getting client ip in service using tcp connection

RevengerPT · March 25th, 2008, 01:11 PM

Hi there. I'm building a small chat in which there is a main server that hosts a service, and there are many clients. Each client hosts a service too, so it can get any messages sent by other clients, through a call done by the server.

But I have a little problem. I need to know every client IP. I searched a lot, and I found it to be easier using HttpChannel, where I can just use something like:

Code:

string clientAddress = HttpContext.Current.Request.UserHostAddress;

This is great as I can do it inside the service.

But I'm using a TcpChannel as a connection.

Code:

namespace Server
{
    class Server
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            TcpChannel channel = new TcpChannel(8086);
            ChannelServices.RegisterChannel(channel, true);

            RemotingConfiguration.RegisterWellKnownServiceType(
                typeof(ServerService),
                "server",
                WellKnownObjectMode.Singleton);

            System.Console.WriteLine("press <enter> to quit...");
            System.Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }
}

How can I, inside of the ServerService, get the client IP?

Thanks in advance.

My best regards.

samjudson · March 26th, 2008, 03:46 AM

http://www.alperguc.com/blog/dotnet/...s-iphostentry/

/- Sam Judson : Wrox Technical Editor -/

RevengerPT · March 26th, 2008, 12:18 PM

That would give the ip of the local machine, but I want to detect the client's ip on the server service, the one used on the tcp connection.

samjudson · March 27th, 2008, 09:10 AM

Hi

I think I understand a bit better what you are doing - but why do you need the client's IP Address?

If you do need the client's IP address then you might get hold of the TcpChannel.ChannelData and possibly cast it as a ChannelStore. However since you are using remoting and hence running the object on the server as if it was on the client wouldn't it be easier just to pass the ip address as a parameter to one of your methods (I've no idea what your ServerService class does).

/- Sam Judson : Wrox Technical Editor -/

RevengerPT · March 27th, 2008, 05:44 PM

I'll try to explain it better. My idea is to make a chat server, where may clients should connect to.
I managed to do a http version, but it requires some IIS configuration, and I don't really want that.

Code:

namespace Server
{
    class Server
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            HttpChannel channel = new HttpChannel(8090);
            ChannelServices.RegisterChannel(channel, true);
            RemotingConfiguration.RegisterWellKnownServiceType(
                typeof(ServerService), "server", WellKnownObjectMode.Singleton);
            Console.WriteLine("Press enter to stop the server...");
            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }
}

namespace Server
{
    class ServerService : MarshalByRefObject, IServerService
    {
        Hashtable clients;
        ArrayList messages;

        public ServerService()
        {
            clients = new Hashtable();
            messages = new ArrayList();
        }

        public void register(string nick)
        {
            // get client ip
            string clientAddress = HttpContext.Current.Request.UserHostAddress;
                clients.Add(nick, clientAddress);
            // get client service object using ip
            IClientService obj = (IClientService)Activator.GetObject(
                typeof(IClientService),
                "http://" + clientAddress + ":8091/client");
            if (!clients.Contains(nick))
            {
                // send message to client
                obj.receive("Welcome!");
            }
            else
            {
                // send message to client
                obj.receive("Nickname already taken.");
            }
        }
    }
}

So the main idea is a client being able to register on the server, the server stores his address and is able to get the clients service object any time he wants. When one client sends a message, the server can iterate through the clients hashtable, get their objects and then, make them receive the message. Is this a good a approach?

If you ask me, why shouldn't the client pass the his own IP to the register method, I'll say, if the client is behind a NAT, like most people today are, it would give the internal IP. The safest way is to use an external entity to get the proper IP, in this case, I would use the main chat server.

So, while using an HttpChannel, it is possible to get the client IP inside the server service, it should be too, using a TcpChannel. Accessing the tcp connection data or so... But I'm sort of new to .NET framework, and couldn't find any tcp solutions, only http.

I hope I've explained my problem in a clear way.

Thanks in advance.
Cheers.

samjudson · March 31st, 2008, 05:36 AM

You might be able to use the CreateObjectRef() method and the ObjRef.ChannelInfo property to get the information.

/- Sam Judson : Wrox Technical Editor -/