am currently working on a project where I have to build a multi thread server. I only started to work with threads so please understand me.
So far I have a class that implements the Runnable object, bellow you can see the code I have for the run method provided by the Runnable object.
public void run() {
while(true) {
try {
clientSocket = serversocket.accept();
for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
DataOutputStream respond = new DataOutputStream(clientSocket.getOutputStream());
respond.writeUTF("Hello World! " + i);
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
} catch(InterruptedException e) {
//
}
}
} catch(IOException e) {
System.out.println(e.getMessage());
}
}
}
Bellow is the main method that creates a new object of the server class and creates a threat. initializing the Thread.
public static void main(String args[]) {
new Thread(new Server(1234, "", false)).start();
}
I know this creates a new thread but it does not serve multiple clients at once. The first client need to close the connection for the second to be served. How can I make a multi threated server that will serve different client sockets at once? Do I create the thread on the clientSocket = serverSocket.accept();
yes.
from the docs:
Supporting Multiple Clients
To keep the KnockKnockServer example simple, we designed it to listen for and handle a single connection request. However, multiple client requests can come into the same port and, consequently, into the same ServerSocket. Client connection requests are queued at the port, so the server must accept the connections sequentially. However, the server can service them simultaneously through the use of threads—one thread per each client connection.
The basic flow of logic in such a server is this:
while (true) {
accept a connection;
create a thread to deal with the client;
}
The thread reads from and writes to the client connection as necessary.
https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/networking/sockets/clientServer.html
Related
A simple version of my server code can be depicted as...
public class Server implements Runnable {
static boolean isFirstClient=false;
...
...
public void run(){
ServerSocket ss=new ServerSocket(port);
while(true){
Socket s= ss.accept();
if(!isFirstClient){
isFirstClient=true;
new ClientHandler(s,true);
}
else{
new ClientHandler(s,false);
}
}
}
...
...
}
Where client handler handles the client and second parameter in the ClientHandler determines whether its the first client or not and sends the packet accordingly to the client. (I wrote a different functionality for first client to register in the server and response from server determines the first Client.)
public class Client implements Runnable(){
boolean iamFirst=false;
public void run(){
InetAddress ip = InetAddress.getByName("localhost");
Socket soc = new Socket(ip, port);
...
// response from server is stored in responsePacket.
...
iamFirst=responsePacket.isFirst();
if(iamFirst){
...
...
}
else{
...
...
}
}
}
But because of large number of clients running at the same time and also use of static variable to detect first client in server it results in running more than 1 client threads as 'firstClient'.
Can anyone suggest the best way to distinguish the first client to register in server keeping in fact that huge number of clients start at the same time?
(Note: I don't want to use sleep() function in the code to seperate one client from other client to simulate a practical scenario.)
You can make isFirstClient volatile; this makes sure all threads see the latest value of the variable.
Another approach would be to synchronise the method where you accept the clients; but since you do that in a loop it would make no sense in this case.
I face this problem in Java.
I have a server class named MyServer and I want to implement a thread pool where each thread runs a method of MyServer when a request comes. I have created another class that implements a server pool named MultiThreadedSocketServer. The class is this:
public class MultiThreadedSocketServer {
public void startServer(MyServer s, int localport, int threadPoolSize) {
final ExecutorService clientProcessingPool = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(threadPoolSize);
Runnable serverTask = new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
try {
ServerSocket serverSocket = new ServerSocket(localport);
System.out.println("Waiting for clients to connect...");
while (true) {
Socket clientSocket = serverSocket.accept();
clientProcessingPool.submit(new ClientTask(clientSocket, s));
}
} catch (IOException e) {
System.err.println("Unable to process client request");
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
};
Thread serverThread = new Thread(serverTask);
serverThread.start();
}
}
the class named MultiThreadedSocketServer has an argument named Server s which passes it in client Task class which a thread is created. The client task class is this:
class ClientTask implements Runnable {
private final Socket clientSocket;
private MyServer s;
public ClientTask(Socket clientSocket, MyServer s) {
this.s = s;
this.clientSocket = clientSocket;
}
#Override
public void run() {
System.out.println("Got a client !");
String inputLine = null;
try {
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(clientSocket.getInputStream()));
// Do whatever required to process the client's request
inputLine = in.readLine();
if (inputLine.equals("Bye")) {
System.out.println("Bye");
System.exit(0);
}
s.handleRequest(inputLine);
clientSocket.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
As you can see when a request comes the handleRequest method of class MyServer is invoked. I want to make this method to run synchronized, meaning only one thread at a time to be able to run this method. Adding synchronized before the method implementation does not achieve anything.
Can anybody give me the proper way to do this?
Thanks in advance for your time.
PS: I added the whole code
MyServer Class
http://pastebin.com/6i2bn5jj
Multithreaded server Class
http://pastebin.com/hzfLJbCS
As it is evident in main I create three requests with handleRequest with arguments Task, task2 and Bye.
The correct output would be
Waiting for clients to connect...
Got a client !
This is an input Task
Request for Task
Got a client !
This is an input task2
Request for task2
Got a client !
This is an input
Bye
But Instead the order is mixed. Sometimes Bye which shuts the server can be executed first. I want to ensure that the order is the one where the requests are created in the main.
But Instead the order is mixed. Sometimes Bye which shuts the server can be executed first. I want to ensure that the order is the one where the requests are created in the main.
You say that you want the server to handle requests in order. This is hard to ensure because you are opening up 3 sockets and writing them to the server but not waiting for any response. This is implementation dependent but I'm not sure there is any guarantee that when the client returns from doing a socket InputStream write, that the server has received the bytes. This means that from the client side, there is no guarantee that the IO completes in the order that you want.
To see if this is the problem, I would remove the System.exit(0) to see if the other lines make it, just after the "Bye" string does. Or you could put a Thread.sleep(5000); before the exit(0).
A simple sort-of fix would be to make sure your PrintStream has auto-flush turned on. That at least will call flush on the socket but even then there are race conditions between the client and the server. If the auto-flush doesn't work then I'd have your client wait for a response from the server. So then the first client would write the first command and wait for the acknowledgement before going to the 2nd command.
In terms of your original question, locking on the server wouldn't help because of the race conditions. The "Bye" might make it first and lock the server fine.
These sorts of questions around how to synchronize the threads in a multi-threaded program really make no sense to me. The whole point of threads is that they run asynchronously in parallel and don't have to operate in any particular order. The more that you force your program to spit out the output in a particular order, the more you are arguing for writing this without any threads.
Hope this helps.
If the problem is that the bye message kills the server before other requests can be handled, one solution could be to not call System.exit(0); on bye.
The bye message could set a flag block further requests from being handled and also notify some other mechanism to call System.exit(0); when the thread pool is idle with no requests left to handle.
I have a working Java Server (Although a tad rough around the edges) which contains 3 main classes.
The first class runs the server and gets the socket to listen on a port and passes new connections to a client handler.
The second class is a threaded client handler
The third is a protocol class which is called from the client handler and processes information. Once the information is processed, the protocol class returns a processed or formatted response back to the client handler to pass to the client.
The advantage is that the second class just needs to be loaded with what is acceptable data to accept from the socket. The data can be passed to the protocol handler, and the protocol handler can be loaded with whatever protocol you want the server to use to talk to the client.
In this instance I have loaded in a telnet-based chat class.
If, for example, someone leave the chat the client handler class may execute code such as:
for (i = 0; i < currentClientsConnected; i++) {
if(threads[i] != null && threads[i] != this) {
outputLine = threads[i].serverprotocol.processInput("** " + username + " has left the room **");
threads[i].out.printf(outputLine);
}
}
This passes "** [username] has left the room **" to the serverprotocol class, which then returns the data in the best best way to transmit the message to the clients. In this case the serverprotocol class formats the message with telnet control code which tells the client to re-draw the screen, add the new message and scroll up the existing current messages in the buffer.
I may also only want the client handler class to send message to sockets where the users are in certain chat rooms for example, so I will not want to always send to all the sockets.
In my code, this is Class 1 - the server class which accepts sockets with:
while (true) {
int i;
// Try and accept the connection
try {
clientSocket = serverSocket.accept();
// System.out.printf("Remote IP:");
// System.out.printf(clientSocket.getRemoteSocketAddress().toString());
// Find an unused socket if one is available
for (i = 0; i < maxClientsAllowed; i++) {
// If found create thread
if (threads[i] == null) {
(threads[i] = new clientThread(clientSocket, threads)).start();
break;
}
}
// If all sockets are taken
if (i == maxClientsAllowed) {
PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(clientSocket.getOutputStream(), true);
out.printf("Server too busy. Try later.\n");
out.close();
clientSocket.close();
}
} catch(IOException e) {
System.out.println(e);}
}
and Class 2 is a class which extends thread:
class clientThread extends Thread {
private String clientName = null;
private DataInputStream in;
private PrintWriter out;
private Socket clientSocket = null;
private final clientThread[] threads;
private int currentClientsConnected;
private serverprotocol serverprotocol;
public clientThread(Socket clientSocket, clientThread[] threads) {
this.clientSocket = clientSocket;
this.threads = threads;
currentClientsConnected = threads.length;
}
public void run() {
//stuff
}
}
I have been trying desperately to see if I can get this working using implements Runnable instead, but I have had no luck in calling a thread's processInput (or maybe that should read dataToBeProcessed) method based on the instance number of the thread (Simply called i in the code here).
The closest I have seen in:
https://github.com/ico77/chat-server-client/blob/master/src/main/java/hr/ivica/chat/server/ChatServer.java
which can take advantage as running the server as a threaded pool server.
However the sendToAll function in this case writes directly to the PrintWriters associated to the socket via a HashMap. The server does not let you send to individual protocol handler classes, or even to the individual ChatServerWorker class instances. This means I can't, for example, send a message to socket 1 and 3 only and then a separate message to socket 2.
I can't find a single example online where an instance of a socket handler can be called without using extends Thread.
Specifically,I want to keep the ability to use lines like:
threads[i].out.printf(outputLine);
or
if(threads[i].[class].[var] == 'something') {
// stuff
}
Where an integer can be used to reference the thread instance, or any class vars or methods used by that thread.
Am I missing something?
Your big problem is that you are using the Threads themselves directly as the communication layer between the Server and the Client threads, something you should not do.
Instead, create your own interface Message objects that communicate the different information between the threads, and use LinkedBlockingQueue to process them.
You should probably have:
One queue for the server to receive messages
Depending on your implementation, one queue for each of the client threads to receive messages from the server, or one queue that's shared (if it's designed so that any thread can handle any message).
So you might do something like:
Message:
public interface Message {
accept(Server server);
}
Disconnection Message (I'm just going to do one):
public class DisconnectionMessage implements Message {
String username;
public void accept(Server server) {
server.handleMessage(this);
}
}
Server Runnable:
public void run() {
while(isServerOnline()) {
Message clientMessage = queue.poll();
clientMessage.accept(this);
}
}
public void handleMessage(DisconnectionMessage msg) {
// code
}
public void handleMessage(ConnectionMessage msg) {
// code
}
etc.
Client Runnable:
private final Socket socket;
private final BlockingQueue<Message> queue;
public Client(BlockingQueue<Message> queue, Socket socket) {
this.queue = queue;
this.socket = socket;
}
public void run() {
while(true) {
Message msg = receiveMessage();
queue.offer(msg);
}
}
I am not sure if I understood your question.
The short answer: if you want to make clientThread a Runnable, just do it and then change the line
(threads[i] = new clientThread(clientSocket, threads)).start();
into
(threads[i] = new Thread(new clientThread(clientSocket, threads))).start();
If you look at the documentation:
http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/Thread.html#Thread(java.lang.Runnable)
Threads accept objects with Runnable supertype.
The long answer: you should not store threads directly but make an abstraction that represents a Client on the server side. This abstraction should encapsulate functionality for communication. That way, if you want to implement a different communication library you can easily subclass it and avoid breaking the open-close principle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open/closed_principle
Good luck.
I'm trying to get at least two computers to connect to my server, how would i start a second thread?
public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {
// Create the server which waits for a client to request a connection.
while(true){
FileSharedServer server = new FileSharedServer();
Thread thread = new Thread(server);
thread.start();
}
}
this refuses my connection
You need to wait on serverSocket.accept() method on incoming connections in your server, and after receiving one start a thread to serve it, but the server socket stay the same, you just do waiting for next connection in a loop.
while (true) {
Socket connection = serverSocket.accept();
new Therad() {
public void run() {
serveConnection(connection);
}
}.start();
}
I'm building something here and I found myself in a pickle. Just some introduction first. I'm developing a client-server game. One of the functions it has is a chat that players can use to talk to another.
Player1 send a message to the server and the server forwards it to the respective Player2. My problemas is: how can I access classes from another thread so I can get the Socket object to relay the message to Player2.
while (listening)
{
try
{
//this is how I start a thread for each connection
//do I need to use identifiers or something?
new Client(serverSocket.accept()).start();
}
catch(IOException A)
{
reportError(A.toString()); //reportError is a function of mine
}
}
there are many ways to achieve this, the easiest would be:
public void start(){
try {
ServerSocket ss = new ServerSocket(port);
System.out.println("Starting server on port: " + port);
while (serverState) {
Socket socket = ss.accept();
//stop server
if (!serverState) {
break;
}
Client handler = new Client(this, socket);
handler.start();
}
//when server is stopped, close all connections
for (Client client : clients.values()) {
client.closeConnection();
}
} catch (IOException e) {
}
}
if you send "this" inside the constructor of client and set it as a private variable you could Access it from the run function(other thread)