We Keep Coding

Python socket - Messages not always registering on server

In trying to familiarize myself with the socket library, I have a simple server and client setup. Basically I've stumbled through and am able to set up connection and get the server and client to talk to each other. To make it more interactive, I have client.py able to send text through the command line. Everything appears to be working properly (with the exception of the server side tearing down connection properly if client input is blank), if I type a message from the client side, it spits it right back out to me. In this example, I have it set up for the server side to print the text as well. What I noticed was, that the server side doesn't alway 'register' what it being sent from the client. I am trying to figure out why this is the case. For being a test, it doesn't really affect anything, I just can't figure out what is taking place behind the scenes.
EDIT:
Actually, after playing around with it for a bit, it appears every other message is being printed out to the server console. I've still yet to figure out why this is the case
Server side:
#server.py
import socket
ss = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
ss.bind(('127.0.0.1',5000))
ss.listen(5)
while True:
conn, addr = ss.accept()
with conn:
print ('Connected by', addr)
while True:
data = conn.recv(4096)
print (data)
if not data:
print ("nothing received from client")
ss.close()
break
Client side:
#client.py
import socket
server = 'localhost'
port = 5000
s = socket. socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
s.connect(('127.0.0.1', 5000))
s.send(bytes(b'Client has connected'))
while True:
msg = input()
s.send(bytes(input(msg),'utf-8'))
if not msg:
print ("Server should tear down connection...")
# s.close()
break

In sockets you there are no methods __exit__ implemented, so you can't use the with conn:
you need to remove this part of code.

Python continuous TCP connection

I'm new to socket programming and trying to get back into python. I wanted to write a simple TCP program which will continuously maintain a connection until some end state is reached, in this case "close" is sent by the client.
This works fine for the first iteration, but it freezes on the second thing I send and I'm not sure why. Could someone please explain why my program freezes or how better implement this?
TCPServer.py
from socket import *
serverPort = 12000
serverSocket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM)
serverSocket.setsockopt(SOL_SOCKET, SO_REUSEADDR, 1)
serverSocket.bind(('', serverPort))
serverSocket.listen(1)
print('The server is ready to recieve')
while True:
connectionSocket, addr = serverSocket.accept()
sentence = connectionSocket.recv(1024).decode()
if(sentence == "close"):
connectionSocket.close()
capSentence = sentence.upper()
connectionSocket.send(capSentence.encode())
TCPClient.py
from socket import *
serverName = 'localhost'
serverPort = 12000
clientSocket = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM)
clientSocket.connect((serverName, serverPort))
while(1):
sentence = raw_input('input sentence: ')
if(sentence == "close"):
break
clientSocket.send(sentence.encode())
retSentence = clientSocket.recv(1024)
print('From server; ', retSentence.decode())
clientSocket.close()

There are multiple problems with the server. I'll try to point out what I see.
It freezes on the second thing you send because the server never attempts to read from the client socket a second time if the received data is not equal to "close". You need another loop to accomplish this, such as:
while True:
connectionSocket, addr = serverSocket.accept()
while True:
sentence = connectionSocket.recv(1024).decode()
if sentence == "close": break
capSentence = sentence.upper()
connectionSocket.send(capSentence.encode())
connectionSocket.close()
Additionally, note that the server runs through the loops synchronously, and so it cannot accept a second connection until the first one is closed.
Finally, you are missing error handling code. The whole server will crash if a client prematurely disconnects.
If your goal is to have the server only handle a single connection and then terminate, the simplest solution is to move the accept() call outside of the main loop (otherwise you wait for a new connection on each iteration).
connectionSocket, addr = serverSocket.accept()
# Destroy the server socket; we don't need it anymore since we are not
# accepting any connections beyond this point.
serverSocket.close()
while True:
sentence = connectionSocket.recv(1024).decode()
if(sentence == "close"):
connectionSocket.close()
break
capSentence = sentence.upper()
connectionSocket.send(capSentence.encode())

You've got just a single socket connection going on in the client but in the server code you have the accept call inside the while loop. Move it outside the loop.
There's more than this that is wrong with the code though but that kinda depends on where you want to go from here

Terminating client connection to server using keyboard shortcut in python

I am trying to modify a server and client chat script implemented in python. One of the requirement is that the client exits when the user types CTRL-D. My question is how do I read that the user typed (ctrl-D) and implement it within this code. Should I just close the socket like c_socket.close() without any message back to the server that I am exiting?
Thanks!
# telnet program example
import socket, select, string, sys
import readline
def prompt() :
sys.stdout.write('<You> ')
sys.stdout.flush()
#main function
if __name__ == "__main__":
if(len(sys.argv) < 3) :
print 'Usage : python MClient hostname port'
sys.exit()
host = sys.argv[1]
port = int(sys.argv[2])
s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
s.settimeout(2)
# connect to remote host
try :
s.connect((host, port))
except :
print 'Unable to connect'
sys.exit()
print 'Connected to remote host. Start sending messages'
prompt()
while 1:
socket_list = [sys.stdin, s]
# Get the list sockets which are readable
read_sockets, write_sockets, error_sockets = select.select(socket_list , [], [])
for sock in read_sockets:
#incoming message from remote server
if sock == s:
data = sock.recv(4096)
if not data :
print '\nDisconnected from chat server'
sys.exit()
else :
#print data
sys.stdout.write(data)
prompt()
#user entered a message
else :
msg = sys.stdin.readline()
s.send(msg)
prompt()

Last thing first - whether you need to send something to the server before closing the socket or not depends purely on your protocol. Given the simplistic nature of the presented client code, I'd guess that closing of the socket should be enough (and the server should treat unannounced disconnects anyway as one shouldn't consider network I/O as persistent).
Second, CTRL+D will cause the returned message from sys.stdin.readline() to return as empty so you can test against that, e.g.:
msg = sys.stdin.readline()
if msg:
s.send(msg)
prompt()
else:
s.close()
sys.exit()
If you really need to send something to the server (again, depends on the protocol) you can use socket's shutdown() method before calling close().
However, keep in mind that the code presented here doesn't account for pressing the CTRL+D while reading from the socket (i.e. receiving data) so if there is a particularly long data stream coming in your CTRL+D won't be registered. You can solve this by checking the user input (and writing it to buffer for later sending) during the retrieval procedure, or you can just place your receiving code in a separate thread and leave the main thread just for user input.
You can then use the atexit module to cleanly exit from your client at any time.

python3 - broken pipe error when using socket.send()

I am programming a client-server instant message program. I created a similar program in Python 2, and am trying to program it in Python 3. The problem is when the server takes the message and tries to send it to the other client, it gives me "[Errno 32] Broken Pipe" and exits.
I have done some research, and found that this occurs when the client disconnects, so I did some more testing but could not find when the client disconnects. (I am using Ubuntu 14.04 and Python 3.4)
Here is the server code:
import socket, select, sys
def broadcast(sock, messaged):
for socket in connection_list:
if socket != s and socket != sock:
# Here is where it gives me the broken pipe error
try:
s.send(messaged.encode("utf-8"))
except BrokenPipeError as e:
print(e)
sys.exit()
connection_list = []
host = ''
port = 5558
s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
s.setsockopt(socket.SOL_SOCKET, socket.SO_REUSEADDR, 1)
s.bind((host,port))
s.listen(5)
connection_list.append(s)
read_sockets,write_sockets,error_sockets = select.select(connection_list,[],[])
while True:
for sock in read_sockets:
if sock == s:
conn, addr = s.accept()
connection_list.append(conn)
client = "Client (%s,%s) connected" % addr
print(client)
broadcast(sock,client)
else:
try:
data = sock.recv(2048)
decodeddata = data.decode("utf-8")
if data:
broadcast(sock, decodeddata)
except:
offline = "Client " + addr + "is offline"
broadcast(sock, offline)
print(offline)
connection_list.remove(sock)
sock.close()
continue
And the client code:
import socket, select, string, sys, time
def prompt(data) :
print("<You> " + data)
def Person(data) :
print("<Receiver> " + data)
if __name__ == "__main__":
host = "localhost"
port = 5558
s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
s.settimeout(2)
try:
s.connect((host,port))
except:
print('Unable to connect')
sys.exit()
print('Connected.')
socket_list = [s]
read_sockets,write_sockets,error_sockets = select.select(socket_list,[],[])
while 1:
for sock in read_sockets:
if sock == s:
try:
time.sleep(1)
data = sock.recv(1024)
Person(data.decode("utf-8"))
except:
msg = input("Send a message: ")
try:
s.send(str.encode(msg))
except:
print("Server is offline")
sys.exit()
else:
print("Server is offline")
sys.exit()

There are two problems that you have to fix to make this work.
First, on both the client side and the server side, you have to put the select inside the loop, not outside. Otherwise, if there was something to read before you got to the loop, you'll recv over and over, and if there wasn't, you'll never recv. Once you fix this, you can get rid of the time.sleep(1). (You should never need a sleep to solve a problem like this; at best it masks the problem, and usually introduces new ones.)
Meanwhile, on the server side, inside broadcast, you're doing s.send. But s is your listener socket, not a connected client socket. You want socket.send here, because socket is each socket in connection_list.
There are a number of unrelated problems in your code as well. For example:
I'm not sure what the except: in the client is supposed to be catching. What it mainly seems to catch is that, about 50% of the time, hitting ^C to end the program triggers the send prompt. But of course, like any bare except:, it also masks any other problems with your code.
There's no way to send any data back and forth other than the "connected" message except for that except: clause.
addr is a tuple of host and port, so when someone goes offline, the server raises a TypeError from trying to format the offline message.
addr is always the last client who connected, not the one who's disconnecting.
You're not setting your sockets to nonblocking mode.
You're not checking for EOF on the recv. This means that you don't actually detect that a client has gone offline until you get an error. Which normally happens only after you try to send them a message (e.g., because someone else has connected or disconnected).

Send/receive Packets with TCP sockets

Recently, I managed to create sockets on my PC and my Raspberry Pi to enable communication between both devices. Currently, the client is able to automatically send messages to the server. I was wondering, if it is possible to modify the scripts to send tcp data packets instead of purely text messages, as I would very much like to control the raspberry pi using my PC in the future without having the need to ssh/etc.
I've looked at some examples, but as I don't have much experience in writing my own scripts/codes, I'm not very sure how to go about doing this. I would appreciate if someone could guide me in the right direction with explanation and some examples if possible.
Anyway here is the server/client script I'm running at the moment:
Client:
import socket
import sys
import struct
import time
#main function
if __name__ == "__main__":
if(len(sys.argv) < 2) :
print 'Usage : python client.py hostname'
sys.exit()
host = sys.argv[1]
port = 8888
#create an INET, STREAMing socket
try:
s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
except socket.error:
print 'Failed to create socket'
sys.exit()
print 'Socket Created'
try:
remote_ip = socket.gethostbyname( host )
s.connect((host, port))
except socket.gaierror:
print 'Hostname could not be resolved. Exiting'
sys.exit()
print 'Socket Connected to ' + host + ' on ip ' + remote_ip
#Send some data to remote server
message = "Test"
try :
#Set the whole string
while True:
s.send(message)
print 'Message sent successfully'
time.sleep(1)
print 'Sending...'
except socket.error:
#Send failed
print 'Send failed'
sys.exit()
def recv_timeout(the_socket,timeout=2):
#make socket non blocking
the_socket.setblocking(0)
#total data partwise in an array
total_data=[];
data='';
#beginning time
begin=time.time()
while 1:
#if you got some data, then break after timeout
if total_data and time.time()-begin > timeout:
break
#if you got no data at all, wait a little longer, twice the timeout
elif time.time()-begin > timeout*2:
break
#recv something
try:
data = the_socket.recv(8192)
if data:
total_data.append(data)
#change the beginning time for measurement
begin=time.time()
else:
#sleep for sometime to indicate a gap
time.sleep(0.1)
except:
pass
#join all parts to make final string
return ''.join(total_data)
#get reply and print
print recv_timeout(s)
s.close()
Server:
import socket
import sys
from thread import *
HOST = '' # Symbolic name meaning all available interfaces
PORT = 8888
s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
print 'Socket created'
try:
s.bind((HOST, PORT))
except socket.error , msg:
print 'Bind failed. Error Code : ' + str(msg[0]) + ' Message ' + msg[1]
sys.exit()
print 'Socket bind complete'
s.listen(10)
print 'Socket now listening'
#Function for handling connections
def clientthread(conn):
#Sending message to connected client
conn.send('Welcome to the server. Receving Data...\n') #send only takes string
#infinite loop so that function do not terminate and thread do not end.
while True:
#Receiving from client
data = conn.recv(1024)
reply = 'Message Received at the server!\n'
print data
if not data:
break
conn.sendall(reply)
conn.close()
#now keep talking with the client
while 1:
#wait to accept a connection
conn, addr = s.accept()
print 'Connected with ' + addr[0] + ':' + str(addr[1])
#start new thread
start_new_thread(clientthread ,(conn,))
s.close()

socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM) already creates a connection that provides a reliable stream of bytes between two machines. This uses TCP, which is on top of IP and Ethernet. The latter two are package-based, while TCP creates a stream of continuous bytes on top of it. It also adds some error checking and error correction, so it is pretty reliable.
I honestly don't understand what you want to achieve with what you call "send packets". What you don't want to do is to create an implementation of TCP yourself, as that's a non-trivial task, so sending RAW packets is out. In general, even using TCP is already relatively low-level and should be avoided unless really necessary.
Using e.g. ZeroMQ you get a message-based interface that does all the transmission for you. It does so on top of TCP (or other transports) and adds more error correction for e.g. disconnects. There, you also have something like "packets", but those are independent of how many TCP or IP packets were required to send it underneath. If you don't want to implement a specific protocol, I'd suggest you use this framework instead of lowlevel TCP sockets.
Another simple alternative is to use HTTP, for which there is also existing code in Python. The downside is that it is always one side that initiates some communication and the other side only replies. If you want some kind of active notification, you either have to poll or use hacks like delaying an answer.

You are already sending data packets - those packets juts happen to contain text data at the moment. Try looking into pickle in the standard libraries and into pyro.