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First written for the need to open a server socket and read and write to the socket interactively for testing purposes, it quickly evolved into a generic tool providing the socket interface for shell script and interactive use. [Juergen Nickelsen <jn@berlin.snafu.de>]
147 lines
5.3 KiB
Plaintext
147 lines
5.3 KiB
Plaintext
This is the README file for Socket-1.1.
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What is it?
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The program Socket implements access to TCP sockets from shell level.
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First written for the need to open a server socket and read and write
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to the socket interactively for testing purposes, it quickly evolved
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into a generic tool providing the socket interface for shell script
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and interactive use.
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Client mode
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In client mode (which is the default) it connects to a given port at a
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given host. Data read from the socket is written to stdout, data read
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from stdin is written to the socket. When the peer closes the
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connection or a signal is received, the program terminates. An
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example for this is the following command:
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% socket coma.cs.tu-berlin.de nntp
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This connects to the host coma.cs.tu-berlin.de at the nntp port
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(provided these two names can be resolved through gethostbyname(3) and
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getservbyname(3)). The user can now issue commands to the NNTP
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server, any output from the server is written to the user's terminal.
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Server mode
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In server mode (indicated by the "-s" command line switch) it binds a
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server socket to the given port on the local host and accepts a
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connection. When a client connects to this socket, all data read from
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the socket is written to stdout, data read from stdin is written to
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the socket. For example, the command
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% socket -s 3917
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accepts a connection on port 3917.
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Restricting data flow
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It is not always desirable to have data flow in both directions, e.g.
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when the program is running in the background, it would be stopped if
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it tried to read from the terminal. So the user can advise the program
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only to read from the socket ("-r") or only to write to the socket
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("-w"). Especially when Socket executes a program (see below), it is
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important *not* to write to the program's stdin if the program doesn't
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read it. This is the main reason why I added this option.
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Closing connection on EOF
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For non-interactive use it is not always clear when to close the
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network connection; this is still an unsolved problem. But often it
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will be enough to close the connection when some data has been written
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to the socket. In this case the "quit" switch ("-q") can be used:
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when an end-of-file condition on stdin occurs, Socket closes the
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connection.
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Executing a program
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An interesting use of a server socket is to execute a program when a
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client connects to it. This done with the "-p" switch. Stdin,
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stdout, and stderr of the program are read from resp. written to the
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socket. Since the server is usually expected to accept another
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connection after a connection has been closed, the "loop" switch
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("-l") makes it do exactly that.
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CRLF conversion
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The Internet protocols specify a CRLF sequence (Carriage Return
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Linefeed) to terminate a line, whereas UNIX uses only a single LF. If
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the user specifies the "crlf" switch ("-c"), all CRLF sequences that
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are read from the socket are converted to a single LF on output. All
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single LFs on input are converted to a CRLF sequence when written to
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the socket.
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Background mode
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It may be desirable for a server program to run in background. For
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that purpose the "background" switch ("-b") is provided. If it is
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set, Socket runs in background, detaches itself from the controlling
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tty, closes the file descriptors associated with the tty, and changes
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it current directory to the root directory. It is still possible to
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redirect the standard file descriptors to a file.
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Forking child to handle connection
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Often one wants the server to be able to respond to another client
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immediately, even before the connection to the previous client has
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been closed. For this case, Socket can fork a client to handle a
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connection while the father process already accepts the next
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connection. To get this behaviour, specify the "-f" option.
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With all these options, a typical server call would look like
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% socket -bcfslqp program port
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Gee, I know that's a lot of options for the standard case, but I
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really want to make all these things *optional*.
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Verbose
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At last, there is also a "verbose" option ("-v"). If this option is
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specified, a message is given for each opening and closing of a
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connection. This is convenient especially in interactive use, but can
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also provide some kind of logging. See fingerd.sh for an example.
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WARNING
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Nothing prevents you from using Socket like this:
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% socket -slqp sh 5678
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THIS IS DANGEROUS! If your machine is connected to the Internet,
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*anyone* on the Internet can connect to this server and issue shell
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commands to your shell. These commands are executed with your user
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ID. Some people may think of this program as a BAD THING, because it
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allows its user to open his machine for world-wide access to all kinds
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of malicious crackers, crashers, etc. I don't know if I should
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consider this as a real security risk or not. Anyway, it is not my
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program which is so dangerous -- anyone with moderate programming
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skill can write a something like this.
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Another problem is that any server program that uses Socket may not be
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secure. I tried to avoid any holes -- especially that one that made
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fingerd vulnerable to the attack of Morris' Internet Worm, but I don't
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give any warranty. Also the program run by Socket may have security
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holes.
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I would like to hear your opinion about this topic. Do you consider it
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a security risk to have a program like Socket around?
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Comments
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Please send any comments, suggestions, bug reports etc. to me:
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Juergen Nickelsen <jn@berlin.snafu.de>
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