What is the best way for a client app to find a server on a local network in C#?
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03-07-2019 - |
Question
The client connects to the server using GenuineChannels (we are considering switching to DotNetRemoting). What I mean by find is obtain the IP and port number of a server to connect to.
It seems like a brute-force approach would be try every IP on the network try the active ports (not even sure if that's possible) but there must be a better way.
Solution
Consider broadcasting a specific UDP packet. When the server or servers see the broadcasted UDP packet they send a reply. The client can collect the replies from all the servers and start connecting to them or based on an election algorithm.
See example for client (untested code):
using System.Net;
using System.Net.Sockets;
[STAThread]
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Socket socket = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork,
SocketType.Dgram, ProtocolType.Udp);
socket.Bind(new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, 8002));
socket.Connect(new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Broadcast, 8001));
socket.Send(System.Text.ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes("hello"));
int availableBytes = socket.Available;
if (availableBytes > 0)
{
byte[] buffer = new byte[availableBytes];
socket.Receive(buffer, 0, availableBytes, SocketFlags.None);
// buffer has the information on how to connect to the server
}
}
OTHER TIPS
I'd say the best way is to use Bonjour/Zeroconf/mDNS for C#; a lot of thought went into making it play nice with the network; IE it pings less frequently over time if possible, etc. There's Mono.Zeroconf, and I read there's an older .NET project in the Apple SDK but I haven't found it.
So the easiest would be to install Bonjour for Windows, then get the Windows Binaries for Mono.Zeroconf try the example MZClient.exe
drop the Mono.Zeroconf.dll
and/or Mono.Zeroconf.Providers.Bonjour.dll
into your project references and go.
Something like this:
var service = new Mono.Zeroconf.RegisterService {
Name = "Use Me for Stuff",
RegType = "_daap._tcp",
ReplyDomain = "local.",
Port = 0024200,
TxtRecord = new Mono.Zeroconf.TxtRecord {
{"I have no idea what's going on", "true"}}
};
service.Register();
var browser = new Mono.Zeroconf.ServiceBrowser();
browser.ServiceAdded +=
delegate(object o, Mono.Zeroconf.ServiceBrowseEventArgs args) {
Console.WriteLine("Found Service: {0}", args.Service.Name);
args.Service.Resolved +=
delegate(object o, Mono.Zeroconf.ServiceBrowseEventArgs args) {
var s = args.Service;
Console.WriteLine(
"Resolved Service: {0} - {1}:{2} ({3} TXT record entries)",
s.FullName, s.HostEntry.AddressList[0], s.Port, s.TxtRecord.Count);
};
args.Service.Resolve();
};
browser.Browse("_daap._tcp", "local");
Just wanted to point out an alternative Zeroconf NuGet package: Zeroconf. It does not have any native dependencies, so you don't need to install Bonjour for Windows or anything else.
It has support for .NET 4.5, WP8 and Win8.
WS-Discovery is a protocol intended for this purpose. It has a few different variations, different flavors of broadcasting and proxies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WS-Discovery
.NET WCF4 implements this.
Have the server listen for broadcast on a specific port on the network (must use UDP), When client starts have it broadcast some "ping" request on that port. when the server sees a "ping" it send back a message with the TCP address and port required for the client to connect to it.