Linux/UNIX Network Programming course outline

1. Course Introduction
2. Sockets: Introduction
   • Socket types and domains
   • Creating and binding a socket (socket() and bind())
   • Overview of stream sockets
   • listen() and pending connections
   • accept() and connect()
   • I/O on stream sockets
   • Overview of datagram sockets
   • I/O on datagram sockets
3. UNIX Domain Sockets
   • UNIX domain stream sockets
   • UNIX domain datagram sockets
   • Further details of UNIX domain sockets
4. UNIX Domain Sockets: Ancillary Data
   • Ancillary message types
   • sendmsg(), recvmsg(), and struct msghdr
   • struct msghdr in more detail (*)
   • Ancillary data and struct cmsghdr (*)
   • Example: passing a file descriptor over a socket (*)
5. Internet Domain Sockets
   • Internet domain sockets
   • Data-representation issues
   • Presentation-format addresses
   • Loopback and wildcard addresses
   • Internet domain stream sockets example
6. Internet Domain Sockets: Address Conversion
   • Host addresses and port numbers
   • Host and service conversion
   • Internet domain sockets example with getaddrinfo()
7. Sockets: Further Details
   • Socket shutdown (shutdown())
   • Socket options
   • TCP TIME-WAIT state and SO_REUSEADDR
8. Alternative I/O Models
   • Nonblocking I/O
   • Signal-driven I/O
   • I/O multiplexing: poll()
   • Event-loop programming
9. Alternative I/O Models: epoll
   • Problems with poll() and select()
   • The epoll API
   • epoll events
   • Performance considerations
   • Edge-triggered notification
   • epoll API quirks
10. TCP/IP Overview
    • The TCP/IP protocol stack
    • The link layer
    • The network layer: IP
    • The transport layer
    • Port numbers
    • User Datagram Protocol (UDP)
11. Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
    • Overview of TCP
    • TCP header
    • TCP acknowledgements
    • TCP state machine
    • TCP connection establishment and termination
12. Useful Tools
    • Displaying devices and addresses
    • Testing connectivity and routes
    • Displaying sockets: netstat and ss
    • Capturing and analyzing network packets
    • tcpdump
    • Filter expressions
    • wireshark
13. Open File Descriptions and Descriptor Duplication (*)
    • Relationship between file descriptors and open files
    • Duplicating file descriptors
14. Raw Sockets (*)
    • Overview of creating and using raw sockets
    • Raw sockets example

(*) Topics marked with an asterisk are optional, and will be covered as necessary and time permits.

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