Today I’ll describe another: using the pthread library to serve multiple clients. The pthread functions are not system calls, but they are part of the standard POSIX API. (In future, I’ll describe how pthreads are implemented on top of system calls.)

The library in pthread.h includes many functions, but today we’ll just use the most fundamental one:

#include <pthread.h>
int pthread_create(pthread_t *thread, const pthread_attr_t *attr, void *(*start_routine)(void *), void *arg);

The pthread_create function is somewhat like the fork system call: it creates two threads of control where previously there was one. The important differences today are:

Here’s the program, which runs an “echo” server for every TCP client, using pthread_create for each new TCP connection:

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <pthread.h>

int guard(int r, char * err) {if (r == -1) { perror(err); exit(1); } return r; }

void * thread_func(void * arg) {
  intptr_t conn_fd = (int) arg;
  printf("thread: serving fd %ld\n", conn_fd);
  char buf[1024];
  for (;;) {
    int bytes_received = guard(recv(conn_fd, buf, sizeof(buf), 0), "Could not recv");
    if (bytes_received == 0) { goto stop_serving; }
    int bytes_sent = 0;
    while (bytes_sent < bytes_received) {
      ssize_t bytes_sent_this_call = send(conn_fd, buf+bytes_sent, bytes_received-bytes_sent, 0);
      if (bytes_sent_this_call == -1) { goto stop_serving; }
      bytes_sent += bytes_sent_this_call;
    }
  }
  stop_serving:
  guard(close(conn_fd), "Could not close socket");
  printf("thread: finished serving %ld\n", conn_fd);
  return NULL;
}

int main(void) {
  int listen_fd = guard(socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0), "Could not create TCP listening socket");
  guard(listen(listen_fd, 100), "Could not listen");
  struct sockaddr_in addr;
  socklen_t addr_bytes = sizeof(addr);
  guard(getsockname(listen_fd, (struct sockaddr *) &addr, &addr_bytes), "Could not get sock name");
  printf("Listening on port %d\n", ntohs(addr.sin_port));
  for (;;) {
    intptr_t conn_fd = guard(accept(listen_fd, NULL, NULL), "Could not accept");
    pthread_t thread_id;
    int ret = pthread_create(&thread_id, NULL, thread_func, (void*) conn_fd);
    if (ret != 0) { printf("Error from pthread: %d\n", ret); exit(1); }
    printf("main: created thread to handle connection %ld\n", conn_fd);
  }
  return 0;
}

I wrote this because I felt like it. This post is my own, and not associated with my employer.

Writing a TCP server with the pthread API

Writing a TCP server with the `pthread` API