Chapter 1. Introduction

Introduction

When writing programs that communicate across a computer network, one must first invent a protocol, an agreement on how those programs will communicate. Before delving into the design details of a protocol, high-level decisions must be made about which program is expected to initiate communication and when responses are expected. For example, a Web server is typically thought of as a long-running program (or daemon) that sends network messages only in response to requests coming in from the network. The other side of the protocol is a Web client, such as a browser, which always initiates communication with the server. This organization into client and server is used by most network-aware applications. Deciding ...

Get The Sockets Networking API: UNIX® Network Programming Volume 1, Third Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.