JAVA NETWORKING
By AMAN KAUSHAL, ABV IIITM, Gwalior(MP) & Deepan Gupta (IIIT Hyderabad 2k13 graduate)
Java Networking
Socket Programming Tutorial: Building a simple Client-Server setup in Java
In the following tutorial we will deal with the basics of socket programming over TCP/IP networks. Also, we will create our own client/server program to create a simple chatting system.
Sockets
Sockets are just the endpoints of a two-way communication link in a network. Socket helps in the communication of two processes/programs on a network (eg. Internet). 
Bidirectional inter process communication
The programs can communicate by reading/writing via their sockets.
A socket comprises of:
IP Address: IP Address is an identification label given to a device/machine connected to a network. It acts as the address of the machine in the network, eg. 192.168.11.22 . Based on the size of label, IP address can be classified as:
IPv4: 32-bit address
IPv6: 128-bit address
Port number: A port is a virtual endpoint of communication link through which the information passes. It is application-specific ie, different applications can communicate through different ports in a same computer. A port number is a 16-bit unsigned integer (0 to 65535) which uniquely identifies a port. Some port numbers are reserved eg port 80 - HTTP. We can assign any port number to an application provided it is not reserved and not used by any other application. 
The combination of both is also termed as a socket address. Hence using socket address we can connect to any remote machine.
Every socket follows some protocol (set of rules) for transferring the data. Based on the type of protocol used sockets can be classified as:
Datagram Sockets: Datagram Sockets are connectionless-oriented and unreliable. Uses UDP (User Datagram Protocol) protocol. They are basically used in audio/video streaming.
Stream Sockets: Stream Sockets are connection-oriented and guarantees reliable and in order data transmission. Uses TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) protocol. Used in areas where reliability cannot be compromised.
Raw Sockets: Raw sockets do not use any transport protocol but data is directly transmitted over IP protocol. They are used by ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) application layer protocol.
This document below, contains a comprehensive tutorial which will introduce you to client-server and socket programming in Java.
Here's a quick summary and recap of the tutorial. The basics of Socket Programming in Java.
You may simply read through this casually. You will understand these better once you read through the code for the sample applications discussed later.
Host:- is a Machine participating in a network.
Server Host:- ready to accept request & share the resources(data).
Client Host:- requesting for a service.
A socket is the one end-point of a two-way communication link between two programs running over the network. Running over the network means that the programs run on different computers, usually referred as the local and
the remote computers.
InetAddress:- is a singleton class which contains IP & machine name of a machine in a
static InetAddress getLocalHost() -> returns IP of Local host
static InetAddress getByName(“Machine name”) -> returns IP for a host name
static String getHostName() -> name of host
static String getHostAddress() → Address of Host
static byte[] getAddress() -----|↗
Socket Programming is the communication Mechanism used by two computers
A Client creates a socket at its end & tries to connect this socket with server.
A Socket requires two elements to establish communication.
(a) The Address of server
(b) The port at which server is listening the request
1. A server socket instantiates & registers a port for communication.
2. It waits till client generates a request.
3. Client Socket instantiates a request at IP of server & given port.
4. A two way communication establishes, Client InputStream connects to server
OutputStream & client OutputStream connects to server InputStream.
Server Socket :- Responsible to open socket at server end and wait for client request.
ServerSocket(int port) throws IOException (Creates server socket on the specified port with a queue
ServerSocket(int port,int maxQueue) throws IOException (Creates a server on the specified port with a maximum queue length of maxQueue)
ServerSocket(int port,int maxQueue,InetAddress ob) (Creates a server socket on the specified port with a maximum queue length of maxQueue.On a multihomed host, ob specifies the IP address to which this socket binds)
Socket accept() -> Server gets hang & wait for Client request
Socket:- class opens socket at client end
1. A Simple Welcome/Hello Client-Server application
Creating a client/server application where the server sends “welcome to server” message to client & client sends “Hello from Client” to server.
Take a good look at the Java code in the tutorial document.
2. A multi-threaded Client/Server application
The next example is a chat application. A chat application consists of a chat server and a chat client. The server accepts connections from the clients and delivers all messages from each client to other clients. This is a tool to communicate with other people over Internet in real time. The client is implemented using two threads - one thread to interact with the server and the other with the standard input. Two threads are needed because a client must
communicate with the server and, simultaneously, it must be ready to read messages from the standard input to be sent to the server.
The server is implemented using threads also. It uses a separate thread for each connection. It spawns a new client thread every time a new connection from a client is accepted. This simplifies a lot the design of the server. Multi-threading, however, creates synchronization issues. We will present two implementations of the chat server. An implementation that focus on multi-threading without considering the synchronization issues will be presented
first. Then we will focus on the synchronization issues that a multi-threaded implementation creates. Finally, an updated version of the multithreaded chat server that fixes the synchronization issues is presented.
The code presented in the document is the multi-threaded chat client. It uses two threads: one to read the
data from the standard input and to sent it to the server, the other to read the data from the server and to print it on the standard output.
