Sometimes it is useful to be able to tell exactly when a packet arrives. This is especially important for network monitoring applications -- if a packet arrives when the monitoring machine is busy, your latency measurements get skewed.
Linux stamps the time each packet was received and makes the information available through an ioctl - most other OS have a similar method.
Here is how to get at that info:
/****************************************************************************
* timestamp_packet.
*
* This code is a quick and dirty test of getting the timestamp a packet was
* recieved by the kernel using IOCTL SIOCGSTAMP
*
* This code based upon example code in the "Unix Network Sockets Programming"
* books.
*
***************************************************************************/
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <asm/sockios.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <netdb.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <sys/time.h>
#define MAX_PACKET_SIZE 2048
/****************************************************************************
* error
* Write an error message and aborts..
***************************************************************************/
void error(char *msg)
{
perror(msg);
exit(0);
}
/****************************************************************************
* get_time
*
* Gets the time using both gettimeofday and IOCTL and prints delta.
*
* Returns:
* 1 on success.
***************************************************************************/
int get_time (int sock, char * packet, uint length) {
// Places to store the timestamps.
struct timeval tv_tod, tv_ioctl;
int error;
// Get the time packet was recieved with usec resolution
gettimeofday (&tv_tod, 0);
// and now use the IOCTL to get the time the packet was stamped by the kernel.
error = ioctl(sock, SIOCGSTAMP, &tv_ioctl);
printf ("gettimeofday: %d.%d\t ioctl: %d.%d\t delta: %d.%d\n",
tv_tod.tv_sec, tv_tod.tv_usec,
tv_ioctl.tv_sec, tv_ioctl.tv_usec,
tv_tod.tv_sec - tv_ioctl.tv_sec,
tv_tod.tv_usec - tv_ioctl.tv_usec
);
return 1;
}
/****************************************************************************
* main
* Parses arguments, opens port.
* Takes:
* A port number to listen on.
* Returns:
* 1 on success.
***************************************************************************/
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
int sock, length, fromlen, n;
struct sockaddr_in server;
struct sockaddr_in from;
char buf[MAX_PACKET_SIZE];
unsigned char pending_packets=0;
// Parse out the prot number. Abort if no port given.
if (argc < 2) {
fprintf(stderr, "Useage:\n %s port\n", argv[0]);
exit(0);
}
// Standard create and listen on a UDP port snippet.
sock=socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, 0);
if (sock < 0) error("Opening socket");
length = sizeof(server);
bzero(&server,length);
server.sin_family=AF_INET;
server.sin_addr.s_addr=INADDR_ANY;
server.sin_port=htons(atoi(argv[1]));
if (bind(sock,(struct sockaddr *)&server,length)<0)
error("binding");
fromlen = sizeof(struct sockaddr_in);
// Loop, getting packets, parsing the header and doing stuff...
while (1) {
n = recvfrom(sock,buf,MAX_PACKET_SIZE,0,(struct sockaddr *)&from,(socklen_t *)&fromlen);
if (n < 0) error("recvfrom");
get_time (sock, buf, n);
}
}