Networking Programming

Objectives

Overview Networking Basic

Overview Client-Server Model

Explain about URL, URN and URI

Explain about WebRequest and WebResponse class

Explain about HttpClient class

Explain about Domain Name System (DNS)

Overview TCP Services: TcpListener, TcpClient and Socket class

Demo WebRequest and HttpClient with .NET application

Demo TcpListener and TcpClient with .NET application

Explain and demo about UDP service with .NET application
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 Why Should We Study This Lecture?


Nowadays, distributed applications are popular. People need large

applications, running based on a computer network (local area networks-LANs-

or wide area network-WAN), including many sites working concurrently. Do you

want to create such applications?


How do we develop network applications by .NET?

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Networking Basics
 Some Definitions Related to Networking

Platform: Hardware + Operating system

Client: an application running in a computer (such as browser) can receive data
from another (server)

Server: an application running in a computer (such as IIS- Windows Internet
Information Service, Kestrel, Nginx) can supply data to others (clients)

IP address (Internet Protocol): unsigned integer helps identifying a network
element(computer, router,…)

IPv4: 4-byte IP address, such as 192.143.5.1

IPv6: 16-byte IP address

Port: unsigned 2-byte integer helps operating system differentiating a network
communicating process
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 Some Definitions Related to Networking

Protocol: Rules for packaging data of a network communication because client
and server can be working in different platform. Two common basic protocols
are TCP and UDP

TCP: (Transmission Control Protocol) is a connection-based protocol (only one
connecting line only) that provides a reliable flow of data between two
computers based on the acknowledge mechanism

UDP: (User Datagram Protocol) is a protocol that sends independent packets of
data, called datagrams, from one computer to another with no guarantees about
arrival (many connecting lines can be used, acknowledge mechanism is not
used). Many firewalls and routers have been configured not to allow UDP
packets. Ask our system administrator if UDP is permitted
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Client-Server Model

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 Client-Server Model

Computers running on the Internet communicate to each other

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 Client-Server Model

How to distinguish a computer in a network?

IP:152.3.21.121 or Hostname

Personal computer IP: 127.0.0.1

An IP address is either a 32-bit or

128-bit unsigned number used by
IP, a lower-level protocol on which
protocols like UDP and TCP are
built. The IP address architecture is
defined by RFC 790

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 Client-Server Model

How to distinguish a network-communicating process in a computer?

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 URL, URN and URI

A URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) is a specially formatted string that
describes a resource on the internet or a LAN, such as a web page, file, or
email address

A URI can be broken up into a series
of elements—typically, scheme,
authority, and path

The Uri class in the System
namespace performs just this
division, exposing a property for
each element

URI properties
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 URL, URN and URI

URL stands for Uniform Resource Location. URL is a subset of URI that
describes the network address or location where the source is available

URL begins with the name of the protocol to be used for accessing the
resource and then specific resource location

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 URL, URN and URI

URLs build on the Domain Name Service (DNS) to address hosts symbolically
and use a file-path like syntax to identify specific resources at a given host. For
this reason, mapping URLs to physical resources is straightforward and is
implemented by various Web browsers

URN stands for Uniform Resource Name. It is a URI that uses a URN scheme
 “urn” scheme: It is followed by a namespace identifier, followed by a colon, followed by
namespace specific string. For example : urn:isbn:0451450523
 URN does not imply the availability of the identified resource.URNs are location-
independent resource identifiers and are designed to make it easy to map other
namespaces into URN space

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 URIs Demo

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Networking Programming in .NET
 Understanding System.Net.* Namespaces

The .NET offers a variety of classes in the System.Net.* namespaces for
communicating via standard network protocols, such as HTTP, TCP/IP, and
FTP. The summary key components as follows :
 A WebClient facade class for simple download/upload operations via HTTP or FTP
 WebRequest and WebResponse classes for low-level control over client-side HTTP or
FTP operations
 HttpClient for consuming HTTP web APIs and RESTful services
 HttpListener for writing an HTTP server
 SmtpClient for constructing and sending mail messages via SMTP
 Dns for converting between domain names and addresses
 TcpClient, UdpClient, TcpListener, and Socket classes for direct access to the transport
and network layers
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Network Architecture

The figure illustrates .NET networking types and the communication layers in which they reside
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 Understanding WebRequest Class

WebRequest and WebResponse are common base classes for managing both
HTTP and FTP client-side activity as well as the “file:” protocol. They
encapsulate the request/response model that these protocols all share: the
client makes a request, and then awaits a response from a server

WebRequest is the abstract base class for .NET's request/response model for
accessing data from the Internet

An application that uses the request/response model can request data from the
Internet in a protocol-agnostic manner, in which the application works with
instances of the WebRequest class while protocol-specific descendant classes
carry out the details of the request

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 Understanding WebRequest Class

The following table describes some of the key properties:
Property Name Description
ContentLength When overridden in a descendant class, gets or sets the content length of the request data
being sent
ContentType When overridden in a descendant class, gets or sets the content type of the request data being
sent
Credentials When overridden in a descendant class, gets or sets the network credentials used for
authenticating the request with the Internet resource
Method When overridden in a descendant class, gets or sets the protocol method to use in this request
Headers When overridden in a descendant class, gets or sets the collection of header name/value pairs
associated with the request
RequestUri When overridden in a descendant class, gets the URI of the Internet resource associated with
the request
Timeout Gets or sets the length of time, in milliseconds, before the request times out

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 Understanding WebRequest Class

The following table describes some of the key methods:
Method Name Description
Create(Uri) Initializes a new WebRequest instance for the specified URI
scheme
GetRequestStream() When overridden in a descendant class, returns a Stream for
writing data to the Internet resource
GetResponse() When overridden in a descendant class, returns a response to an
Internet request
CreateHttp(String) Initializes a new HttpWebRequest instance for the specified URI
string
BeginGetRequestStream(AsyncCallback, Object) When overridden in a descendant class, provides an
asynchronous version of the GetRequestStream() method
BeginGetResponse(AsyncCallback, Object) When overridden in a descendant class, begins an asynchronous
request for an Internet resource
Abort() Aborts the request

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 Understanding WebResponse Class

The WebResponse class is the abstract base class from which protocol-
specific response classes are derived

Applications can participate in request and response transactions in a protocol-
agnostic manner using instances of the WebResponse class while protocol-
specific classes derived from WebResponse carry out the details of the request

Client applications do not create WebResponse objects directly, they are
created by calling the GetResponse method on a WebRequest instance

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 Understanding WebResponse Class

The following table describes some of the key properties and methods:
Property Name Description
ContentLength When overridden in a descendant class, gets or sets the content length of data
being received
ContentType When overridden in a derived class, gets or sets the content type of the data being
received
Headers When overridden in a derived class, gets a collection of header name-value pairs
associated with this request
IsFromCache Gets a Boolean value that indicates whether this response was obtained from the
cache
Method Name
Close() When overridden by a descendant class, closes the response stream
GetResponseStream() When overridden in a descendant class, returns the data stream from the Internet
resource

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 WebRequest & WebResponse Demo
using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Net;

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 Understanding HttpClient Class

HttpClient provides another layer on top of HttpWebRequest and HttpWeb
Response

HttpClient was written in response to the growth of HTTP-based web APIs and
REST services to provide a better experience than WebClient class
( WebClient class provides common methods for sending data to or receiving
data from any local, intranet, or Internet resource identified by a URI ) when
dealing with protocols more elaborate than simply fetching a web page

HttpClient is a newer API for working with HTTP and is designed to work well
with web APIs, REST-based services, and custom authentication schemes

In .NET Framework, HttpClient relied on WebRequest and WebResponse, but
in .NET Core, it handles HTTP itself
04/24/2025 24
 Understanding HttpClient Class

An HttpClient instance is a collection of settings applied to all requests
executed by that instance. In addition, every HttpClient instance uses its own
connection pool, isolating its requests from requests executed by
other HttpClient instances

HttpClient has a richer and extensible type system for headers and content

HttpClient lets us write and plug in custom message handlers. This enables
mocking in unit tests, and the creation of custom pipelines (for logging,
compression, encryption, and so on)
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 Understanding HttpClient Class

The following table describes some of the key properties and methods:
Property Name Description
BaseAddress Gets or sets the base address of Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) of the Internet
resource used when sending requests
MaxResponseContentBufferSize Gets or sets the maximum number of bytes to buffer when reading the response
content
Timeout Gets or sets the timespan to wait before the request times out
Method Name
GetAsync(String) Send a GET request to the specified Uri as an asynchronous operation
GetStringAsync(String) Send a GET request to the specified Uri and return the response body as a string
in an asynchronous operation
PostAsync(String, HttpContent) Send a POST request to the specified Uri as an asynchronous operation
PutAsync(String, HttpContent) Send a PUT request to the specified Uri as an asynchronous operation
DeleteAsync(String) Send a DELETE request to the specified Uri as an asynchronous operation

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 HttpClient Class Demo-01
using System;
using System.Net.Http;
using
System.Threading.Tasks;

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 HttpClient Class Demo-02
1.Create a WPF app named DemoHttpClient that has UI as follows :

Label Control TextBox

Control

Button Control

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XAML code of MainWindow.xaml:

<Window x:Class="DemoHttpClient.MainWindow"

xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-
compatibility/2006"
xmlns:local="clr-namespace:DemoWPF_HttpClient"
mc:Ignorable="d"
Title="Using HttpClient"
WindowStartupLocation="CenterScreen"
Width="450" Height="350"
View details in >
<Grid> next slide
</Grid>
<Window>
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XAML code of Grid tag - MainWindow.xaml:

<Grid Background="LightBlue" >

<Grid.RowDefinitions>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto"></RowDefinition>
<RowDefinition Height="*"></RowDefinition>
<RowDefinition Height="Auto"></RowDefinition>
</Grid.RowDefinitions>
<StackPanel VerticalAlignment="Stretch"
HorizontalAlignment="Stretch"
Orientation="Vertical">
<Label Name="lblURL" Content="URL"/>
<TextBox Name="txtURL" Text="http://www.contoso.com"
Height="25" />
<Label Name="lbContent" Content="HTML Source" />
</StackPanel>

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XAML code of Grid tag - MainWindow.xaml:

<TextBox Grid.Row="1" Name="txtContent" TextWrapping="Wrap"

HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Auto"
AcceptsReturn="True"
VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Visible" />
<StackPanel Grid.Row="2" Orientation="Horizontal"
HorizontalAlignment="Center"
VerticalAlignment="Top" >
<Button x:Name="btnViewHTML" Margin="25,5" Width="80"

Content="View HTML" Click="btnViewHTML_Click" />Handler:

Event
<Button x:Name="btnClear" Margin="25,5" Width="80" Click
Content="Clear" Click="btnClear_Click"/>
<Button x:Name="btnClose" Margin="25,5"
Width="80" Content="Close" Click="btnClose_Click"/>
</StackPanel>
</Grid>
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2.Write codes in MainWindow.xaml.cs and run the project as follows:
//…
using System.Net.Http;

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 Understanding Domain Name System (DNS)

Domain Name System (DNS) is the process , which converts Internet address
in mnemonic form into the equivalent number IP address

DNS can also be considered as an database that is present on various
computers and has names and IP address of various hosts on the internet

The DNS consists of three components:
 The first is a “Name Space” that establishes the syntactical rules for creating and
structuring legal DNS names
 The second is a “Globally Distributed Database” implemented on a network of “Name
Servers”
 The third is "Resolver" software, which understands how to formulate a DNS query and
is built into practically every Internet-capable application
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 Understanding Domain Name System (DNS)
using
System.Net;

04/24/2025 34
 The System.Net.Sockets Namespace

Provides a managed implementation of the Windows Sockets (Winsock)
interface for developers who need to tightly control access to the network

The following table describes some of the key classes:
Class Name Description
Socket Implements the Berkeley sockets interface
TcpClient Provides client connections for TCP network services
TcpListener Listens for connections from TCP network clients
UdpClient Provides User Datagram Protocol (UDP) network services
NetworkStream Provides the underlying stream of data for network access
SocketAsyncEventArgs Represents an asynchronous socket operation
SocketException The exception that is thrown when a socket error occurs
SocketTaskExtensions This class contains extension methods to the Socket class
04/24/2025 35
 Working TCP Services

The Tranmission Control Protocol (TCP) services contain classes and methods
for connecting and sending data between two points or more points. A point
consists of both an IP (Internet Protocol) and port number

The TcpClient and TcpListener classes create the TCP connections on the
internet and contain methods and properties for connecting, sending and
receiving stream data over the network

04/24/2025 36
 The TcpListener Class

The TcpListener class provides simple methods that listen for and accept
incoming connection requests in blocking synchronous mode. We can use
either a TcpClient or a Socket to connect with a TcpListener

The following table describes some of the key methods:
Method Name Description
AcceptSocket() Accepts a pending connection request
AcceptSocketAsync() Accepts a pending connection request as an asynchronous operation
AcceptTcpClient() Accepts a pending connection request
AcceptTcpClientAsync() Accepts a pending connection request as an asynchronous operation
Start() Starts listening for incoming connection requests
Stop() Closes the listener
Pending() Determines if there are pending connection requests

04/24/2025 37
 The TcpClient Class

The TcpClient class provides simple methods for connecting, sending, and
receiving stream data over a network in synchronous blocking mode

In order for TcpClient to connect and exchange data, a TcpListener or Socket
created with the TCP ProtocolType must be listening for incoming connection
requests. We can connect to this listener in one of the following two ways:
 Create a TcpClient and call one of the three available Connect methods

 Create a TcpClient using the host name and port number of the remote host. This
constructor will automatically attempt a connection
04/24/2025 38
 The TcpClient Class

The following table describes some of the key properties:
Property Name Description
Active Gets or sets a value that indicates whether a connection has been made
Available Gets the amount of data that has been received from the network and is available to be read
Client Gets or sets the underlying Socket
Connected Gets a value indicating whether the underlying Socket for a TcpClient is connected to a remote
host
ReceiveBufferSize Gets or sets the size of the receive buffer
ReceiveTimeout Gets or sets the amount of time a TcpClient will wait to receive data once a read operation is
initiated
SendBufferSize Gets or sets the size of the send buffer
SendTimeout Gets or sets the amount of time a TcpClient will wait for a send operation to complete
successfully
ReceiveBufferSize Gets or sets the size of the receive buffer
04/24/2025 39
 The TcpClient Class

The following table describes some of the key methods:
Method Name Description
Connect(IPAddress, Int32) Connects the client to a remote TCP host using the specified IP address
and port number
ConnectAsync(IPAddress, Int32) Connects the client to a remote TCP host using the specified IP address
and port number as an asynchronous operation
BeginConnect(IPAddress, Int32, Begins an asynchronous request for a remote host connection. The remote
AsyncCallback, Object) host is specified by an IPAddress and a port number (Int32)
GetStream() Returns the NetworkStream used to send and receive data
EndConnect(IAsyncResult) Ends a pending asynchronous connection attempt
Close() Disposes this TcpClient instance and requests that the underlying TCP
connection be closed
Finalize() Frees resources used by the TcpClient class
Dispose() Releases the managed and unmanaged resources used by the TcpClient
04/24/2025 40
 Understanding Socket

Sockets in computer networks are used to establish a connection between two
or more computers and used to send data from one computer to another. Each
computer in the network is called a node

A socket is an object that represents a low-level access point to the IP stack.
This socket can be open or closed or one of a set number of intermediate
states

Sockets use nodes’ IP addresses and a network protocol to create a secure
channel of communication and use this channel to transfer data
04/24/2025 41
 The Socket Class

The Socket class provides a rich set of methods and properties for network
communications

The Socket class allows us to perform both synchronous and asynchronous data
transfer using any of the communication protocols listed in
the ProtocolType enumeration.

The following table describes some of the key properties and methods:
Property Name Description
Available Gets the amount of data that has been received from the network and is available to be read
Connected Gets a value that indicates whether a Socket is connected to a remote host as of the
last Send or Receive operation
Blocking Gets or sets a value that indicates whether the Socket is in blocking mode.
ReceiveBufferSize Gets or sets a value that specifies the size of the receive buffer of the Socket
SendTimeout Gets or sets a value that specifies the amount of time after which a synchronous Send call will
time out

04/24/2025 42
 The Socket Class
Property Name Description
ReceiveTimeout Gets or sets a value that specifies the amount of time after which a synchronous Receive call
will time out
SendBufferSize Gets or sets a value that specifies the size of the send buffer of the Socket

Method Name Description

Accept() Creates a new Socket for a newly created connection
Establishes a connection to a remote host. The host is specified by an IP address
Connect(IPAddress, Int32)
and a port number
Listen() Places a Socket in a listening state
Sends the file fileName to a connected Socket object with the
SendFile(String)
UseDefaultWorkerThread transmit flag
Send(Byte[]) Sends data to a connected Socket
Receive(Byte[]) Receives data from a bound Socket into a receive buffer
Close() Closes the Socket connection and releases all associated resources

04/24/2025 43
Using TCP Services Demonstration
 How do we develop?
1. Create a Solution named DemoTCPService
2. Addition to this solution two Console projects named ServerApp and ClientApp

04/24/2025 45
3. Write codes in Program.cs of the ServerApp as follows :

View details in
next slide

04/24/2025 46
Write codes in ProcessMessage method as follows :

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Write codes in ExecuteServer method as follows :

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4. Write codes in Program.cs of the ClientApp as follows :

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04/24/2025 50
5.Right-click on the ServerApp project, select Set as Startup Project then press Ctrl+F5
to run it

04/24/2025 51
6. Right-click on the ClientApp project, select Set as Startup Project then press Ctrl+F5
to run it

04/24/2025 52
 Working UDP Services

User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is a simple protocol that makes a best effort to
deliver data to a remote host

The UDP protocol is connectionless protocol thus UDP datagrams sent to the
remote endpoint are not guaranteed to arrive and they aren’t guaranteed to
arrive in the same sequence in which they are sent. Applications that use UDP
must be prepared to handle missing, duplicate, and out-of-sequence datagrams

The UdpClient class communicates with network services using UDP. The
properties and methods of the UdpClient class abstract the details of creating a
Socket for requesting and receiving data using UDP

04/24/2025 53
 UdpClient Class

The following table describes some of the key properties and methods:
Property Name Description
Active Gets or sets a value indicating whether a default remote host has been established
Available Gets the amount of data received from the network that is available to read
Client Gets or sets the underlying network Socket
Method Name Description
Connect(String, Int32) Establishes a default remote host using the specified host name and port number
Close() Closes the UDP connection
Send(Byte[], Int32) Sends a UDP datagram to a remote host
Receive(IPEndPoint) Returns a UDP datagram that was sent by a remote host
JoinMulticastGroup(Int32, Adds a UdpClient to a multicast group
IPAddress)
Dispose() Releases the managed and unmanaged resources used by the UdpClient
04/24/2025 54
Using UDP Services Demonstration
1. Create a Console project named UDPServerApp then write codes in Program.cs as
follows :

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2. Create a Console project named UDPClientApp then write codes in Program.cs as
follows :

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3. Right-click on the UDPServerApp project, select Set as Startup Project then press
Ctrl+F5 to run it

04/24/2025 58
4. Right-click on the UDPClientApp project, select Set as Startup Project then press
Ctrl+F5 to run it

04/24/2025 59
Summary

Concepts were introduced:
 Overview Networking Basic
 Overview Client-Server Model
 Explain about URL, URN and URI
 Explain about WebRequest and WebResponse class
 Explain about HttpClient class
 Explain about Domain Name System (DNS)
 Explain about UDP service
 Overview TCP Services: TcpListener, TcpClient and Socket class
 Demo WebRequest and HttpClient with .NET application
 Demo TcpListener and TcpClient with .NET application
 Demo UDP service with .NET application
60