I built tcp client/server application for my organisation. The server opens and listens to a specific port, and each client establishes Tcp Connection to the server port. Nothing special. The application works beautifully. But today, one client wanted the Tcp client app to work over WiFi network with firewall. The WiFi firewall is configured to block all ports by default. If I want my application to work, I have to give their network administrator a list of ports to open for my application. The server listening port is configurable so it is easy. Once I configure the port, I can give them is this specific port for the server. However the client app is unable to connect to the server because each time a TcpClient establishes a connection, it creates a random local Tcp port that will be blocked by their firewall.
Their network admin will not open all ports for the machine because they said it created security risks for their organisation. Therefore, I am looking for a way to force the client to open a specific local port when it establishes a Tcp connection. I've both looked into MSDN docs and been Googling but I haven't found an adequate answer. Would you be able to suggest a workaround or a third party library that can do that? Thank heaps.
I'm not aware of any way to have this level of control with TcpClient. However, if you manually create the Socket object, you can bind to a local port of your choosing:
var sock = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp);
// Specify the local port to use
var endpoint = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, 9999);
sock.Bind(endpoint);
// And connect to the remote end point
sock.Connect("example.com", 80);
Of course, by doing this you limit yourself to one connection on the machine.