Socket Problems

[dargueta]

I'm having issues with socket programming; I get unknown errors when I run this code:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use IO::Socket;

#
# HTTPCON openHTTPConnection(STRING peer)
#
sub openHTTPConnection
{
	my ($target,$me) = @_;
	return new IO::Socket::INET(
		   	   		LocalAddr	=>	$me,
	   		  	  	PeerAddr	=>	$target,
	   		  	  	PeerPort	=>	'80',
	   		  	  	Proto		=>	'tcp');
}

my $target = "<removed>"; #website goes here
my $me = "<removed>"; #IP address goes here

my $con = openHTTPConnection($target,$me);
unless($con)
{
        #CRASHES HERE
	die("Could not open connection. Reason: $!");
}

#open dump file
open(HFILE,">C:\\USERS\\DIEGO\\DESKTOP\\OUT.HTML") or die("Could not open buffer file. Reason: $!");

#send HTTP request.
printf $con "GET / HTTP/1.1\nHost: $target\n\n";
my ($tmpbuf,$pagebuf) = ("","");

#dump webpage contents into file
while(defined($tmpbuf = <$con>))
{
	printf HFILE $tmpbuf;
}

#clean up and exit
close $con;
close HFILE;

It crashes where indicated with the error message "unknown error". Any ideas?

[KevinADC]

try this:

my $con = openHTTPConnection($target,$me);
use Data::Dumper;
print Dumper \$con;

See if anything gets printed.

[dargueta]

I get $VAR1 = \undef;. I don't know what that's supposed to mean, but I know undef is roughly the equivalent of NULL in C/C++, so it can't be good.

[KevinADC]

One problem might be that you are using IO::Socket but want to use IO::Socket::INET, see if this works:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use IO::Socket::INET;

my $target = "<removed>"; #website goes here
my $me = "<removed>"; #IP address goes here

my $con = IO::Socket::INET->new(
		   	   	LocalAddr	=>	$me,
	   		  	  	PeerAddr	=>	$target,
	   		  	  	PeerPort	=>	'80',
	   		  	  	Proto		=>	'tcp')
						or die "Can't bind : $@\n";

#open dump file
open(HFILE,">C:\\USERS\\DIEGO\\DESKTOP\\OUT.HTML") or die("Could not open buffer file. Reason: $!");

#send HTTP request.
printf $con "GET / HTTP/1.1\nHost: $target\n\n";
my ($tmpbuf,$pagebuf) = ("","");

#dump webpage contents into file
while(defined($tmpbuf = <$con>))
{
	printf HFILE $tmpbuf;
}

#clean up and exit
close $con;
close HFILE;

[dargueta]

It works just fine if I don't specify the host IP, so I don't think that's the problem.

[KevinADC]

So it works or doesn't work?

[dargueta]

If I comment out the line specifying the host address, it works. If I don't comment it out, then it doesn't. I need the host specified for my program.

[KevinADC]

Are you getting an error or a message saying "Can't bind ........". If you see the can't bind error that has nothing to do with perl and I don't know why your connection can't be completed. Firewall maybe?

[dargueta]

I get the message "unknown error". It's not my firewall (at least I don't think), because it's set to alert me if a program is blocked by the firewall, and I haven't seen any big annoying popups from the UAC.

[KevinADC]

Don't know what to say. "Unknown error" is obviously pretty hard to diagnose.