I want to program a game that involves a client-server option for a network.
For this, I need to be able to get a list of all people that are hosting a server on their computer but the Socket class requires a name of the computer. Is it possible to get this list and if so, then how?
Thanks you very much
You could use a MulticastSocket on the client to listen for broadcast UDP packets from the server. See Broadcasting to Multiple Recipients and have your server send one out every few seconds.
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The problem: In java you can create a socket on the server with ServerSocket(0) and it will choose a random port to listen on. However when you create a socket on the client to send a message with Socket(addr, port) there is no apparent way to determine which port on the server you need to send to. I couldn't find anything about this option through web searches besides the basic "if you put 0 it will chose a random port". Does anyone know or have a resource that could explain what this scenario is supposed to look like from the client end?
Some background: I am currently converting a system from UDP to TCP. The reason I need the server to listen on a random port is that my server/client do not have a strict server/client relationship. So the "server" in this situation is really an application that I need to open multiple instances of on one PC. The old way of having predetermined send/receive ports is causing only one instance to be able to open a port and all communication is being redirected to that instance. My understanding that the best way to fix this problem is for each instance to use a different port, and the best way for that is to do ServerSocket(0). Despite including this background, I do not want comments on how messed up the situation is, only answers pertaining to the problem.
If a fixed port number is not part of the server's documented setup / protocol, then the only way for clients to figure out is to have the running/active servers publish that information in some datastore, the location and details of which are documented and known by the clients, and where that datastore is reachable for the clients.
[Or have the clients run a portscan each time they want to connect. It will work but probably not as fast as your users would like.]
And your situation is indeed messed up.
Perhaps if you are on the same IP subnet with all the servers/clients, then you could use UPnP to signal which random port new instances of your application are running on, and similarly other instances could monitor UPnP to discover this new instance.
I've never implemented UPnP in Java, but suspect libraries are out there..
eg. https://github.com/jupnp/jupnp
I want to create a voice chat application in pure java socket programming.
I used UDP protocol to transfer recorded voice from one client to another but when i test it over the internet voice is not comming continuously.
As i am new to this voice chat application, someone may suggest what should i do for getting continuous voice.
The Scenario is like this.
Flow of voice chat as this shows only one way communication-
FLOW of data
Client1------------------------------>> Server ------------------------------------>>Client2
Client1:
Reading 1KB voice buffer from TargateDataLine then create a voice packet and sent to server.
Server: Receive from client1 and then send to client2.
Client2: Receive the UDP packet and get voice data then play.
Also facing the bandwidth up and down problem.
What should be the minimum bandwidth to use voice chat. Ex- skype required 30KBPS udloading/downloading speed.
Thanks in advance.
In order to establish a connection between two or more users for peer-to-peer communication you need a signaling server as well as STUN/TURN servers.
You can code your own ones or use a ready backend solutions like ConnectyCube and concentrate on client-side implementation. Here are some WebRTC video chat code samples for your reference as well.
You should send the packets directly between the clients. The relaying of packets through the server is adding more delay to it. Simply send it from client1 to client2.
The Answer is pretty simple you should use tcp protocol. Coz udp sends the packet but doesn't ensure that the packet was received by the target. but tcp protocol ensures it and you will get a stable connection with cost of some speed reduced in transfer of data.tcp vs udp
As I am programming a network chat (java, but should not make a difference for the question), and wanted to use UDP, I ran into the problem of it not working over the internet. After a little research I found out that you have to have port forwarding for the specific port activated. So now it comes to my question:
Does UDP work over the Internet in a not configurable way?
For example, if I would program a whole Network Game would it make sense to use UDP? Or would I require the Player to activate Portforwarding and open the Port etc?
When would it make sense to use UDP then? And why?
I'm actually not understanding the whole point of UDP then.
For my programming point of view I would like to have a way to use it intuitive.
Like creating the DatagramSocket and the DatagramPacket, configure the Packet with the Data and the Destination and send it away over the internet.
As for my Users I don't want them to have to configure any specific things like opening the exact port they want to use etc. I just want them to use the program (server and client) and it should work.
The problem you've run into is not one of UDP vs TCP (although using the unreliable, unordered UDP as the basis of a chat application seems like an odd choice to me).
The problem is that of NAT traversal. In a nutshell, home routers perform a network function called NAT - Network Address Translation. They do it in order to use a single public IP address for all machines inside the NAT (which are given private addresses - usually 10.0.0.0 or 192.168.0.0). The router then switches the source IP address in all packets sent from inside the LAN from the private address to the public one. It uses port numbers to "remember" which machine sent what to what address, in order to perform the backwards translation when the response arrives.
The problem arises when someone wants to initiate a connection to a machine behind a NAT. Without seeing an outgoing connection first, the NAT doesn't know to which internal computer and port it should forward the packet. This is what happens to you.
There are various fixes for this issue, with the simplest one being manual port forwarding (as you've discovered), but it's a well known problem faced by any peer-to-peer application. If you need to contact a machine behind NAT (i.e. contact most home users) and you want your application to work out-of-the box (without your users fiddling with their routers) you need to research NAT traversal techniques, implement them in your application, and hope that the user's home routers support them. It's a huge pain in the neck.
EDITED: with Joachim Pileborg's correct suggestions!
UDP is often a better choice for action-based games, where it's vitally important to have updates to the client or server with the latest data about a player, player input, or the game world.
TCP begins with a 3-way handshake to establish a connection (which takes time). If your game communication protocol is via TCP, all packets in a message have to arrive before the message becomes available. Even a small amount of Internet congestion could cause your game to lag.
TCP is good for communications that MUST arrive in full.
With UDP, the client or server can send the latest player/game state in individual packets that do not depend on arriving in order. If a packet is late, or arrives out of order... it should be ignored.
UDP is good for communications that need to be fast, but losing individual packets is OK.
Both should be available in your Java platform.
Here's some further reading:
http://gafferongames.com/networking-for-game-programmers/udp-vs-tcp/
Im trying to make a test chat program written in java to be able to send and receive messages. It works but to receive them you have to open the ports on your router. How can i get around this?
You cannot without implementing a third party server which routes the chat between the two clients. This server would have the required incoming ports open, and would just forward everything.
I am trying to write an application which will run in many machines, and these machines will communicate with each other through sending a stream of UDP packets. Usually one machine will be sending many packets to another machine, until they switch and another one will do the same to another machine and so forth. Choosing UDP is due to the nature of the application (real-time/speed more important than reliability). I also understand that UDP is a connectionless protocol.
By doing a quick prototype, I managed to create a NIO Datagram Server (bind), and a NIO Datagram Client (connect). However, I realized that I can only send one way only from the client to the server (or maybe I am missing something?). I couldn't send in the opposite direction.
Also, since UDP is a connectionless protocol, I thought that it was supposed to accept many clients sending packets to it (n-client to one server), and the other way around (server sending to clients one-by-one or multi/broad-cast).
Should I create a server in the client listening to a different port to acheive two-way? Can n-client send packets to one server at the same time?
I just want someone to clear this thing to me. No need for sample code (although it will be greatly appreciated), you can give me some pointers.
Thank you.
For what you are describing, you need one server thread and one more client thread in EACH and EVERY instance of your program running on different machines.
Create a multi threaded program, with a serving thread, and a client thread - the client thread needs to know about all servers - IP and Port. The server simply listens on a port on the current machine.
If you run this same program on multiple machines, You will get a p2p group.
You can also set up a tracker on a free server in the internet. A tracker program will rest in a well known URL, and will maintain a list of participating machines. Each instance of your program when started on a machine will update the tracker of details necessary to connect to it, and the tracker can maintain a list of this data and share it all with any new instance coming up later.