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Why does not java support raw sockets?

800670Dec 27 2010 — edited Jan 2 2011
Java does not have support for raw sockets, that means it cannot receive the packet header, just the payload data.
But the header data of an ICMP packet consists of 20 bytes, and you can still write single bytes in Java, so why isn´t is possible to write a header for an ICMP packet in Java?

Can someone explain how it all works?

Thanks!

Comments

jtahlborn
Basically, java wasn't designed to be that low level. Other than that, probably no good reason.
800670
Yes, I see, but why isn´t it possible to write the header myself when it consists of usual bytes? That is what I can not understand.
EJP
At a guess it is because either (a) using raw sockets requires privileges and/or (b) Microsoft keep changing the raw sockets API or (c) it's a general-purpose programming language and why would you want to do that?
++sja
You can do raw sockets with third party libraries. They won't be pure java - but you didn't really expect to do raw sockets on your cell phone or TV set top box, or spy and spoof someone's network using an applet.

The FAQ for one such library hints what kind of a mess raw sockets are due to differences in common operating systems; see http://www.savarese.com/software/rocksaw/
At least to some extent the windows API didn't support raw access when java first came out.

So lowest common denominator would be a more likely explanation.
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Locked on Jan 30 2011
Added on Dec 27 2010
#networking
5 comments
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