parsing packets

[Michael Hrivnak]

In order to find the end of the packet, include a field that is the
packet length.  This is what IP packets do to find the end of their
header.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4#Header

And the TCP header (see "data offset") does the same:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_Control_Protocol#TCP_segment_structure

Of course in both cases they are specifying the header length, not
including a data payload.  However, it sounds like you might not have
a payload, so your entire packet might consist of header-like data.

Michael


On Sun, Jul 10, 2011 at 4:59 PM, Littlefield, Tyler <tyler at tysdomain.com> wrote:
> Hello all:
> I'm working on a server that will need to parse packets sent from a client,
> and construct it's own packets.
> The setup is something like this: the first two bytes is the type of the
> packet.
> So, lets say we have a packet set to connect. There are two types of connect
> packet: a auth packet and a connect packet.
> The connect packet then has two bytes with the type, another byte that notes
> that it is a connect packet, and 4 bytes that contains the version of the
> client.
> The auth packet has the two bytes that tells what packet it is, one byte
> denoting that it is an auth packet, then the username, a NULL character, and
> a password and a NULL character.
>
> With all of this said, I'm kind of curious how I would 1) parse out
> something like this (I am using twisted, so it'll just be passed to my
> Receive function), and how I get the length of the packet with multiple NULL
> values. I'm also looking to build a packet and send it back out, is there
> something that will allow me to designate two bytes, set individual bits,
> then put it altogether in a packet to be sent out?
>
> --
>
> Take care,
> Ty
> my website:
> http://tds-solutions.net
> my blog:
> http://tds-solutions.net/blog
> skype: st8amnd127
> My programs don't have bugs; they're randomly added features!
>
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