C: socket connection timeout

Question

I have a simple program to check if a port is open, but I want to shorten the timeout length on the socket connection because the default is far too long. I'm not sure how to do this though. Here's the code:

#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <sys/time.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <arpa/inet.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <netdb.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <unistd.h>

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
    u_short port;                /* user specified port number */
    char addr[1023];             /* will be a copy of the address entered by u */
    struct sockaddr_in address;  /* the libc network address data structure */
    short int sock = -1;         /* file descriptor for the network socket */

    if (argc != 3) {
        fprintf(stderr, "Usage %s <port_num> <address>", argv[0]);
        return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }

    address.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr(argv[2]); /* assign the address */
    address.sin_port = htons(atoi(argv[2]));            /* translate int2port num */

    sock = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);
    if (connect(sock,(struct sockaddr *)&address,sizeof(address)) == 0) {
        printf("%i is open\n", port);
    }  
    close(sock);
    return 0;
}

Answer 1

I am not very sure but in Windows you can change the value Of time out from windows registry... [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters] Value Name: TcpTimedWaitDelay

So you can programmaticly change the value of this key and shorten the time...

Answer 2

If you want to avoid changing an OS-wide setting for all applications as some are suggesting (it's kind of rude to other processes to alter global state and behaviors like that)... You can do the connect() in a different thread, then have your original thread use poll() (POSIX) or WaitForMultipleObjects() (Windows) to wait for either (1) the connect thread to signal that it finished or (2) your timeout.

Answer 3

This article might help: http://www.developerweb.net/forum/showthread.php?p=13486 . Looks like you put the socket into non-blocking mode until you've connected, and then put it back into blocking mode once the connection's established.

Answer 4

Set the socket non-blocking, and use select() (which takes a timeout parameter). If a non-blocking socket is trying to connect, then select() will indicate that the socket is writeable when the connect() finishes (either successfully or unsuccessfully). You then use getsockopt() to determine the outcome of the connect():

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
    u_short port;                /* user specified port number */
    char *addr;                  /* will be a pointer to the address */
    struct sockaddr_in address;  /* the libc network address data structure */
    short int sock = -1;         /* file descriptor for the network socket */
    fd_set fdset;
    struct timeval tv;

    if (argc != 3) {
        fprintf(stderr, "Usage %s <port_num> <address>\n", argv[0]);
        return EXIT_FAILURE;
    }

    port = atoi(argv[1]);
    addr = argv[2];

    address.sin_family = AF_INET;
    address.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr(addr); /* assign the address */
    address.sin_port = htons(port);            /* translate int2port num */

    sock = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0);
    fcntl(sock, F_SETFL, O_NONBLOCK);

    connect(sock, (struct sockaddr *)&address, sizeof(address));

    FD_ZERO(&fdset);
    FD_SET(sock, &fdset);
    tv.tv_sec = 10;             /* 10 second timeout */
    tv.tv_usec = 0;

    if (select(sock + 1, NULL, &fdset, NULL, &tv) == 1)
    {
        int so_error;
        socklen_t len = sizeof so_error;

        getsockopt(sock, SOL_SOCKET, SO_ERROR, &so_error, &len);

        if (so_error == 0) {
            printf("%s:%d is open\n", addr, port);
        }
    }

    close(sock);
    return 0;
}