SCTP (Stream Control Transmission Protocol) is a transport layer protocol that ensures reliable, message-oriented communication in networks. It is designed to transport Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) signaling messages over IP networks, but it can be used for other applications as well.
SCTP is a transport protocol like TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and UDP (User Datagram Protocol), but it offers features that are particularly useful for applications that require message boundary preservation, multi-streaming, and enhanced reliability.
Code Example:
Below is a Python example demonstrating a simple SCTP server using the sctp
library. This example showcases how SCTP can be used for message-oriented communication:
import sctp
import socket
# Create an SCTP socket
server_socket = sctp.sctpsocket_tcp(socket.AF_INET)
server_socket.bind(('0.0.0.0', 12345))
server_socket.listen(5)
print("SCTP server is listening on port 12345...")
while True:
client_socket, client_address = server_socket.accept()
print(f"Connection from {client_address}")
while True:
data = client_socket.recv(1024)
if not data:
break
print(f"Received message: {data.decode()}")
client_socket.sendall(data)
client_socket.close()