Book Image

Hands-On Network Programming with C# and .NET Core

By : Sean Burns
Book Image

Hands-On Network Programming with C# and .NET Core

By: Sean Burns

Overview of this book

The C# language and the .NET Core application framework provide the tools and patterns required to make the discipline of network programming as intuitive and enjoyable as any other aspect of C# programming. With the help of this book, you will discover how the C# language and the .NET Core framework make this possible. The book begins by introducing the core concepts of network programming, and what distinguishes this field of programming from other disciplines. After this, you will gain insights into concepts such as transport protocols, sockets and ports, and remote data streams, which will provide you with a holistic understanding of how network software fits into larger distributed systems. The book will also explore the intricacies of how network software is implemented in a more explicit context, by covering sockets, connection strategies such as Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP), asynchronous processing, and threads. You will then be able to work through code examples for TCP servers, web APIs served over HTTP, and a Secure Shell (SSH) client. By the end of this book, you will have a good understanding of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) network stack, the various communication protocols for that stack, and the skills that are essential to implement those protocols using the C# programming language and the .NET Core framework.
Table of Contents (26 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Section 1: Foundations of Network Architecture
6
Section 2: Communicating Over Networks
10
Section 3: Application Protocols and Connection Handling
15
Section 4: Security, Stability, and Scalability
21
Section 5: Advanced Subjects

Summary

We covered a lot in this chapter, and for good reason. HTTP is, as I suggest in the title of this chapter, integral to programming software being able to function on the web. We learned about the distinctions between application-layer protocols and transport-layer protocols with a bit more clarity and context. We explored the history of HTTP, and saw how its design lent itself for use far beyond its original intended purpose.

Once we had that background, we looked at the Web API project template, and learned how .NET Core leverages the cross-platform Kestrel web server to expose network-aware applications to incoming requests. We looked at how to configure our web server using the WebHostBuilder extension classes. We learned how to configure our application code for use on our web server, in our given hosting environment, using the Startup.cs class. Then we took the time...