AnyEvent::Socket(3p)

NAME
AnyEvent::Socket - useful IPv4 and IPv6 stuff.

SYNOPSIS
   use AnyEvent::Socket;

   tcp_connect "gameserver.deliantra.net", 13327, sub {
      my ($fh) = @_
         or die "gameserver.deliantra.net connect failed: $!";

      # enjoy your filehandle
   };

   # a simple tcp server
   tcp_server undef, 8888, sub {
      my ($fh, $host, $port) = @_;

      syswrite $fh, "The internet is full, $host:$port. Go away!\015\012";
   };

DESCRIPTION
This module implements various utility functions for handling internet protocol addresses and sockets, in an as transparent and simple way as possible.

All functions documented without "AnyEvent::Socket::" prefix are exported by default.

$ipn = parse_ipv4 $dotted_quad
    Tries to parse the given dotted quad IPv4 address and return it in octet form (or undef when it isn't in a parsable format). Supports all forms specified by POSIX (e.g. 10.0.0.1, 10.1, "10.0x020304", 0x12345678 or 0377.0377.0377.0377).

$ipn = parse_ipv6 $textual_ipv6_address
    Tries to parse the given IPv6 address and return it in octet form (or undef when it isn't in a parsable format).

    Should support all forms specified by RFC 2373 (and additionally all IPv4 forms supported by parse_ipv4). Note that scope-id's are not supported (and will not parse).

    This function works similarly to "inet_pton AF_INET6, ...".

$ipn = parse_address $text
    Combines "parse_ipv4" and "parse_ipv6" in one function. The address here refers to the host address (not socket address) in network form (binary).

    If the $text is "unix/", then this function returns a special token recognised by the other functions in this module to mean "UNIX domain socket".

($host, $service) = parse_hostport $string[, $default_service]
    Splitting a string of the form "hostname:port" is a common problem. Unfortunately, just splitting on the colon makes it hard to specify IPv6 addresses and doesn't support the less common but well standardised "[ip literal]" syntax.

    This function tries to do this job in a better way, it supports the following formats, where "port" can be a numerical port number of a service name, or a "name=port" string, and the " port" and ":port" parts are optional. Also, everywhere where an IP address is supported a hostname or unix domain socket address is also supported (see "parse_unix").

       hostname:port    e.g. "www.linux.org", "www.x.de:443", "www.x.de:https=443"
       ipv4:port        e.g. "198.182.196.56", "127.1:22"
       ipv6             e.g. "::1", "affe::1"
       [ipv4or6]:port   e.g. "[::1]", "[10.0.1]:80"
       [ipv4or6] port   e.g. "[127.0.0.1]", "[www.x.org] 17"
       ipv4or6 port     e.g. "::1 443", "10.0.0.1 smtp"

    It also supports defaulting the service name in a simple way by using $default_service if no service was detected. If neither a service was detected nor a default was specified, then this function returns the empty list. The same happens when a parse error weas detected, such as a hostname with a colon in it (the function is rather conservative, though).

    Example:

      print join ",", parse_hostport "localhost:443";
      # => "localhost,443"

      print join ",", parse_hostport "localhost", "https";
      # => "localhost,https"

      print join ",", parse_hostport "[::1]";
      # => "," (empty list)

$sa_family = address_family $ipn
    Returns the address family/protocol-family (AF_xxx/PF_xxx, in one value :) of the given host address in network format.

$text = format_address $ipn
    Covnvert a host address in network format (e.g. 4 octets for IPv4 or 16 octets for IPv6) and convert it into textual form.

    Returns "unix/" for UNIX domain sockets.

    This function works similarly to "inet_ntop AF_INET || AF_INET6, ...", except it automatically detects the address type.

    Returns "undef" if it cannot detect the type.

inet_aton $name_or_address, $cb->(@addresses)
    Works similarly to its Socket counterpart, except that it uses a callback. Also, if a host has only an IPv6 address, this might be passed to the callback instead (use the length to detect this - 4 for IPv4, 16 for IPv6).

    Unlike the Socket function of the same name, you can get multiple IPv4 and IPv6 addresses as result (and maybe even other adrdess types).

$sa = AnyEvent::Socket::pack_sockaddr $service, $host
    Pack the given port/host combination into a binary sockaddr structure. Handles both IPv4 and IPv6 host addresses, as well as UNIX domain sockets ($host == "unix/" and $service == absolute pathname).

($service, $host) = AnyEvent::Socket::unpack_sockaddr $sa
    Unpack the given binary sockaddr structure (as used by bind, getpeername etc.) into a "$service, $host" combination.

    For IPv4 and IPv6, $service is the port number and $host the host address in network format (binary).

    For UNIX domain sockets, $service is the absolute pathname and $host is a special token that is understood by the other functions in this module ("format_address" converts it to "unix/").

resolve_sockaddr $node, $service, $proto, $family, $type, $cb->([$family, $type, $proto, $sockaddr], ...)
    Tries to resolve the given nodename and service name into protocol families and sockaddr structures usable to connect to this node and service in a protocol-independent way. It works remotely similar to the getaddrinfo posix function.

    For internet addresses, $node is either an IPv4 or IPv6 address or an internet hostname, and $service is either a service name (port name from /etc/services) or a numerical port number. If both $node and $service are names, then SRV records will be consulted to find the real service, otherwise they will be used as-is. If you know that the service name is not in your services database, then you can specify the service in the format "name=port" (e.g. "http=80").

    For UNIX domain sockets, $node must be the string "unix/" and $service must be the absolute pathname of the socket. In this case, $proto will be ignored.

    $proto must be a protocol name, currently "tcp", "udp" or "sctp". The default is currently "tcp", but in the future, this function might try to use other protocols such as "sctp", depending on the socket type and any SRV records it might find.

    $family must be either 0 (meaning any protocol is OK), 4 (use only IPv4) or 6 (use only IPv6). This setting might be influenced by $ENV{PERL_ANYEVENT_PROTOCOLS}.

    $type must be "SOCK_STREAM", "SOCK_DGRAM" or "SOCK_SEQPACKET" (or "undef" in which case it gets automatically chosen).

    The callback will receive zero or more array references that contain "$family, $type, $proto" for use in "socket" and a binary $sockaddr for use in "connect" (or "bind").

    The application should try these in the order given.

    Example:

       resolve_sockaddr "google.com", "http", 0, undef, undef, sub { ... };

$guard = tcp_connect $host, $service, $connect_cb[, $prepare_cb]
    This is a convenience function that creates a TCP socket and makes a 100% non-blocking connect to the given $host (which can be a hostname or a textual IP address, or the string "unix/" for UNIX domain sockets) and $service (which can be a numeric port number or a service name, or a "servicename=portnumber" string, or the pathname to a UNIX domain socket).

    If both $host and $port are names, then this function will use SRV records to locate the real target(s).

    In either case, it will create a list of target hosts (e.g. for multihomed hosts or hosts with both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses) and try to connect to each in turn.

    If the connect is successful, then the $connect_cb will be invoked with the socket file handle (in non-blocking mode) as first and the peer host (as a textual IP address) and peer port as second and third arguments, respectively. The fourth argument is a code reference that you can call if, for some reason, you don't like this connection, which will cause "tcp_connect" to try the next one (or call your callback without any arguments if there are no more connections). In most cases, you can simply ignore this argument.

       $cb->($filehandle, $host, $port, $retry)

    If the connect is unsuccessful, then the $connect_cb will be invoked without any arguments and $! will be set appropriately (with "ENXIO" indicating a DNS resolution failure).

    The file handle is perfect for being plugged into AnyEvent::Handle, but can be used as a normal perl file handle as well.

    Unless called in void context, "tcp_connect" returns a guard object that will automatically abort connecting when it gets destroyed (it does not do anything to the socket after the connect was successful).

    Sometimes you need to "prepare" the socket before connecting, for example, to "bind" it to some port, or you want a specific connect timeout that is lower than your kernel's default timeout. In this case you can specify a second callback, $prepare_cb. It will be called with the file handle in not-yet-connected state as only argument and must return the connection timeout value (or 0, "undef" or the empty list to indicate the default timeout is to be used).

    Note that the socket could be either a IPv4 TCP socket or an IPv6 TCP socket (although only IPv4 is currently supported by this module).

    Note to the poor Microsoft Windows users: Windows (of course) doesn't correctly signal connection errors, so unless your event library works around this, failed connections will simply hang. The only event libraries that handle this condition correctly are EV and Glib. Additionally, AnyEvent works around this bug with Event and in its pure-perl backend. All other libraries cannot correctly handle this condition. To lessen the impact of this windows bug, a default timeout of 30 seconds will be imposed on windows. Cygwin is not affected.

    Simple Example: connect to localhost on port 22.

       tcp_connect localhost => 22, sub {
          my $fh = shift
             or die "unable to connect: $!";
          # do something
       };

    Complex Example: connect to www.google.com on port 80 and make a simple GET request without much error handling. Also limit the connection timeout to 15 seconds.

       tcp_connect "www.google.com", "http",
          sub {
             my ($fh) = @_
                or die "unable to connect: $!";

             my $handle; # avoid direct assignment so on_eof has it in scope.
             $handle = new AnyEvent::Handle
                fh     => $fh,
                on_eof => sub {
                   undef $handle; # keep it alive till eof
                   warn "done.\n";
                };

             $handle->push_write ("GET / HTTP/1.0\015\012\015\012");

             $handle->push_read_line ("\015\012\015\012", sub {
                my ($handle, $line) = @_;

                # print response header
                print "HEADER\n$line\n\nBODY\n";

                $handle->on_read (sub {
                   # print response body
                   print $_[0]->rbuf;
                   $_[0]->rbuf = "";
                });
             });
          }, sub {
             my ($fh) = @_;
             # could call $fh->bind etc. here

             15
          };

    Example: connect to a UNIX domain socket.

       tcp_connect "unix/", "/tmp/.X11-unix/X0", sub {
          ...
       }

$guard = tcp_server $host, $service, $accept_cb[, $prepare_cb]
    Create and bind a stream socket to the given host, and port, set the SO_REUSEADDR flag (if applicable) and call "listen". Unlike the name implies, this function can also bind on UNIX domain sockets.

    For internet sockets, $host must be an IPv4 or IPv6 address (or "undef", in which case it binds either to 0 or to "::", depending on whether IPv4 or IPv6 is the preferred protocol, and maybe to both in future versions, as applicable).

    To bind to the IPv4 wildcard address, use 0, to bind to the IPv6 wildcard address, use "::".

    The port is specified by $service, which must be either a service name or a numeric port number (or 0 or "undef", in which case an ephemeral port will be used).

    For UNIX domain sockets, $host must be "unix/" and $service must be the absolute pathname of the socket. This function will try to "unlink" the socket before it tries to bind to it. See SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS, below.

    For each new connection that could be "accept"ed, call the "$accept_cb->($fh, $host, $port)" with the file handle (in non-blocking mode) as first and the peer host and port as second and third arguments (see "tcp_connect" for details).

    Croaks on any errors it can detect before the listen.

    If called in non-void context, then this function returns a guard object whose lifetime it tied to the TCP server: If the object gets destroyed, the server will be stopped (but existing accepted connections will continue).

    If you need more control over the listening socket, you can provide a "$prepare_cb->($fh, $host, $port)", which is called just before the "listen ()" call, with the listen file handle as first argument, and IP address and port number of the local socket endpoint as second and third arguments.

    It should return the length of the listen queue (or 0 for the default).

    Note to IPv6 users: RFC-compliant behaviour for IPv6 sockets listening on "::" is to bind to both IPv6 and IPv4 addresses by default on dual-stack hosts. Unfortunately, only GNU/Linux seems to implement this properly, so if you want both IPv4 and IPv6 listening sockets you should create the IPv6 socket first and then attempt to bind on the IPv4 socket, but ignore any "EADDRINUSE" errors.

    Example: bind on some TCP port on the local machine and tell each client to go away.

       tcp_server undef, undef, sub {
          my ($fh, $host, $port) = @_;

          syswrite $fh, "The internet is full, $host:$port. Go away!\015\012";
       }, sub {
          my ($fh, $thishost, $thisport) = @_;
          warn "bound to $thishost, port $thisport\n";
       };

SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
This module is quite powerful, with with power comes the ability to abuse as well: If you accept "hostnames" and ports from untrusted sources, then note that this can be abused to delete files (host="unix/"). This is not really a problem with this module, however, as blindly accepting any address and protocol and trying to bind a server or connect to it is harmful in general.

AUTHOR
 Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
 http://home.schmorp.de/