TCP/IP protocol and network topology

Question

I am a newbie in network related aspects. I have few basic questions related to tcp/ip protocol and network

1. If a network switch (in a LAN network) between two PC's running Client and server (that are communicating through async. sockets) is powered down. Can the client and server will be notified that the socket connection is no longer active. Client and server are running on Win XP OS and are coded using C#.

2. Does network topology play a role in case of half open connection between socket client and socket server. For e.g. Will a disconnect status of either one or both be notified to other end and does it depend on network topology.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

1. A network element such as a router/hub/switch does not activly cause anything anything to happen on the TCP layer if it goes down. The operating system might notice that the physical layer is down and error out all sockets bound on that network card if it's a network element directly connected to the PCs that breaks - this will vary among operating systems/network cards and other things. Other than that, in order to detect that the connection has been severed, you'll have to send something and rely on the TCP timeout mechanisms to error out. This can be done implicittly by enabling TCP Keepalives on the connection.

2. A disconnect on one side will only be noticed if those messages reach the other side, if the network topology changes or sometinhg breaks in the middle of the connection in such a way that messages no longer reach the other end, a disconnect won't be noticed. (NAT gateways are a big source of problems such as this, they might time out a TCP connection they're tracking and you'll never know the connection is no longer valid unless you try to write something (or enable TCP keepalives) to the connection). Note that most networking APIs require that you Read from the connection to discovver that a the other end has closed the connection - assuming those "close" messages actually reach your side.