C# Network Programming

What Is Broadcasting? IP broadcasting is used by network devices to send a single packet of information that can be accessible by every device on the network. Because TCP communication requires that two devices have a dedicated connection, i...

Using Broadcast Packets to Advertise a Server One of the most common uses for broadcast packets is to advertise the presence of a server on the network. By repeatedly sending out a broadcast packet containing information regarding the server...

What Is Multicasting? Broadcasting is an excellent way to send information to all devices on a subnet, but it does have a drawback: the broadcast packets are restricted to the local subnet. IP multicasting was devised to allow an application...

C# IP Multicast Support The .NET network library supports IP multicasting by using Socket options. Once a Socket object is created, it can be set to join a multicast group or to leave a multicast group that it has previously joined. This tec...

Sample Multicast Application Multicast applications come in handy when a device needs to send information to multiple remote devices without having to maintain a connection to each device or send out multiple packets (one for each device)....

Summary This chapter describes techniques that can be used to communicate simultaneously with multiple network hosts using broadcast and multicast packets. Because both IP broadcasting and multicasting are connectionless communications, they...