EE450 Socket Programming Project
Part1
Spring 2023
Due Date:
Friday, March 3, 2023 11:59PM
(Hard Deadline, Strictly Enforced)
OBJECTIVE
The objective of project is to familiarize you with UNIX socket programming. It is an individual
assignment and no collaborations are allowed. Any cheating will result in an automatic F in
the course (not just in the assignment). If you have any doubts/questions email the TA your
questions, come by TA’s office hours, or ask during the weekly discussion session. You can ask
TAs any question about the content of the project, but TAs have the right to reject your
request for debugging.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
In this part of the project, you will implement client-server socket programming using TCP. In a
Student Performance Analysis system of a university, a client (student) would like to ask the Main
server which Backend server that a department is associated with. A client sends a department
name to the Main server and the Main server will search in its database and reply to the client with
a Backend server ID.
Figure 1
The detailed operations to be performed by all the parties are described with the help of Figure 1.
There are in total 3 communication endpoints, which are run in 3 individual terminal windows:
● Client 1 and Client 2: represent two different users, send queries to main server
● Main server: store information, search, send responses to clients
You are highly encouraged to use Beej’s Guide to Network Programming to complete this
assignment. You can use code from Beej’s Guide as a starting point (remember to mention any
code you take directly from other sources like Beej’s Guide in the README and your comments).
The full process can be roughly divided into three phases, and their communication and
computation steps are as follows:
Client 1
Client 2
Main
server
TCP
TCP
Bootup
1. [Computation]: Main server read the file list.txt and store the information.
2. [Communication]: Main server process wait for client processes to connect.
3. [Computation]: Two clients run and ask the user to input a department name.
Query
1. [Communication]: Each client then establishes a TCP connection to the Main server and
sends their queries (the department name) to the Main server.
○ A client can terminate itself only after it receives a reply from the server (in the
Reply phase).
○ Main server may be connected to both clients at the same time.
2. [Computation]: Once the Main server receives the queries, it decodes the queries and
searches in the list with the received department name, obtaining the corresponding
Backend server ID.
Reply
1. [Communication]: Main server prepares a reply message and sends the result to the
appropriate client.
2. [Communication]: Clients receive the reply message from Main server and display it.
Clients should keep active for further inputted queries, until the program is manually killed
(Ctrl-C).
The format of list.txt is as follows.
,,
,
…
Example list.txt:
1
ECE,CS,Physics
2
Art,Cinema
3
Accounting,Business
…
Assumptions on the list.txt file:
1. Department names are letters. The length of a department name can vary from 1 letter to
at most 20 letters. It may contain both capital and lowercase letters but does not contain
any white spaces.
2. Backend server IDs are non-negative integer numbers.
3. There are at most 10 Backend server IDs in total.
4. There is no additional empty line(s) at the beginning or the end of the file. That is, the
whole list.txt do not contain any empty lines.
5. For simplicity, there is no overlap of department names among different Backend servers.
6. For a given Backend server, there may be repeated department names.
7. list.txt will not be empty.
8. A Backend server will store at least one department names, and at most 100 department
names.
An example list.txt is provided for you as a reference. Other list.txt will be used for grading, so
you are advised to prepare your own files for testing purposes.
Source Code Files
Your implementation should include the source code files described below:
1. servermain: You must name your code file: servermain.c or servermain.cc or
servermain.cpp (all small letters). Also, you must name the corresponding header file (if
you have one; it is not mandatory) servermain.h (all small letters).
2. client: The name for this piece of code must be client.c or client.cc or client.cpp (all small
letters) and the header file (if you have one; it is not mandatory) must be called client.h
(all small letters). There should be only one client file!!!
Note: Your compilation should generate separate executable files for each of the components listed
above.
DETAILED EXPLANATION
Phase 1 -- Bootup
Main server program first boots up in this phase.
./servermain
While booting up, the servers must display a boot up message on the terminal. The format of the
boot up message for Main server is given in the on-screen message table at the end of the document.
As the boot up message indicates, Main server must listen on the appropriate port for incoming
packets/connections.
As described in the previous section, the main server needs to read the text file and store the
information. There are many ways to store the information, such as dictionary, array, vector, etc.
You need to decide which format to use based on the requirement of the problem. You can use
any format if it can give you correct results.
Once the main server programs have booted up, two client programs run. Each client displays a
boot up message as indicated in the onscreen messages table. Note that the client code takes no
input argument from the command line. The format for running the client code is:
./client
After running it, it should display messages to ask the user to enter a query department name (e.g.,
implement using std::cin):
./client
Client is up and running.
Enter Department Name:
For example, if the client 1 is booted up and asks for Backend server ID for department ECE, then
the terminal displays like this:
./client
Client is up and running.
Enter Department Name: ECE
Main server has its unique port number specified in “PORT NUMBER ALLOCATION” section
with the source and destination IP address as localhost/127.0.0.1. Clients use dynamic ports.
Clients and Main server are required to print out on-screen messages after executing each action
as described in the “ON SCREEN MESSAGES” section. These messages will help with grading
if the process did not execute successfully. Missing some of the on-screen messages might result
in misinterpretation that your process failed to complete. Please follow the exact format when
printing the on-screen messages.
Phase 2 -- Query
After booting up, Clients establish TCP connections with Main server. After successfully
establishing the connection, Clients send the input department name to Main server. Once this is
sent, Clients should print a message in a specific format. Repeat the same steps for Client 2.
Main server then receives requests from two Clients. If the department name is not found, the Main
server will print out a message (see the “On Screen Messages” section) and return to standby.
For a server to receive requests from several clients at the same time, the function fork() should
be used for the creation of a new process. fork() function is used for creating a new process, which
is called child process, which runs concurrently with the process that makes the fork() call (parent
process).
For a TCP server, when an application is listening for stream-oriented connections from other hosts,
it is notified of such events and must initialize the connection using accept(). After the connection
with the client is successfully established, the accept() function returns a non-zero descriptor for a
socket called the child socket. The server can then fork off a process using fork() function to
handle connection on the new socket and go back to wait on the original socket. Note that the
socket that was originally created, that is the parent socket, is going to be used only to listen to the
client requests, and it is not going to be used for computation or communication between client
and Main server. Child sockets that are created for a parent socket have the identical well-known
port number and IP address at the server side, but each child socket is created for a specific client.
Through using the child socket with the help of fork(), the server can handle the two clients without
closing any one of the connections.
Once the Main server receives the queries, it decodes the queries and searches in the list with the
received department name, finding the corresponding backend server ID.
Phase 3 -- Reply
At the end of Phase 2, the Main server should have the result ready. The result is the Backend
server ID that the department is associated with. The result should be sent back to the
corresponding client using TCP. The client will print out the backend server ID and then print out
the messages for a new request as follows:
...
Department ECE is associated with backend server 1.
-----Start a new query-----
Enter Department Name:
See the ON SCREEN MESSAGES table for an example output table.
PORT NUMBER ALLOCATION
The ports to be used by the client and the servers are specified in the following table:
Table 1. Static and Dynamic assignments for TCP ports
Process Dynamic Ports Static Ports
Main Server TCP(with client): 33xxx
Client 1 TCP
Client 2 TCP
NOTE: xxx is the last 3 digits of your USC ID. For example, if the last 3 digits of your USC ID
are “319”, you should use the port: 33319 for the Main Server, etc. Port number of all processes
print port number of their own.
Table 2. Main Server on-screen messages
Event On-screen Messages
Booting up (only while starting): Main server is up and running.
Upon reading the department lists: Main server has read the department list from list.txt.
Print the counting results of which
department a backend server is
responsible for:
(Repeated departments should
be counted only once!)
Total number of Backend Servers:
Backend Servers contains distinct
departments
Backend Servers contains distinct
departments
…
For example:
Total num of Backend Servers: 3
Backend Servers 1 contains 3 distinct departments
Backend Servers 2 contains 5 distinct departments
Backend Servers 3 contains 8 distinct departments
Upon receiving the input from the
client:
Main server has received the request on Department
from client using TCP
over port
If the input department name
could not be found, send the error
message to the client:
does not show up in backend server
< Backend Server ID 1, Backend Server ID 2, …>
(Print all backend server IDs!)
The Main Server has sent “Department Name: Not found”
to client using TCP over port
TCP port number>
If the input department name
could be found, decide which
backend server contains related
information about the input
department name:
shows up in backend server <
Backend Server ID>
Main Server has sent searching result to client
using TCP over port
Table 3. Client 1 or Client 2 on-screen messages
Event On-screen Messages
Booting up(only while starting) Client is up and running.
Enter Department Name:
After sending Department name to
Main Server:
Client has sent Department to Main
Server using TCP.
If input Department cannot be
found:
not found.
If input Department can be found: Client has received results from Main Server:
is associated with backend server
.
After the last query ends: -----Start a new query-----
Enter Department Name:
ASSUMPTIONS
1. You must start the processes in this order: Main-server, Client 1, and Client 2.
2. list.txt is created before your program starts.
3. If you need to have more code files than the ones that are mentioned here, please use
meaningful names and all small letters and mention them all in your README file.
4. You can use code snippets from Beej’s guide to network programming in your project.
However, you need to mark the copied part in your code and mention in README.
5. When you run your code, if you get the message “port already in use” or “address already
in use”, please first check to see if you have a zombie process (see following). If you do not
have such zombie processes or if you still get this message after terminating all zombie
processes, try changing the static TCP port number corresponding to this error message (all
port numbers below 1024 are reserved and must not be used). If you must change the port
number, please do mention it in your README file and provide reasons for it.
6. You may create zombie processes while testing your codes, please make sure you kill them
every time you want to run your code. To see a list of all zombie processes, try this command:
ps -aux | grep developer
Identify the zombie processes and their process number and kill them by typing at the
command-line:
kill -9
REQUIREMENTS
1. Do not hardcode the TCP port numbers that are to be obtained dynamically. Refer to
Table 1 to see which ports are statically defined and which ones are dynamically assigned. Use
getsockname() function to retrieve the locally bound port number wherever ports are assigned
dynamically as shown below:
/*Retrieve the locally-bound name of the specified socket and store it
in the sockaddr structure*/
getsock_check=getsockname(TCP_Connect_Sock,(struct sockaddr *)&my_addr,
(socklen_t *)&addrlen);
//Error checking
if (getsock_check== -1) { perror("getsockname"); exit(1);
}
2. The host name must be hard coded as localhost (127.0.0.1) in all codes.
3. Your client should keep running and ask to enter a new request after displaying the previous
result, until the TAs manually terminate it by Ctrl+C. The backend servers and the Main server
should keep running and be waiting for another request until the TAs terminate them by Ctrl+C.
If they terminate before that, you will lose some points for it.
4. All the naming conventions and the on-screen messages must conform to the previously
mentioned rules.
5. You are not allowed to pass any parameter or value or string or character as a command-
line argument.
6. All the on-screen messages must conform exactly to the project description. You should
not add anymore on-screen messages. If you need to do so for the debugging purposes, you
must comment out all the extra messages before you submit your project.
7. Using fork() to create a child process when a new TCP connection is accepted is mandatory
and everyone should support it. This is useful when different clients are trying to connect to
the same server simultaneously.
8. Please do remember to close the socket and tear down the connection once you are done
using that socket.
Programming Platform and Environment
1. All your submitted code MUST work well on the provided virtual machine Ubuntu.
2. All submissions will only be graded on the provided Ubuntu. TA won’t make any updates
or changes to the virtual machine. It’s your responsibility to make sure your code works well
on the provided Ubuntu. “It works well on my machine” is not an excuse and we don’t care.
3. Your submission MUST have a Makefile. Please follow the requirements in the following
“Submission Rules” section.
Programming Languages and Compilers
You must use only C/C++ on UNIX as well as UNIX Socket programming commands and
functions. Here are the pointers for Beej's Guide to C Programming and Network Programming
(socket programming):
http://www.beej.us/guide/bgnet/
(If you are new to socket programming please do study this tutorial carefully as soon as possible
and before starting the project)
http://www.beej.us/guide/bgc/
You can use a Unix text editor like emacs or gedit to type your code and then use compilers such
as g++ (for C++) and gcc (for C) that are already installed on Ubuntu to compile your code. You
must use the following commands and switches to compile yourfile.c or yourfile.cpp. It will make
an executable by the name of "yourfileoutput”.
gcc -o yourfileoutput yourfile.c
g++ -o yourfileoutput yourfile.cpp
Do NOT forget the mandatory naming conventions mentioned before!
Also, inside your code you may need to include these header files in addition to any other header
file you used:
#include
#include
#include
#include
#include
#include
#include
#include
#include
#include
#include
Submission Rules
Along with your code files, include a README file and a Makefile. Submissions without
README and Makefile will be subject to a serious penalty.
In the README file write:
● Your Full Name as given in the class list.
● Your Student ID.
● Your platform (Ubuntu version).
● What you have done in the assignment.
● What your code files are and what each one of them does. (Please do not repeat the
project description, just name your code files, and briefly mention what they do).
● The format of all the messages exchanged.
● Any idiosyncrasy of your project. It should say under what conditions the project
fails, if any.
● Reused Code: Did you use code from anywhere for your project? If not, say so. If
so, say what functions and where they're from. (Also identify this with a comment in
the source code.)
About the Makefile:
Makefile Tutorial: https://www.cs.swarthmore.edu/~newhall/unixhelp/howto_makefiles.html
Makefile should support following functions:
Compile all your files and creates executables make all
Compile Main Server make servermain
Compile Client make client
Run Main Server ./servermain
Run client 1 ./client
Run client 2 ./client
TA will first compile all codes using make all. TA will then open 3 different terminal windows.
On one terminal, start Main Server using commands ./servermain. Remember that main server
should always be on once started. On the other two terminals, start the client as ./client. TA will
check the outputs for multiple queries. The terminals should display the messages specified above.
Please follow these rules to submit your assignment:
1. Compress all your files including the README file into a single “tar ball” and call it:
ee450_yourUSCusername.tar.gz (all small letters) e.g. your filename may be
ee450_nanantha.tar.gz. Please make sure that your name matches the one in the class list.
Here are the instructions:
On your VM, go to the directory which has all your project files. Remove all executable
and other unnecessary files. Only include the required source code files, Makefile and the
README file. Now run the following commands:
tar cvf ee450_yourUSCusername.tar *
gzip ee450_yourUSCusername.tar
Now, you will find a file named “ee450_yourUSCusername.tar.gz” in the same directory.
Please notice there is a star (*) at the end of the first command.
2. Do NOT include anything not required in your tar.gz file, for example data file list.txt. Do
NOT use subfolders. Any compressed format other than .tar.gz will NOT be graded!
3. Upload “ee450_yourUSCusername.tar.gz” to Blackboard -> Assignments. After the file is
submitted, you must click on the “submit” button to actually submit it. If you do not click
on “submit”, the file will not be submitted.
4. Blackboard will keep a history of all your submissions. If you make multiple submissions,
we will grade your latest valid submission. Submission after the deadline is considered as
invalid.
5. Please consider all kinds of possible technical issues and do expect a huge traffic on the
Blackboard website very close to the deadline which may render your submission or even
access to Blackboard unsuccessful.
6. Please DO NOT wait till the last 5 minutes to upload and submit because some technical
issues might happen, and you will miss the deadline. And a kind suggestion, if you still get
some bugs one hour before the deadline, please make a submission first to make sure you
will get some points for your hard work!
7. After submitting, please confirm your submission by downloading and compiling it on
your machine. If the outcome is not what you expected, try to resubmit, and confirm again.
We will only grade what you submitted even though it’s corrupted.
8. You have sufficient time to work on this project and submit it in time hence there is
absolutely zero tolerance for late submissions! Do NOT assume that there will be a late
submission penalty or a grace period. If you submit your project late (no matter for what
reason or excuse or even technical issues), you simply receive a zero for the project.
GRADING CRITERIA
Notice: We will only grade what is already done by the program instead of what will be done.
For example, the TCP connection is established, and data is sent to the Main Server. But the result
is not received by the Main server (no on-screen message) because Main server got some errors.
Then you will lose some points for phase 1 even though it might work well.
Your project grade will depend on the following:
1. Correct functionality, i.e. how well your programs fulfill the requirements of the
assignment, especially the communications through TCP sockets.
2. Inline comments in your code. This is important as this will help in understanding what
you have done.
3. Whether your programs work as you say they would in the README file.
4. Whether your programs print out the appropriate error messages and results.
5. If your submitted codes do not even compile, you will receive 10 out of 100 for the project.
6. If your submitted codes compile using make but when executed, produce runtime errors
without performing any tasks of the project, you will receive 15 out of 100.
7. If you forget to include the README file or Makefile in the project tar-ball that you
submitted, you will lose 15 points for each missing file (plus you need to send the file to
the TA in order for your project to be graded.)
8. If you add subfolders or compress files in the wrong way, you will lose 2 points each.
9. If your data file path is not the same as the code files, you will lose 5 points.
10. Do not submit datafile (three .txt files) used for test, otherwise, you will lose 10 points.
11. If your code does not correctly assign the TCP port numbers (in any phase), you will lose
10 points each.
12. Detailed points assignments for each functionality will be posted after finishing grading.
13. The minimum grade for an on-time submitted project is 10 out of 100, the submission
includes a working Makefile and a README.
14. There are no points for the effort or the time you spend working on the project or reading
the tutorial. If you spend plenty of time on this project and it doesn’t even compile, you
will receive only 10 out of 100.
15. Your code will not be altered in any way for grading purposes and however it will be tested
with different inputs. Your designated TA runs your project as is, according to the project
description and your README file and then checks whether it works correctly or not. If
your README is not consistent with the project description, we will follow the project
description.
FINAL WORDS
1. Start on this project early. Hard deadline is strictly enforced. No grace periods. No grace
days. No exceptions.
2. In view of what is a recurring complaint near the end of a project, we want to make it clear
that the target platform on which the project is supposed to run is the provided Ubuntu
(16.04/22.04). It is strongly recommended that students develop their code on this virtual
machine. In case students wish to develop their programs on their personal machines,
possibly running other operating systems, they are expected to deal with technical and
incompatibility issues (on their own) to ensure that the final project compiles and runs on
the requested virtual machine. If you do development on your own machine, please leave
at least three days to make it work on Ubuntu. It might take much longer than you expect
because of some incompatibility issues.
3. Check Blackboard (Discussion Board & Announcement) regularly for additional
requirements and latest updates about the project guidelines. Any project changes
announced on Blackboard are final and overwrites the respective description mentioned in
this document.
4. Plagiarism will not be tolerated and will result in an “F” in the course.