Code raw sockets in C on Linux

Raw sockets can be used to construct a packet manually inside an application. In normal sockets when any data is send over the network, the kernel of the operating system adds some headers to it like IP header and TCP header. So an application only needs to take care of what data it is sending and what reply it is expecting.

But there are other cases when an application needs to set its own headers. Raw sockets are used in security related applications like nmap , packets sniffer etc. In this article we are going to program raw sockets on linux using native sockets. Windows for example does not support raw socket programming directly. To program raw sockets on windows a packet crafting library like winpcap has to be used.

In this article we are going to do some raw socket programming by constructing a raw TCP packet and sending it over the network. Before programming raw sockets, it is recommended that you learn about the basics of socket programming in c.