Unable to receive TCP data on particular IP - sockets

Question

I am trying to implement TCP client, server program in C on Linux system. Here are my codes.
Client Source Code :
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <arpa/inet.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
char *address;
// Create socket
int client_socket;
client_socket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);
// Set - Up Server Address
struct sockaddr_in server_address;
server_address.sin_family = AF_INET;
server_address.sin_port = htons(8001);
inet_aton(address, &server_address.sin_addr.s_addr);
// Connect to the server
int connect_stat;
connect_stat = connect(client_socket, (struct sockaddr *) &server_address, sizeof(server_address));
if(connect_stat == -1)
printf("Not Connected\n");
else
printf(" Connected \n");
// Recieve from server
char response[256];
recv(client_socket, &server_address, sizeof(server_address), 0);
// Printing the Response data
printf("Data Recieved : %s\n",response);
// Destroy the socket
close(client_socket);
return 0;
}
Server Source Code :
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <arpa/inet.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
// Address
char *address;
address = argv[1];
// Create message to send
char message[256] = "Connection Established";
// Create server socket
int server_socket;
server_socket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);
// Set - Up Server Address
struct sockaddr_in server_address;
server_address.sin_family = AF_INET;
server_address.sin_port = htons(8001);
inet_aton(address, &server_address.sin_addr.s_addr);
// Bind it to an IP and PORT
bind(server_socket, (struct sockaddr *) &server_address, sizeof(server_address));
// Start listenting on address
listen(server_socket, 5);
// Start accepting the clients;
int client_socket;
client_socket = accept(server_socket, NULL, NULL);
// Send some data back to client
send(client_socket, message, sizeof(message), 0);
// Close the socket
close(server_socket);
close(client_socket);
return 0;
}
On passing an IP like 192.168.1.xxx to both client and server, server starts waiting for the clients but client always show not connected and thus no data received.
Client output :
root#kali:/home/mayank/Desktop/tcp_chat# ./tcp_client 192.168.1.111
Not Connected
Data Recieved :
But if i use INADDR_ANY instead of specific IP, it works. I know INADDR_ANY basically means it binds to all IP address, but why it is not binding to specific IP address which i want. Any suggestions, where i am wrong.

Answer 1

Instead of inet_aton(), you can also use
server_address.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr("IP address");
And use perror() after every function, like
client_socket = socket(...);
if (client_socket == -1)
perror("socket");

Answer 2

You are not doing any error checking, except on the connect() call. For example, you are getting an ENOTSOCK error because you are not checking whether socket() succeeds or fails.
Beyond that, on the client side, this statement:
inet_aton(address, &server_address.sin_addr.s_addr);
Should be this instead:
inet_aton(address, &server_address.sin_addr);
inet_aton() expects a pointer to a struct in_addr, but you are passing it a pointer to a uint32_t instead. In fact, the original code should not have even compiled because of that.
But, more importantly, your address variable is uninitialized, so you are passing a bad memory pointer to inet_aton(), and not checking its return value for failure.
Even if you could connect to the server, you are also passing the wrong output buffer to recv(), so you would end up writing garbage to the console.
Try this instead:
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <arpa/inet.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
if (argc != 2)
{
printf("usage: %s <IPv4 address>\n", argv[0]);
return 0;
}
// Set - Up Server Address
struct sockaddr_in server_address = {0};
server_address.sin_family = AF_INET;
server_address.sin_port = htons(8001);
if (inet_aton(argv[1], &server_address.sin_addr) != 0)
{
printf("invalid IPv4 address specified\n");
return 0;
}
// Create socket
int client_socket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP);
if (client_socket == -1)
{
perror("socket() failed");
return 0;
}
// Connect to the server
if (connect(client_socket, (struct sockaddr *) &server_address, sizeof(server_address)) == -1)
{
perror("Not Connected");
}
else
{
printf("Connected\n");
// Receive from server
char response[256];
int numRecvd = recv(client_socket, response, sizeof(response), 0);
// Printing the Response data
if (numRecvd == -1)
perror("recv() failed");
else if (numRecvd == 0)
printf("Disconnected by server\n");
else
printf("Data Received: [%d] %.*s\n", numRecvd, numRecvd, response);
}
// Destroy the socket
close(client_socket);
return 0;
}
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <arpa/inet.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
// Set - Up Server Address
struct sockaddr_in server_address = {0};
server_address.sin_family = AF_INET;
server_address.sin_port = htons(8001);
if (argc >= 2)
{
if (inet_aton(argv[1], &server_address.sin_addr) != 0)
{
printf("invalid IPv4 address specified\n");
return 0;
}
}
else
server_address.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY;
// Create message to send
char message[256] = "Connection Established";
// Create server socket
int server_socket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP);
if (server_socket == -1)
{
perror("socket() failed");
return 0;
}
// Bind it to an IP and PORT
if (bind(server_socket, (struct sockaddr *) &server_address, sizeof(server_address)) == -1)
{
perror("bind() failed");
}
// Start listenting on address
else if (listen(server_socket, 5) == -1)
{
perror("listen() failed");
}
// Start accepting the clients
else
{
int client_socket = accept(server_socket, NULL, 0);
if (client_socket == -1)
{
perror("accept() failed");
}
else
{
// Send some data back to client
int numSent = send(client_socket, message, sizeof(message), 0);
if (numSent == -1)
perror("send() failed");
else
printf("Data Sent: [%d] %.*s\n", numSent, numSent, message);
// Close the socket
close(client_socket);
}
}
// Destroy the socket
close(server_socket);
return 0;
}