Accepting UDP Broadcasts

UDP datagrams can be sent as broadcasts. A broadcast, instead of specifying a particular network host as a destination, targets a group of hosts on the network.

A tip note icon. The sock. object supports link-level broadcasts. Such broadcast packets have their destination MAC address set to 255.255.255.255.255.255. Link-level broadcasts are received by all network hosts connected to the current network segment. Link-level broadcasts cannot penetrate routers, bridges, etc.

For the socket to accept incoming UDP broadcasts, the sock.acceptbcast property must be set to 1 — YES. In every other aspect, working with incoming broadcast UDP datagrams is like working with regular incoming datagrams.