the unp book single-threaded server with select - sockets

Question

In the book "UNIX Network Prgramming" 3rd, Vol 1, Section 6.8 "TCP Echo Server (Revisited)" of Chapter 6 "I/O multiplexing: The select and poll Functions", the book writes:
"Unfortunately, there is a problem with the server that we just showed. Consider what happens if a malicious client connects to the server, sends one byte of data(other than a newline), and then goes to sleep. The server will call read, which will read the single byte of data from the client and then block in the next call to read, waiting for more data from this client. The server is then blocked('hung' may be a better term)" by this one client and will not service any other clients (either new client connection or existing clients' data) until the malicious client either sends a newline or terminates."
However, I doubt that it is not the case the book described. If the "malicious" client is asleep when the second time the select() function get called, the corresponding socket descriptor will not in the ready-for-reading state, so that the read() function never gets the opportunity to block the single-threaded server. To verify this, I run the sample server and a "malicious" client only to find that the server is not blocked and corresponding to other clients normally.
I admit that when combining with I/O multiplexing calls such as select() or epoll(), it is recommended to use nonblocking I/O. But my question is, is there something wrong with the book's conclusion? Or there are conditions that may happen in real applications but not this simple examples? Or there's something wrong with my code? Thank you very much!
the sample server code(tcpservselect01.c):
#include "unp.h"
int
main(int argc, char **argv)
{
int i, maxi, maxfd, listenfd, connfd, sockfd;
int nready, client[FD_SETSIZE];
ssize_t n;
fd_set rset, allset;
char buf[MAXLINE];
socklen_t clilen;
struct sockaddr_in cliaddr, servaddr;
listenfd = Socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);
bzero(&servaddr, sizeof(servaddr));
servaddr.sin_family = AF_INET;
servaddr.sin_addr.s_addr = htonl(INADDR_ANY);
servaddr.sin_port = htons(SERV_PORT);
Bind(listenfd, (SA *) &servaddr, sizeof(servaddr));
Listen(listenfd, LISTENQ);
maxfd = listenfd; /* initialize */
maxi = -1; /* index into client[] array */
for (i = 0; i < FD_SETSIZE; i++)
client[i] = -1; /* -1 indicates available entry */
FD_ZERO(&allset);
FD_SET(listenfd, &allset);
for ( ; ; ) {
rset = allset; /* structure assignment */
nready = Select(maxfd+1, &rset, NULL, NULL, NULL);
if (FD_ISSET(listenfd, &rset)) {/* new client connection */
clilen = sizeof(cliaddr);
connfd = Accept(listenfd, (SA *) &cliaddr, &clilen);
for (i = 0; i < FD_SETSIZE; i++)
if (client[i] < 0) {
client[i] = connfd; /* save descriptor */
break;
}
if (i == FD_SETSIZE)
err_quit("too many clients");
FD_SET(connfd, &allset);/* add new descriptor to set */
if (connfd > maxfd)
maxfd = connfd; /* for select */
if (i > maxi)
maxi = i; /* max index in client[] array */
if (--nready <= 0)
continue; /* no more readable descriptors */
}
for (i = 0; i <= maxi; i++) {/* check all clients for data */
if ( (sockfd = client[i]) < 0)
continue;
if (FD_ISSET(sockfd, &rset)) {
if ( (n = Read(sockfd, buf, MAXLINE)) == 0) {
/*4connection closed by client */
Close(sockfd);
FD_CLR(sockfd, &allset);
client[i] = -1;
} else
Writen(sockfd, buf, n);
if (--nready <= 0)
break; /* no more readable descriptors */
}
}
}
}
the "malicious" client code
#include "unp.h"
void
sig_pipe(int signo)
{
printf("SIGPIPE received\n");
return;
}
int
main(int argc, char **argv)
{
int sockfd;
struct sockaddr_in servaddr;
if (argc != 2)
err_quit("usage: tcpcli <IPaddress>");
sockfd = Socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);
bzero(&servaddr, sizeof(servaddr));
servaddr.sin_family = AF_INET;
servaddr.sin_port = htons(9877);
Inet_pton(AF_INET, argv[1], &servaddr.sin_addr);
Signal(SIGPIPE, sig_pipe);
Connect(sockfd, (SA *) &servaddr, sizeof(servaddr));
Write(sockfd, "h", 1);
printf("go to sleep 20s\n");
sleep(20);
printf("wake up\n");
printf("go to sleep 20s\n");
Write(sockfd, "e", 1);
sleep(20);
printf("wake up\n");
exit(0);
}

Answer 1

I agree with you. The book's conclusion about DOS is wrong. First of all the book's sample server code didn't assume that the input data should consist of N bytes or end with a newline, so one-byte input without a following newline shouldn't do any harm to the server.
Google books link to the relevant page