How to determine origin of incoming message (uincast/multicast/broadcast)

[Plater]

(Sorry about the title, i'm not sure how to explain this)

I am wondering if it is possible to tell on socket, HOW the incoming data was sent.
Now, what I mean by that is, I have a UDP socket just reading messages in a loop that come in on a port and pumping out a msg such like "Data from [IP Addy] arrived".
But if I "send" data to it, I want to know if it came from unicast, broadcast, or multicast.
Is that possible? It seems like it should be, but maybe I need to be in RAW mode and examine the bytes in the various headers?
Any thoughts?

[Oralloy]

Do you mean you want to know if it was sent to a unicast, broadcast, or multicast address, or it was sent from such an address?

I think the answer is that you need to inspect the address to determine its status.

Here is the wikipedia on IP Multicast addressing.

Here are the pertinent bits from the article:

Unicast: The most common concept of an IP address is in unicast addressing, available in both IPv4 and IPv6. It normally refers to a single sender or a single receiver, and can be used for both sending and receiving. Usually, a unicast address is associated with a single device or host, but it is not a one-to-one correspondence. Some individual PCs have several distinct unicast addresses, each for its own distinct purpose. Sending the same data to multiple unicast addresses requires the sender to send all the data many times over, once for each recipient.

Broadcast: In IPv4 it is possible to send data to all possible destinations ("all-hosts broadcast"), which permits the sender to send the data only once, and all receivers receive a copy of it. In the IPv4 protocol, the address 255.255.255.255 is used for local broadcast. In addition, a directed (limited) broadcast can be made by combining the network prefix with a host suffix composed entirely of binary 1s. For example, the destination address used for a directed broadcast to devices on the 192.0.2.0/24 network is 192.0.2.255. IPv6 does not implement broadcast addressing and replaces it with multicast to the specially-defined all-nodes multicast address.

Multicast: A multicast address is associated with a group of interested receivers. In IPv4, addresses 224.0.0.0 through 239.255.255.255 (the former Class D addresses) are designated as multicast addresses.[2] The sender sends a single datagram from its unicast address to the multicast group address and the intermediary routers take care of making copies and sending them to all receivers that have joined the corresponding multicast group. IPv6 uses the address block with the prefix ff00::/8 for multicast applications.

Anycast (here for completeness): Like broadcast and multicast, anycast is a one-to-many routing topology. However, the data stream is not transmitted to all receivers, just the one which the router decides is the "closest" in the network.[Note 1] Anycast is useful for global load balancing and is commonly used in DNS communications.

I don't remember if there are macros available to check addresses or not, though.

Good luck!

[Plater]

I guess who it was going TO is my question.

For instance with that UDP socket spitting out packets it sees (call it the "server"), I did the following:
*Had a client software on the same system send a UDP message to 255.255.255.255 (broadcast) on the port and my "server" saw the message and said "message from 127.0.0.1"
*Had a client software on the same system send to a multicast ip and my "server" saw the message and said "message from 192.168.1.7" (which is the IP of the machine the code was running on)

I was wondering if on the server I could tell the difference between those two messages (and a unicast to 192.168.1.7).
Would I change my server to have sockets be bound to a specific address (one to 192.168.1.7 and one to the multicast address) would that allow me to tell them apart?

While it is not crucial to the design that i know how the messages were received by my server, it would make things a bit easier on me.

(For what it is worth, I am playing with UPNP and listening for traffic on 1900. Messages from the multicast address are going to be general discover/announce payloads, messages sent to ME(unicast) are directed responses)

[Oralloy]

It looks like you're doing local loop-back for your testing, from what I read, correct?

If I recall correctly, sockets can bind to multiple addresses on a system. This is especially important for listening sockets, as they'll listen on 127.0.0.1 (loopback) as well the systems "normal" addresses. If you want to mask out localhost-loopback messages from your testing, you'll need to be careful about that. The problem is exacerbated with each IP address you add to your system, of course.

Alternately, you can drain off all recieved messages, expecting to recieve multiples. I happen to think that this is the better option.

Remember that it's the recipient's IP address that determines how a message is moved around the network. Which means that you can sent to a multi-cast address from a unicast address, right? That is, I can send a message from my local (unicast) IP of 10.1.2.3 to the multicast IP 224.1.2.3, right?

So, the address you recieved the message at determines how the message was sent.

The address the message was sent from determines how the reply will be handled. [as an aside, this is how SMURF and other attacks are crafted using raw sockets].

Since I don't know what your application is, I'm not sure what else to tell you which will help. Hopefully I'm not confusing you here.

Cheers!

[Plater]

Well the end result would be the packets would be coming from other computers on my network, it is just in testing that i happened to be using the same machine for it.
I am thinking there is no good way to tell (outside of being in raw mode) I may have to look into that method

[Oralloy]

I guess I'm confused.

If you're listening on a UDP socket, you'll get the sender's address attached to your message. You already know the recieving address, if you set up your sockets correctly. Nothing prevents you from opening multiple listening sockets in parallel.

As for a TCP socket, you also get the sender's address as part of the connection request. Once listen() returns, you'll be able to get the address.

[Plater]

I know I can get the senders address, what i want is the address the sender SENT to.

If my server UDP socket is listening (IPANY, PORT 1900)
Has IP 192.168.1.7
Subscribed to multicast IP 239.255.255.250

If the client software:
Has IP 192.168.1.4
Sends one message unicast to 192.168.1.7:190 0
Sends one message multicast to 239.255.255.250 :1900
Sends one message to broadcast 255.255.255.255 :1900

My server UDP will see all 3 messages, all will say they came from 192.168.1.4. Is there a way to tell on the SERVER which message was sent out in what manor (which one was sent to 239.255.255.250 and etc)?

[Oralloy]

Ok, I did some quick research, and it's not clear how to extract the recieving address from a conversation.

BTW, are you trying to build a network sniffer of some sort?

Regardless, I'm surprised that you're able to see multicast messages that you haven't registered in the multicast group for. That seems to be how the newer sockets protocol specification wants software to behave.

At this point, I'd start actively consider using raw sockets, just to make sure that I got all the requisite information from the incoming UDP packets. I can't think of any other way of extracting all requisite information, although we might have someone else here who is more knowledgable than I am.

Sorry I can't give you better information than that.

Good luck!

[Plater]

Just trying to implememnt UPNP "by hand" so to speak.
And sorry, yes I have subscribed to the multicast group with the IP_ADD_MEMBERSH IP.

I was hoping there was some sort of API to read the extra data from the packet, but i can see why there isn't.
Raw socket it is probably going to be.

[Oralloy]

Plater - you, Sir, are an ambitious man.

Good luck with your home-brew UPnP. I hope it works out well for you.

When you get done, let us know what your implementation is, would you, please?

Cheers!
Oralloy