@bitrelay/discovery v1.0.3

Bitrelay Discovery

Decentralized peer discovery and signaling

bitrelay-discovery is a client for the Peer Exchange Protocol (PXP), a decentralized protocol for peer discovery and signaling. Rather than using centralized signal hubs, each node in the network exchanges peers and relays signaling data.

This client uses WebRTC for peer connections, but you may also use any other transport by manually connecting and passing in a duplex stream.

Usage

npm install bitrelay-discovery

import { Exchange } from 'bitrelay-discovery'

const ex = new Exchange('some-network-id', { wrtc: wrtc })
// The network id can be any string unique to your network.
// When using Node.js, the `wrtc` option is required.
// (This can come from the 'wrtc' or 'electron-webrtc' packages).

ex.on('connect', conn => {
  // `conn` is a duplex stream multiplexed through the PXP connection,
  // which can be used for your P2P protocol.
  conn.pipe(something).pipe(conn)

  // We can query our current peers for a new peer by calling `getNewPeer()`.
  // `peer-exchange` will do the WebRTC signaling and connect to the peer.
  if (ex.peers.length < 8) {
    ex.getNewPeer()
  }
})

// Bootstrap by connecting to one or more already-known PXP peers.
// You can use any transport that creates a duplex stream (in this case TCP).
const socket = net.connect(8000, '10.0.0.1', () => ex.connect(socket))

// You can optionally accept incoming connections using any transport.
const server = net.createServer(socket => ex.accept(socket))
server.listen(8000)

Security Notes

Some efforts were made to make this module DoS-resistant, but there are probably still some weaknesses.

It is recommended to use an authenticated transport when possible (e.g. WebSockets over HTTPS) for initial bootstrapping to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks (attackers could control all the peers you connect to, which can be very bad in some applications).