js-libp2p-webrtc-star

libp2p WebRTC transport that includes a discovery mechanism provided by the signalling-star

Lead Maintainer

Vasco Santos.

Description

libp2p-webrtc-star is one of the WebRTC transports available for libp2p. libp2p-webrtc-star incorporates both a transport and a discovery service that is facilitated by the signalling server, also part of this module.

Usage

Install

> npm install libp2p-webrtc-star

Usage

Using this module in Node.js (read: not in the browser)

To use this module in Node.js, you have to BYOI of WebRTC, there are multiple options out there, unfortunately, none of them are 100% solid. The ones we recommend are: wrtc and electron-webrtc.

Instead of just creating the WebRTCStar instance without arguments, you need to pass an options object with the WebRTC implementation:

const wrtc = require('wrtc')
const electronWebRTC = require('electron-webrtc')
const WStar = require('libp2p-webrtc-star')

// Using wrtc
const ws1 = new WStar({ wrtc: wrtc })

// Using electron-webrtc
const ws2 = new WStar({ wrtc: electronWebRTC() })

Using this module in the Browser

const WStar = require('libp2p-webrtc-star')
const multiaddr = require('multiaddr')
const pipe = require('it-pipe')
const { collect } = require('streaming-iterables')

const addr = multiaddr('/ip4/188.166.203.82/tcp/20000/wss/p2p-webrtc-star/ipfs/QmcgpsyWgH8Y8ajJz1Cu72KnS5uo2Aa2LpzU7kinSooo2a')

const ws = new WStar({ upgrader })

const listener = ws.createListener((socket) => {
  console.log('new connection opened')
  pipe(
    ['hello'],
    socket
  )
})

await listener.listen(addr)
console.log('listening')

const socket = await ws.dial(addr)
const values = await pipe(
  socket,
  collect
)

console.log(`Value: ${values.toString()}`)

// Close connection after reading
await listener.close()

API

Transport

Connection

Peer Discovery - ws.discovery

Rendezvous server (aka Signalling server)

Nodes using libp2p-webrtc-star will connect to a known point in the network, a rendezvous point where they can learn about other nodes (Discovery) and exchange their SDP offers (signalling data).

libp2p-webrtc-star comes with its own signalling server, used for peers to handshake their signalling data and establish a connection. You can install it in your machine by installing the module globally:

> npm install --global libp2p-webrtc-star

This will expose a webrtc-star cli tool. To spawn a server do:

> star-signal --port=9090 --host=127.0.0.1

Defaults:

• port - 13579
• host - '0.0.0.0'

Hosted Rendezvous Server

We host a signalling server at star-signal.cloud.ipfs.team that can be used for practical demos and experimentation, it should not be used for apps in production. A libp2p-webrtc-star address, using the signalling server we provide, looks like:

/dns4/star-signal.cloud.ipfs.team/wss/p2p-webrtc-star/ipfs/<your-peer-id>

Note: The address above indicates WebSockets Secure, which can be accessed from both http and https.