Book Image

Hands-On Network Programming with C

By : Lewis Van Winkle
Book Image

Hands-On Network Programming with C

By: Lewis Van Winkle

Overview of this book

Network programming enables processes to communicate with each other over a computer network, but it is a complex task that requires programming with multiple libraries and protocols. With its support for third-party libraries and structured documentation, C is an ideal language to write network programs. Complete with step-by-step explanations of essential concepts and practical examples, this C network programming book begins with the fundamentals of Internet Protocol, TCP, and UDP. You’ll explore client-server and peer-to-peer models for information sharing and connectivity with remote computers. The book will also cover HTTP and HTTPS for communicating between your browser and website, and delve into hostname resolution with DNS, which is crucial to the functioning of the modern web. As you advance, you’ll gain insights into asynchronous socket programming and streams, and explore debugging and error handling. Finally, you’ll study network monitoring and implement security best practices. By the end of this book, you’ll have experience of working with client-server applications and be able to implement new network programs in C. The code in this book is compatible with the older C99 version as well as the latest C18 and C++17 standards. You’ll work with robust, reliable, and secure code that is portable across operating systems, including Winsock sockets for Windows and POSIX sockets for Linux and macOS.
Table of Contents (26 chapters)
Title Page
Dedication
About Packt
Contributors
Preface
Index

The DNS protocol


When a client wants to resolve a hostname into an IP address, it sends a DNS query to a DNS server. This is typically done over UDP using port 53. The DNS server then performs the lookup, if possible, and returns an answer. The following diagram illustrates this transaction:

If the query (or, more commonly, the answer) is too large to fit into one UDP packet, then the query can be performed over TCP instead of UDP. In this case, the size of the query is sent over TCP as a 16-bit value, and then the query itself is sent. This is called TCP fallback or DNS transport over TCP. However, UDP works for most cases, and UDP is how DNS is used the vast majority of the time.

It's also important to note that the client must know the IP address of at least one DNS server. If the client doesn't know of any DNS servers, then it has a sort of chicken-and-egg problem. DNS servers are usually provided by your ISP.

The actual UDP data format is simple and follows the same basic format for both...