An example of a socket client and server for Unix/Linux/macOS platforms (i.e. Network/Berkeley Sockets).
The project will build and run on pretty much any Unix/Linux platform, including Unix-derived platforms such as macOS. I've built and run the demo on several platforms, most recently:
- macOS
- Ubuntu Linux
- Cygwin on Windows
Originally, the project was built on Solaris SVR4 and will still work on this platform.
Windows: This project uses Unix/Berkeley Sockets, which are not natively available on Windows. To build and run on Windows, use a Unix-compatible environment — WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) is the recommended modern option; Cygwin also works. Note that WinSock, the native Windows socket API, has a similar but not identical interface.
The project build needs:
- cmake (3.10 or later)
- gcc (or clang)
Configure and build using CMake:
$ cmake -B build
$ cmake --build build
This produces build/server and build/client.
To perform a clean build:
$ rm -rf build
$ cmake -B build && cmake --build build
The project creates two binaries, namely client and server, representing either end of a client/server socket.
First, run the server, passing in a unique (unused) port number:
$ ./build/server --port 12345
The server will report that it's completed initialization and is listening for client connections.
Next, run the client, passing in the same port number:
$ ./build/client --port 12345
The client defaults to localhost as the target host. To connect to a remote server, pass the --host argument:
$ ./build/client --port 12345 --host <hostname-or-ip>
The client will connect to the server and send a structured message before exiting. The server will print the structured message received from the client, and then continue to listen for the next connection.