https://github.com/gamemann/csharp-websockets-chat
A small project that allows a client and server to communicate together similar to a chat room. I made this project to learn more about web sockets in CSharp/.NET and manage multiple web sockets at once.
https://github.com/gamemann/csharp-websockets-chat
c-sharp chat cli csharp dotnet net room simple socket ssl web web-socket web-sockets websocket websockets
Last synced: 6 months ago
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A small project that allows a client and server to communicate together similar to a chat room. I made this project to learn more about web sockets in CSharp/.NET and manage multiple web sockets at once.
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/gamemann/csharp-websockets-chat
- Owner: gamemann
- Created: 2024-04-16T02:58:55.000Z (almost 2 years ago)
- Default Branch: main
- Last Pushed: 2024-04-18T04:12:30.000Z (almost 2 years ago)
- Last Synced: 2025-02-28T12:30:02.401Z (about 1 year ago)
- Topics: c-sharp, chat, cli, csharp, dotnet, net, room, simple, socket, ssl, web, web-socket, web-sockets, websocket, websockets
- Language: C#
- Homepage:
- Size: 1.78 MB
- Stars: 13
- Watchers: 1
- Forks: 0
- Open Issues: 0
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
Awesome Lists containing this project
README
This is a small project that utilizes CSharp and the [.NET library](https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/dotnet/what-is-dotnet) (7.0). This program allows you to establish multiple web sockets at once (client -> server and server -> client both supported). This is intended to run on Linux-based operating systems that support .NET 7.0 (e.g. using the `dotnet` package). It is possible this works with Windows, but I haven't tried testing it. This project should also work with .NET 8.0, but I haven't tested that as well.
This program operates as a very simple one-on-one chat room. When connected, the client and server can exchange basic UTF-8 text messages with each other.
I made this project to learn more about web sockets in CSharp/.NET along with how to manage multiple web sockets receiving/sending data concurrently via asynchronous methods.
## Demo
Here's a GIF video demonstrating the functionality of the program. We don't use SSL in our demonstration and establish the client and server both locally using `127.0.0.1` (localhost).
## Building & Installing
### Prerequisites
#### .NET 7.0
The .NET 7.0 library is required to run this project. You can install this library manually or through a package manager if your Linux distro supports it.
On Ubuntu/Debian-based systems, you may install Dotnet using the below command(s).
```bash
# Typically this is only required for Debian.
wget https://packages.microsoft.com/config/debian/12/packages-microsoft-prod.deb -O packages-microsoft-prod.deb
sudo dpkg -i packages-microsoft-prod.deb
rm packages-microsoft-prod.deb
sudo apt update
# Install .NET 7.0.
sudo apt install -y dotnet-sdk-7.0
```
#### Building & Running
If you want to build and run the project. You can use the following command.
```bash
dotnet run
```
If you want to only build the project, you can use the following command.
```bash
dotnet build
```
Make sure you're in the same directory as the `csharp-websockets.csproj` file when performing the above commands.
## Command Line
The following command line arguments are supported.
* **-z --cfg** => The path to the config file. By default, it looks for `./conf.json`.
* **--nolisten** => Prevents the listen server from activating.
* **--host** => Overrides the host address to listen on.
* **--port** => Overrides the port to listen on.
* **--ssl** => Overrides the listen SSL option.
* **-l --list** => Lists all values of config and exits.
## Configuration
A config file on the file system is read and parsed via the JSON syntax. The default path it checks for is `./conf.json`. However, it can be changed via the config path command line option listed above.
Here are the config options. Please keep in mind you will need to remove the comments (`//`) if copying below. I recommend taking a look at the [conf.ex.json](./conf.ex.json) file if you want to copy the configuration without any errors.
```
{
// Whether to activate the listen server.
"listen": true,
// The host to listen on.
"listenHost": "127.0.0.1",
// The port to listen on.
"listenPort": 2222,
// Whether to listen with SSL.
"listenSsl": false,
// An array of startup client connections.
"startupConnections": [
{
// The startup connection host.
"host": "127.0.0.1",
// The startup connection port.
"port": 2223,
// Whether to use SSL with the startup connection.
"ssl": false
}
]
}
```
## Usage
When starting up the program, you will be prompted with the following commands you can use.
* **ls** - List all server connections. The number at the beginning represents the index which should be used with other commands.
* **lc** - List all client connections. The number at the beginning represents the index which should be used with other commands.
* **new `` `` ``** - Establish a new client connection to ``:``. `` is optional and to disable SSL, use **no**.
* **cc ``** - Send/receive messages for client connection at index ``.
* **cs ``** - Send/receive messages for listen server at index ``.
* **rc ``** - Remove client at index ``.
* **rs ``** - Remove server at index ``.
* **h** - Print top/help menu.
* **q** - Exit program.
When connected to a chat session via the `cc` and `cs` commands, you can send the message `\q` to detach the current chat session and return to the main menu.
## Notes
* This project is still a work in progress. I have not yet tested SSL.
* Only one connection to the listen server is supported at the moment. New connections will override the previous connection. However, I may add support for multiple connections in the future when I have more time.
* There are some code that can definitely be improved on/organized better.
## Credits
* [Christian Deacon](https://github.com/gamemann)