A web server opens a temporary port while sending the response to the clients. In the case of comet programming(streaming), if the response from web server is never going to end, does that mean the web server will always keep the temporary port open for infinite period ?
Depends on the COMET technique:
Client sends request to Server - Server sends data (when it has meaningful data to send ;-) - Client receives data - Client closes.
Client sends request to Server - Server sends data in "chunk" (chunked transfer) keeping the connection open for as long as it can/instructed to.
It will be open until the server or the client closes the connection.
Related
I am new to http protocol. When we are sending json message over http to server, How we need to send ?
we need to send the data from different port each time
OR
we can send data form a single port in each time.
If I want to use existing connection to send data in future then whether it is possible or not ?
There is no reason why you would create a TCP socket for each piece of data you want to send — and this has nothing to do with HTTP — and particularly not through a different port each time. In fact, once you hace the socket created and you have connected to the server you should in principle always talk to the server through that socket.
Also, the HTTP protocol uses the port 80, and HTTPS uses 443. That number does not change on demand. Of course you can send HTTP requests through any available port you want and some services even run on special ports using HTTP as the communication protocol but normaly HTTP is 80. See the /etc/services file on linux and read about getaddrinfo().
As I understand:
A port designates a program on the server.
When we say to share a port, it actually means to have the requests processed by the same program listening on that port.
The WebSocket handshake resembles the HTTP format, so it can be understood by the server program that handles HTTP protocol. So it's OK to send the handshake request to port 80.
But after the handshake, the WebSocket data format is totally different from HTTP format, how could it still be sent to port 80? Such as via URL like below:
ws://somehost:80/chat
How does it work out?
My guess:
Does the HTTP program see that the incoming request on port 80 cannot be handled as HTTP, and then it will pass it to WebSocket program to process it. If so, what if there's some other protocol that wants to share port 80, say WebSocket2, how could HTTP program know which protocol to pass on to if there's not a way to identify the protocol being used.
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Based on jfriend00's reply, I draw the following diagram:
So WebSocket and HTTP traffic in the same browser are actually carried out through different socket connections. Though they both start by connecting to server's port 80.
I think if the word WebSocket doesn't contain a socket in it, it will be easier to understand it as just another application level protocol over TCP protocol.
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I refined the above diagram to below based on jfriend00's further comments.
What I want to show is how WebSocket communication and HTTP communication to the same server coexist in a browser.
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After reading this thread, I recalled that the server port doesn't change when server accept a connection: Does the port change when a TCP connection is accepted by a server?
So the diagram should be like this:
The TCP connection for HTTP and the TCP connection for WebSocket should be using different client ports.
When a server listens on a given port, it is listening for incoming connections. When a new incoming connection arrives, it is given its own socket to run on. That socket provides the connection between the two endpoints. From then on, that socket runs completely independently from all other sockets that might also be connected.
So, one incoming http request can specify the "upgrade" header and get upgraded to webSocket and then both ends agree to talk the webSocket protocol from then on. Meanwhile, other incoming http requests without that upgrade header are treated only as normal http requests.
In case you don't quite understand how the webSocket protocol works, you can get a full look at how it connects here.
Here are the main steps:
The client requesting a webSocket connection, sends an HTTP request to the server on port 80.
That HTTP request is a perfectly legal HTTP request, but it has a header included on it Upgrade: websocket.
If the server supports the webSocket protocol, then it responds with a legal HTTP response with a 101 status code that includes a header Connection: Upgrade.
At that point, both sides then switch protocols to the webSocket protocol and all future communication on that socket is done using the data format for the webSocket frame.
Any other incoming HTTP requests that do not contain the upgrade request header are treated as normal HTTP requests.
Does the HTTP program see that the incoming request on port 80 cannot
be handled as HTTP, and then it will pass it to WebSocket program to
process it.
No, the first request IS a legal HTTP request (just with a special header in it) and the response sent back is a legal HTTP response. But, after that response, both sides switch protocols to webSocket. So a custom header is used to tell the web server that this incoming HTTP request is meant to be the first step in establishing a webSocket connection.
If so, what if there's some other protocol that wants to share port
80, say WebSocket2, how could HTTP program know which protocol to pass
on to if there's not a way to identify the protocol being used.
This upgrade mechanism could be used to support other protocols too by just specifying a different protocol name Upgrade: someOtherProtocol though I'm not aware of any others that have been standardized.
Because the browser use a new port to connect and send/receive messages to/from the server.
Assume I have a simple ASP.NET MVC application with an Index view that just shows some static data.
Considering the fact that the web is stateless, when a browser requests for this index.cshtml, a HTTP Get request is made and the server sends the contents of the page to the client.
In Such case is there an entity called connection? If so when can we say that connection is established?
Hope my question is clear.
A connection is established between the client (browser) and the underlying web server (IIS) prior to any invocation of your MVC application.
If you get a request in your web application, then a TCP connection has already been established and an HTTP request has been sent to the server over TCP. With keep-alive semantics, multiple requests may use the same connection, and of course multiple actions could even be called for the same request.
So basically, the establishment of a connection is not something that is particularly useful for a web application to indicate or track, if that is what you are trying to do.
The connection is estabished to the IIS Server/Process and then forwarded to .NET, so the moment IIS receives it, it's 'established'
The HTTP protocol is based on the TCP protocol. Before the GET request is made, a TCP connection must be made.
"The connection is closed" happens when the TCP connection is closed, usually after a single request/response interaction.
The connection may be kept open by using Keep-Alive.
I am would like to create a websocket server. I understand that the client will make a request and that a partially encrypted response needs to be sent back to the client. My question is does that connection need to stay open to handle the websocket messages after the connection is made. Or does the client establish a new connection after receiving the response from the server?
Thanks,
-ren
Here's an article on the websockets handshake.
And, a sample implementation of a websockets server in PHP.
The socket stays open.
The whole protocol is described in RFC 6455.
I already have a server with port and want to write a web app to get the information form the port. Will this be possible with WebPorts?
The Client doesn't even need to talk back to the server, which is the whole point of websockets I would imagine, but since I already have the ports setup, I might be easier and cleaner to just connect and get the info without having to refresh.
WebSockets are not intended as clear TCP channels over which other existing protocols can be implemented.
WebSockets are designed to allow messages to be sent between a client and server, where an event is raised each time a message is received.
Hence a WebSocket client cannot simply connect to an existing TCP server - that server also has to speak the WebSocket protocol.
You could of course write a WebSocket-based server that does nothing but act as a proxy to existing network services.
I think you want websockify which is a WebSocket to plain TCP socket bridge/proxy. It also allows sending and receiving of binary data with the older version of the WebSocket protocol which hadn't yet added direct binary data support.
Disclaimer: I created websockify.