Write a simple netcat client and server in Rust

• Build a Swiss Army knife for networking
• Add dependencies to Cargo.toml
• Configure clap to parse command line arguments
• Create the client
• Create the server
• Next steps
• Build with Naz video series on developerlife.com YouTube channel

Build a Swiss Army knife for networking #

In this tutorial we will learn how to use Rust to write a simple netcat client and server using the standard library only. A netcat client is like a Swiss Army knife for networking. It is similar to PuTTY and telnet. You can use it to connect to a server and send and receive data. We will create an app that can behave both as a client and server.

1. Our client will allow the user to type a message and send it to any TCP socket server, and display the response from the server, in an endless loop.
2. Our server will listen for incoming TCP connections from clients, and display the message from the client, and send a response back to the client.

Here’s a video of the app that we are going to build in action.

You can find the finished source code for this tutorial here.

Add dependencies to Cargo.toml #

Let’s create a new project by running cargo create --bin rtelnet. Then we will add the following dependencies to our Cargo.toml file.

# Command line argument parsing.
clap = { version = "4.4.13", features = ["derive"] }

# Pretty logging.
femme = { version = "2.2.1" }
log = { version = "0.4.20" }

# Colorization and ANSI escape sequence codes.
r3bl_tui = { version = "0.5.1" }
r3bl_ansi_color = { version = "0.6.9" }

Configure clap to parse command line arguments #

This Rust app has a single binary, and depending on the command line arguments, it will behave either as a client or server. We will use the clap crate to parse the command line arguments.

We will configure clap so that the following commands will work:

cargo run server
cargo run client

We want to allow the user to specify the following options and chose their own address and port. If the user does not specify any options, we will use the default values. The default value for --address is 127.0.0.1, and the default value for --port is 3000.

cargo run server --address 127.0.0.1 --port 8080
cargo run server --address 127.0.0.1
cargo run server --port 8080

cargo run client --address 127.0.0.1 --port 8080
cargo run client --address 127.0.0.1
cargo run client --port 8080

Let’s also add an option that we can use to disable log output to stdout. By default, we will log to stdout. But if the user specifies the --log-disable flag, then we disable all log output.

Here’s the clap configuration that gives us this behavior.

use clap::{Parser, Subcommand};

pub use defaults::*;
mod defaults {
    use super::*;

    pub const DEFAULT_PORT: u16 = 3000;
    pub const DEFAULT_ADDRESS: &str = "127.0.0.1";
}

pub use clap_config::*;
mod clap_config {
    use super::*;

    #[derive(Parser, Debug)]
    pub struct CLIArg {
        /// IP Address to connect to or start a server on
        #[clap(long, short, default_value = DEFAULT_ADDRESS, global = true)]
        pub address: IpAddr,

        /// TCP Port to connect to or start a server on
        #[clap(long, short, default_value_t = DEFAULT_PORT, global = true)]
        pub port: u16,

        /// Logs to stdout by default, set this flag to disable it
        #[clap(long, short = 'd', global = true)]
        pub log_disable: bool,

        /// The subcommand to run
        #[clap(subcommand)]
        pub subcommand: CLISubcommand,
    }

    #[derive(Subcommand, Debug)]
    pub enum CLISubcommand {
        /// Start a server on the given address and port
        Server,
        /// Connect to a server running on the given address and port
        Client,
    }
}

Create the client #

Let’s start with the simpler of the two, the client. We will use std::net::TcpStream to create a TCP socket client. We will need an IP address and port in order to make a TCP connection. And to run the client we will need to run the following command:

cargo run client

Here’s what the main function of our app looks like:

fn main() {
    println!("Welcome to rtelnet");

    let cli_arg = CLIArg::parse();
    let address = cli_arg.address;
    let port = cli_arg.port;
    let socket_address = format!("{}:{}", address, port);

    if !cli_arg.log_disable {
        femme::start()
    }

    match match cli_arg.subcommand {
        CLISubcommand::Server => start_server(socket_address),
        CLISubcommand::Client => start_client(socket_address),
    } {
        Ok(_) => {
            println!("Program exited successfully");
        }
        Err(error) => {
            println!("Program exited with an error: {}", error);
        }
    }
}

The function that performs the client logic looks like this.

fn start_client(socket_address: String) -> IOResult<()> {
    log::info!("Start client connection");
    let tcp_stream = TcpStream::connect(socket_address)?;
    let (mut reader, mut writer) = (BufReader::new(&tcp_stream), BufWriter::new(&tcp_stream));

    // Client loop.
    loop {
        // Read user input.
        let outgoing = {
            let mut it = String::new();
            let _ = stdin().read_line(&mut it)?;
            it.as_bytes().to_vec()
        };

        // Tx user input to writer.
        let _ = writer.write(&outgoing)?;
        writer.flush()?;

        // Rx response from reader.
        let incoming = {
            let mut it = vec![];
            let _ = reader.read_until(b'\n', &mut it);
            it
        };

        let display_msg = String::from_utf8_lossy(&incoming);
        let display_msg = display_msg.trim();

        let reset = SgrCode::Reset.to_string();
        let display_msg = format!("{}{}", display_msg, reset);
        println!("{}", display_msg);

        // Print debug.
        log::info!(
            "-> Tx: '{}', size: {} bytes{}",
            String::from_utf8_lossy(&outgoing).trim(),
            outgoing.len(),
            reset,
        );
        log::info!(
            "<- Rx: '{}', size: {} bytes{}",
            String::from_utf8_lossy(&incoming).trim(),
            incoming.len(),
            reset,
        );
    }
}

Here are a few things to note about the client code:

• We create a BufReader and BufWriter for the TcpStream that we get from TcpStream::connect(). This is because we want to read and write data in chunks, and not one byte at a time, for performance reasons, and to simplify the logic. These two structs allow us to read and write data very easily in chunks that are delimited by new lines (\n).
• There’s a client loop that runs forever. This is because we want to keep the client running forever, so that the user can type a message and send it to the server, and receive a response from the server.
• How do we exit this infinite client loop? Only when the user presses Ctrl+C will the client exit. The default behavior for Rust is to exit the process when this happens. This drops the TCP connection causing the server to exit as well.
• When we read data from user input, it too uses a stream, not a TcpStream, but the stdin() stream. This behaves very similarly to the TcpStream stream. We can read data from it in chunks delimited by new lines (\n). Once the user types a message and presses enter that message, eg: "hi", and the new line are stored in the it variable, eg: "hi\n". We then convert the String into a byte array, eg: [104, 105, 10], and then convert it into a Vec<u8>. We then send it to the server. We must call flush() since BufWriter buffers the data and does not send it to the server until we call flush() for IO performance reasons. It queue’s up the data and sends it in chunks, instead of sending it one byte at a time.
• Reading there response from the server is similar to reading it from stdin() as we have already seen. The main thread blocks until there is some data that can be read from the server. Or if the TCP connection errors out in any way (timeout or closed by various means). If there is an error, then this function returns an error, and the main thread exits. Note that the start_client() function itself returns an IOResult, which is just a type alias for pub type IOResult<T> = std::io::Result<T>;. The error handling is quite simple. If there is an error, we print it out and exit the program.
• We read the data from the server into the incoming variable using reader.read_until(b'\n', &mut it);). This is because we expect the server to send us data that is terminated by a new line (\n). So we read the data until we encounter a new line. This is a blocking call, so the main thread blocks until there is some data that can be read from the server. Note that the \n is included in incoming variable, much like it is in stdin().
  • We use this function String::from_utf8_lossy(&incoming); to convert this incoming: Vec<u8> into a String. We call .trim() on the String, so that the trailing \n is removed.
  • Note that trim() returns a &str, so if you want to turn it into a String, you have to run in through this expression format!("{}", String::from_utf8_lossy(&incoming).trim()) function.
• This is a pedagogical example and this algorithm is somewhat contrived to demonstrate how to send bytes back and forth between client and server and have them interpret the bytes in a certain way. A more formalized version of this “dance” is called a “protocol”, eg: HTTP, SMTP, etc.
• In the final step of the loop, after the incoming data has been read from the server, we print it out to the terminal. Since the server will send us ANSI escape sequence codes that colorize the text that we print to the terminal, we want to reset the color after we print the text, so it does not pollute our stdout() output stream. We use the SgrCode::Reset code to reset the color of the text that we print to the terminal.

Create the server #

Now let’s create the server. We will use std::net::TcpListener to create a TCP socket server. We will need an IP address and port in order to make a TCP connection. To run the server we will need to run the following command:

cargo run server

The server code is very similar to the client code. We need a server loop that runs forever, and we need to first read (blocking until there is any data available) and then write data in chunks delimited by new lines (\n). When there is no data available to read EOF is reached on the reader (aka, input TCP stream) then we break out of this loop and exit. When data comes in (delimited by \n) we process it and send a response back to the client. We process this data by applying a lolcat effect on it, so the client will get a very colorful version of whatever text message that they sent to the server.

One more thing we will see when implementing the server is having to spawn multiple threads to handle each incoming client connection. While the client is a single threaded app, the server is a multi-threaded app. The client is only concerned w/ a single TCP connection, but the server is concerned with multiple TCP connections, each connection emanating from a different client process running the cargo run client and creating a new OS process. Fortunately Rust is built for fearless concurrency and parallelism from the ground up.

Here’s the main function of our server app:

pub fn start_server(socket_address: String) -> IOResult<()> {
    let tcp_listener = TcpListener::bind(socket_address)?;
    // Server connection accept loop.
    loop {
        log::info!("Waiting for a incoming connection...");
        let (tcp_stream, ..) = tcp_listener.accept()?; // This is a blocking call.

        // Spawn a new thread to handle this connection.
        thread::spawn(|| match handle_connection(tcp_stream) {
            Ok(_) => {
                log::info!("Successfully closed connection to client...");
            }
            Err(_) => {
                log::error!("Problem with client connection...");
            }
        });
    }
}

Here are a few things to note about the server code:

• We are using IOResult just like the client code. There are frequent calls to the ? operator, which is shorthand for matching on the Result and returning early if there’s an error. This is rudimentary error handling, and its good enough for this pedagogical example. Note that even in this pedagogical example, we don’t use the unwrap() method which will induce a panic if there’s an error. We always use the ? operator, which will return early if there’s an error. It isn’t a good idea to get into the habit of using unwrap() outside of tests. These habits are hard to break once they’re formed. You can even add the following #![warn(clippy::unwrap_in_result)] in the top level module of your project to have the compiler warn you if you use unwrap() outside of tests. Here’s an example.
• The first thing the server has to do is reserve a port on the given address. This is called binding, and we do it using TcpListener::bind(socket_address)?;. This does not start a server yet. It just reserves a port on the given address, assuming that it is available. If some other process has already bound to that port, then this will return an error.
• Once we have a TcpListener instance, we can call accept() on it to start listening for incoming connections. This is a blocking call, so the main thread blocks until there is an incoming connection. Once there is an incoming connection, we get a TcpStream instance, which we can use to read and write data to the client. This is a blocking call. Which means that the main thread won’t be able to do anything else, like process other incoming connections, while it is waiting here, for a connection to come in.
• This is why we use thread::spawn() to create a new thread and have it handle the incoming connection. We spawn a new thread for each incoming connection. This is not a scalable solution, but it is good enough for this pedagogical example. We will learn about more scalable solutions in a the Write a simple TCP chat server in Rust tutorial.

Now, let’s look at the handle_connection() function that is called by the spawned thread. This is the function that handles the incoming connection from the client. And it defines our “protocol”, along with the client code. We aren’t using any formalized protocol like HTTP or SMTP. We are just sending bytes back and forth between the client and server, and interpreting them in a certain way, which is our informal protocol. This code is very similar to the client side code, including the loop and the BufReader and BufWriter structs. And even looking for EOF to break out of the loop. Except that we don’t block on stdin() for input here.

fn handle_connection(tcp_stream: TcpStream) -> IOResult<()> {
    log::info!("Start handle connection");

    let reader = &mut BufReader::new(&tcp_stream);
    let write = &mut BufWriter::new(&tcp_stream);

    // Process client connection loop.
    loop {
        let mut incoming: Vec<u8> = vec![];

        // Read from reader.
        let num_bytes_read = reader.read_until(b'\n', &mut incoming)?;

        // Check for EOF. The stream is closed.
        if num_bytes_read == 0 {
            break;
        }

        // Process.
        let outgoing = process(&incoming);

        // Write to writer.
        write.write(&outgoing)?;
        let _ = write.flush()?;

        // Print debug.
        log::info!("-> Rx(bytes) : {:?}", &incoming);
        log::info!(
            "-> Rx(string): '{}', size: {} bytes",
            String::from_utf8_lossy(&incoming).trim(),
            incoming.len(),
        );
        log::info!(
            "<- Tx(string): '{}', size: {} bytes",
            String::from_utf8_lossy(&outgoing).trim(),
            outgoing.len()
        );
    }

    log::info!("End handle connection - connection closed");

    Ok(())
}

Finally, let’s look at the process() function that takes the incoming bytes to the outgoing bytes. This is where we add some fun and color and flair to our app. We colorize the incoming bytes using a lolcat effect and send it back to the client.

use r3bl_tui::ColorWheel;

fn process(incoming: &Vec<u8>) -> Vec<u8> {
    // Convert incoming to String, and remove any trailing whitespace (includes newline).
    let incoming = String::from_utf8_lossy(incoming);
    let incoming = incoming.trim();

    // Prepare outgoing payload.
    let outgoing = incoming.to_string();

    // Colorize it w/ a gradient.
    let outgoing = ColorWheel::lolcat_into_string(&outgoing);

    // Generate outgoing response. Add newline to the end of output (so client can process it).
    let outgoing = format!("{}\n", outgoing);

    // Return outgoing payload.
    outgoing.as_bytes().to_vec()
}

Next steps #

Now that you have a handle on the basics of writing a simple netcat client and server, you can read this tutorial to learn more about creating a more advanced TCP server that netcat, telnet, or PuTTY clients can connect to, in order to have multiple client apps chat with each other.

Build with Naz video series on developerlife.com YouTube channel #

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