Socket programming basics in Computer Networks - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Socket Programming Basics

📖 Scenario: You are learning how computers communicate over a network using sockets. Sockets let programs send and receive messages between devices.Imagine you want to create a simple chat system where one computer sends a message and another receives it.

🎯 Goal: Build a basic understanding of socket programming by creating a simple client-server setup. You will define the server address, create a socket, connect the client to the server, and send a message.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a variable for the server IP address and port number

Create a socket object for communication

Connect the client socket to the server address

Send a simple message from client to server

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Socket programming is used in chat apps, web servers, games, and any software that needs network communication.

💼 Career

Understanding sockets is essential for network engineers, backend developers, and software engineers working with distributed systems.

1

Define the server address

Create a variable called server_address that holds the tuple ("127.0.0.1", 65432). This represents the IP address and port number of the server.

Computer Networks

# Define the server address as a tuple
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The server address is a tuple with IP and port, like ("127.0.0.1", 65432).

2

Create a socket object

Create a variable called client_socket and assign it a new socket object using the socket.socket() function with arguments socket.AF_INET and socket.SOCK_STREAM.

Computer Networks

server_address = ("127.0.0.1", 65432)
# Import socket module and create client_socket
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM) to create a TCP socket.

3

Connect the client socket to the server

Use the connect() method on client_socket to connect to server_address.

Computer Networks

import socket
server_address = ("127.0.0.1", 65432)
client_socket = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
# Connect client_socket to server_address
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Call client_socket.connect(server_address) to connect.

4

Send a message from client to server

Use the sendall() method on client_socket to send the message b"Hello, Server!".

Computer Networks

import socket
server_address = ("127.0.0.1", 65432)
client_socket = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
client_socket.connect(server_address)
# Send message to server
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use client_socket.sendall(b"Hello, Server!") to send bytes.