Boost::asio UDP Broadcast with ephemeral port

Question

I'm having trouble with udp broadcast transactions under boost::asio, related to the following code snippet. Since I'm trying to broadcast in this instance, so deviceIP = "255.255.255.255". devicePort is a specified management port for my device. I want to use an ephemeral local port, so I would prefer if at all possible not to have to socket.bind() after the connection, and the code supports this for unicast by setting localPort = 0.

boost::asio::ip::address_v4 targetIP = boost::asio::ip::address_v4::from_string(deviceIP);
m_targetEndPoint = boost::asio::ip::udp::endpoint(targetIP, devicePort);

m_ioServicePtr = boost::shared_ptr<boost::asio::io_service>(new boost::asio::io_service);
m_socketPtr = boost::shared_ptr<boost::asio::ip::udp::socket>(new boost::asio::ip::udp::socket(*m_ioServicePtr));
m_socketPtr->open(m_targetEndPoint.protocol());

m_socketPtr->set_option(boost::asio::socket_base::broadcast(true));

// If no local port is specified, default parameter is 0
// If local port is specified, bind to that port.
if(localPort != 0)
{
  boost::asio::ip::udp::endpoint localEndpoint(boost::asio::ip::address_v4::any(), localPort);
  m_socketPtr->bind(localEndpoint);
}

if(m_forceConnect)
  m_socketPtr->connect(m_targetEndPoint);

this->AsyncReceive(); // Register Asynch Recieve callback and buffer
m_socketThread = boost::shared_ptr<boost::thread>(new boost::thread(boost::bind(&MyNetworkBase::RunSocketThread, this))); // Start thread running io_service process

No matter what I do in terms of the following settings, the transmit is working fine, and I can use Wireshark to see the response packets coming back from the device as expected. These response packets are also broadcasts, as the device may be on a different subnet to the pc searching for it.

The issues are extremely strange to my mind, but are as follows:

If I specify the local port and set m_forceConnect=false, everything works fine, and my recieve callback fires appropriately.
If I set m_forceConnect = true in the constructor, but pass in a local port of 0, the transmit works fine, but my receive callback never fires. I would assume this is because the 'target' (m_targetEndpoint) is 255.255.255.255, and since the device has a real IP, the response packet gets filtered out.
(what I actually want) If m_forceConnect = false (and data is transmitted using a send_to call), and local port = 0, therefore taking an ephemeral port, my RX callback immediately fires with an error code 10022, which I believe is an "Invalid Argument" socket error.

Can anyone suggest why I can't use the connection in this manner (not explicitly bound and not explicitly connected)? I obviously don't want to use socket.connect() in this case, as I want to respond to anything I receive. I also don't want to use a predefined port, as I want the user to be able to construct multiple copies of this object without port conflicts.

As some people may have noticed, the overall aim of this is to use the same network-interface base-class to handle both the unicast and broadcast cases. Obviously for the unicast version, I can perfectly happily m_socket->connect() as I know the device's IP, and I receive the responses since they're from the connected IP address, therefore I set m_forceConnect = true, and it all just works.

As all my transmits use send_to, I have also tried to socket.connect(endpoint(ip::addressv4::any(), devicePort), but I get a 'The requested address is not valid in its context' exception when I try it.

I've tried a pretty serious hack:

boost::asio::ip::udp::endpoint localEndpoint(boost::asio::ip::address_v4::any(), m_socketPtr->local_endpoint().port());
m_socketPtr->bind(localEndpoint);

where I extract the initial ephemeral port number and attempt to bind to it, but funnily enough that throws an Invalid Argument exception when I try and bind.

When I run your code with m_forceConnect = false and localPort = 0 in Linux, everything runs fine. The packet gets broadcasted from an ephemeral port and a reply to that packet is properly received in the program. The 10022 error code' you're getting suggests that you are using Windows. Maybe it's a Windows-specific issue? — Michał Wróbel

OcularProgrammer OcularProgrammer · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-26T00:10:17

OK, I found a solution to this issue. Under linux it's not necessary, but under windows I discovered that if you are neither binding nor connecting, you must have transmitted something before you make the call to asynch_recieve_from(), the call to which is included within my this->asynch_receive() method.

My solution, make a dummy transmission of an empty string immediately before making the asynch_receive call under windows, so the modified code becomes:

m_socketPtr->set_option(boost::asio::socket_base::broadcast(true));

// If no local port is specified, default parameter is 0
// If local port is specified, bind to that port.
if(localPort != 0)
{
  boost::asio::ip::udp::endpoint localEndpoint(boost::asio::ip::address_v4::any(), localPort);
  m_socketPtr->bind(localEndpoint);
}

if(m_forceConnect)
  m_socketPtr->connect(m_targetEndPoint);

// A dummy TX is required for the socket to acquire the local port properly under windoze
// Transmitting an empty string works fine for this, but the TX must take place BEFORE the first call to Asynch_receive_from(...)
#ifdef WIN32
m_socketPtr->send_to(boost::asio::buffer("", 0), m_targetEndPoint);
#endif

this->AsyncReceive(); // Register Asynch Recieve callback and buffer
m_socketThread = boost::shared_ptr<boost::thread>(new boost::thread(boost::bind(&MyNetworkBase::RunSocketThread, this)));

It's a bit of a hack in my book, but it is a lot better than implementing all the requirements to defer the call to the asynch recieve until after the first transmission.

Boost::asio UDP Broadcast with ephemeral port

1 Answers