How to make two-directional unix domain sockets with SOCK_DGRAM?

Question

I am trying to write a simple Unix datagram server/client, and am having some problems. What I want is a server that listens on a datagram socket and sends a reply to every message received, to the original sender. I decided to try first using socat to be the "server" and writing the client in C. I am running socat like this:

socat UNIX-DGRAM:/tmp/test.socket,fork EXEC:echo

To the best of my understanding this should listen on /tmp/test.socket and reply to everything that is received with the same string? Then I have a client program that looks like this (error checking removed for clarity):

int s = socket(AF_UNIX, SOCK_DGRAM, 0);
struct sockaddr_un sa;
sa.sun_family = AF_UNIX;
strcpy(sa.sun_path, "/tmp/test.socket");

const char *data = "Testing data";
int err = sendto(s, data, strlen(data), 0, (struct sockaddr *)(&sa), sizeof(struct sockaddr_un));

printf("Sent!\n");

unsigned char *buffer = malloc(BUFFER_LENGTH);
struct sockaddr_storage recv_sa;
int recv_sa_len = 0;
int recv_len = recvfrom(s, buffer, BUFFER_LENGTH, 0, (struct sockaddr *)&recv_sa, &recv_sa_len);

for (int i = 0; i < recv_len; i++) {
    putc(buffer[i], stdout);
}
printf("\n");

It should send the packet (that works), receive a packet, and then print it out, but the program doesn't seem to be capable of receiving the packet. What am I doing wrong here, or do I have a fundamental misunderstanding about Unix sockets? Thanks!

Answer 1

Take a look at the Michael Kerrisk's AF_UNIX SOCK_DGRAM example of the client/server program (client, server) published in his book The Linux Programming Interface, chapter 57.