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Single Threaded Networking

This repository contains an example library for single threaded client/server programs based on boost asio. Multiple clients and the server can transfer simple strings messages back and forth. Because the API is single threaded, it integrates easily into a main update loop, e.g. for a game.

Note: Both the creation of the communication channel as well as all communication between the client and the server is insecure. It is trivially subject to interception and alteration, and it should not be used to transmit sensitive information of any sort.

In addition, a simple chat server and NCurses based chat client demonstrate how to use this API.

Building with CMake

  1. Clone the repository.

     git clone https://github.com/nsumner/single-threaded-networking.git

  2. Create a new directory for building.

     mkdir networkbuild

  3. Change into the new directory.

     cd networkbuild

  4. Run CMake with the path to the source.

     cmake ../single-threaded-networking/

  5. Run make inside the build directory:

     make

This produces chatserver and chatclient tools called bin/chatserver and bin/chatclient respectively. The library for single threaded clients and servers is built in lib/.

Note, building with a tool like ninja can be done by adding -G Ninja to the cmake invocation and running ninja instead of make.

Running the Example Chat Client and Chat Server

First run the chat server on an unused port of the server machine.

bin/chatserver 4000

In separate terminals, run multiple instances of the chat client using:

bin/chatclient localhost 4000

This will connect to the given port (4000 in this case) of the local machine. Connecting to a remote machine can be done by explicitly using the remote machine's IP address instead of localhost. Inside the chat client, you can enter commands or chat with other clients by typing text and hitting the ENTER key. You can disconnect from the server by typing quit. You can shut down the server and disconnect all clients by typing shutdown. Typing anything else will send a chat message to other clients.