reserve ports 1 through 1023 for administrative functions leaving port numbers greater than 1024 available for use.

public void listenSocket(){ try{ server = new ServerSocket(4321); } catch (IOException e) { System.out.println("Could not listen on port 4321"); System.exit(-1); }

listenSocketSocketserver.acceptSocket

try{ client = server.accept(); } catch (IOException e) { System.out.println("Accept failed: 4321"); System.exit(-1); }

listenSocketBufferedReaderclientPrintWriter

try{ in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader( client.getInputStream())); out = new PrintWriter(client.getOutputStream(), true); } catch (IOException e) { System.out.println("Read failed"); System.exit(-1); } }

listenSocket

while(true){ try{ line = in.readLine(); //Send data back to client out.println(line); } catch (IOException e) { System.out.println("Read failed"); System.exit(-1); } }

actionPerformed Method

The actionPerformed method is called by the Java platform for action events such as button clicks. This actionPerformed method uses the text stored in the line object to initialize the textArea object so the retrieved text can be displayed to the end user.

public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event) { Object source = event.getSource(); if(source == button){ textArea.setText(line); } }

Example 1: Client-Side Program

The client program establishes a connection to the server program on a particular host and port number in its listenSocket method, and sends the data entered by the end user to the server program in its actionPerformed method. The actionPerformed method also receives the data back from the server and prints it to the command line.

listenSocket Method

The listenSocket method first creates a Socket object with the computer name ( kq6py) and port number (4321) where the server program is listening for client connection requests. Next, it creates a PrintWriter object to send data over the socket connection to the server program. It also creates a BufferedReader object to read the text sent by the server back to the client.

public void listenSocket(){ //Create socket connection try{ socket = new Socket("kq6py", 4321); out = new PrintWriter(socket.getOutputStream(), true); in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader( socket.getInputStream())); } catch (UnknownHostException e) { System.out.println("Unknown host: kq6py"); System.exit(1); } catch (IOException e) { System.out.println("No I/O"); System.exit(1); } }

actionPerformed Method

The actionPerformed method is called by the Java platform for action events such as button clicks. This actionPerformed method code gets the text in the Textfield object and passes it to the PrintWriter object, which then sends it over the socket connection to the server program.
The actionPerformed method then makes the Textfield object blank so it is ready for more end user input. Lastly, it receives the text sent back to it by the server and prints the text out.

public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event){ Object source = event.getSource(); if(source == button){ //Send data over socket String text = textField.getText(); out.println(text); textField.setText(new String("")); out.println(text); } //Receive text from server try{ String line = in.readLine(); System.out.println("Text received: " + line); } catch (IOException e){ System.out.println("Read failed"); System.exit(1); } }

Example 2: Multithreaded Server Example

The example in its current state works between the server program and one client program only. To allow multiple client connections, the server program has to be converted to a multithreaded server program.

First Client Second Client Third Client

In this example the listenSocket method loops on the server.accept call waiting for client connections and creates an instance of the ClientWorker class for each client connection it accepts. The textArea component that displays the text received from the client connection is passed to the ClientWorker instance with the accepted client connection.

public void listenSocket(){ try{ server = new ServerSocket(4444); } catch (IOException e) { System.out.println("Could not listen on port 4444"); System.exit(-1); } while(true){ ClientWorker w; try{ //server.accept returns a client connection w = new ClientWorker(server.accept(), textArea); Thread t = new Thread(w); t.start(); } catch (IOException e) { System.out.println("Accept failed: 4444"); System.exit(-1); } } }

The important changes in this version of the server program over the non-threaded server program are the line and client variables are no longer instance variables of the server class, but are handled inside the ClientWorker class.
The ClientWorker class implements the Runnable interface, which has one method, run. The run method executes independently in each thread. If three clients request connections, three ClientWorker instances are created, a thread is started for each ClientWorker instance, and the run method executes for each thread.
In this example, the run method creates the input buffer and output writer, loops on the input stream waiting for input from the client, sends the data it receives back to the client, and sets the text in the text area.

class ClientWorker implements Runnable { private Socket client; private JTextArea textArea; //Constructor ClientWorker(Socket client, JTextArea textArea) { this.client = client; this.textArea = textArea; } public void run(){ String line; BufferedReader in = null; PrintWriter out = null; try{ in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(client.getInputStream())); out = new PrintWriter(client.getOutputStream(), true); } catch (IOException e) { System.out.println("in or out failed"); System.exit(-1); } while(true){ try{ line = in.readLine(); //Send data back to client out.println(line); //Append data to text area textArea.append(line); }catch (IOException e) { System.out.println("Read failed"); System.exit(-1); } } } }

JTextArea.appendJTextArea.appendtextArea.append(line)synchronizedruntextArea.append(line)appendText(line)

  public synchronized void appendText(line){
    textArea.append(line);
  }

synchronizedtextAreatextAreaThe finalize() method is called by the Java virtual machine (JVM)* before the program exits to give the program a chance to clean up and release resources. Multi-threaded programs should close all Files and Sockets they use before exiting so they do not face resource starvation. The call to server.close() in the finalize() method closes the Socket connection used by each thread in this program.

protected void finalize(){ //Objects created in run method are finalized when //program terminates and thread exits try{ server.close(); } catch (IOException e) { System.out.println("Could not close socket"); System.exit(-1); } }