MCast

MCast consists of two parts, a sending half (MCSend) and a receiving part (MCReceive). It is a console application which we developed in C# using Microsoft's .NET Framework 2.0 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. The main function of the program is to transmit strings of data over an IP Multicast connection and record various results to a file for further inspection. The following explains a few of the features currently in MCast 1.0 Beta

MCSend:

• The server side of the program
• Enables IP Multicasting
• User input
• Transmits strings of data over a multicast connection
• Implements a pseudo-NACK algorithm to monitor data and make sure it's being received properly
• Use of a thread to receive NACK messages
• Prints results to a text file with a time stamp

MCReceive:

• The client side of the program
• Sequence check to ensure data is being received and printed out properly
• Makes a Unicast connection with the designated sender at the time of startup in order to send the NACK messages

Known bugs:

• MCSend prints out the wrong port every time it receives a NACK message (does not affect performance).
• MCSend and MCReceive can't be run on the same computer or else it will cause problems.
• There is no way for MCSend to retransmit a packet any of the clients did not receive.

Instructions:

In order to properly use MCast, please follow these instructions:

• Download the source files via the link below.
• Extract the files to an easy to find location.
• Make sure you have Microsoft's .NET Framwork 2.0 installed on your computer(s).
• Designate one computer to be the server while the others will serve as clients.
• Open up the Command Console (Start --> Run --> "cmd") and find the directory you saved the files in.
• On the server computer, type "cd MCSend/ConsoleApplication2/bin/Release"
• For the client computers type in the same thing, but instead replace "MCSend" with "MCReceive".
• To execute the MCSend program, type the following (filling in the command line arguments with valid numbers).
  "MCSend "Multicast IP Address" "Multicast Port" "Time to Live""
• example: MCSend 232.5.6.7 1138 2
• Press Enter.
• For the receiving computers, do the same thing as MCSend except use the following command line arguments.
  "MCReceive "Multicast IP Address" "Multicast Port" "IP Address of the server""
• example: MCReceive 232.5.6.7 1138 192.168.1.21
• If you did everything correctly then you should now be able to input messages in MCSend and see the output on all the computers running MCReceive.

Click here to download the source code.

This program is an open source project, any of those who wish to contribute please contact the webmaster with your name, email, and intent of use. Please make sure to give credit where credit is due.

Copyright © Adam Ryan and Michael Henderson, 2007. All Rights Reserved.

If you have anything to add here, contact the webmaster. Last revised: 08/01/2007 Copyright © Adam Ryan, 2007. All Rights Reserved.