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https://github.com/mappum/electron-webrtc
⚛ Use WebRTC in Node.js via a hidden Electron process
https://github.com/mappum/electron-webrtc
Last synced: about 2 months ago
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⚛ Use WebRTC in Node.js via a hidden Electron process
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/mappum/electron-webrtc
- Owner: mappum
- Created: 2016-01-19T07:32:12.000Z (over 8 years ago)
- Default Branch: master
- Last Pushed: 2018-02-20T04:43:35.000Z (over 6 years ago)
- Last Synced: 2024-05-19T17:02:04.518Z (4 months ago)
- Language: JavaScript
- Homepage:
- Size: 63.5 KB
- Stars: 313
- Watchers: 17
- Forks: 47
- Open Issues: 15
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
Awesome Lists containing this project
- awesome-peer-to-peer - electron-webrtc
- awesome-peer-to-peer - electron-webrtc
README
# electron-webrtc
[](https://www.npmjs.com/package/electron-webrtc)
[](https://travis-ci.org/mappum/electron-webrtc)
[](https://david-dm.org/mappum/electron-webrtc)
Use WebRTC in Node.js via a hidden Electron process
WebRTC is a powerful web API that lets browsers make peer-to-peer connections, and has already been
deployed in [many popular browsers](http://caniuse.com/#feat=rtcpeerconnection). It may sometimes be
useful to let Node.js programs use WebRTC, e.g. in [`webtorrent-hybrid`](https://github.com/feross/webtorrent-hybrid). However, the modules for WebRTC in Node ([`node-webrtc`](https://github.com/js-platform/node-webrtc) and [`node-rtc-peer-connection`](https://github.com/nickdesaulniers/node-rtc-peer-connection)) are either hard to install, broken, or incomplete.
As a hack, this module talks to an invisible Electron instance in the background (using [`electron-eval`](https://github.com/mappum/electron-eval)) to use Chromium's built-in WebRTC implementation.
## Status
This module is compatible with [`simple-peer`](https://github.com/feross/simple-peer) and passes its tests.
`electron-webrtc` is intended for use with RTCDataChannels, so the MediaStream API is not supported.
## Usage
`npm install electron-webrtc`
```js
// call exported function to create Electron process
var wrtc = require('electron-webrtc')()
// handle errors that may occur when trying to communicate with Electron
wrtc.on('error', function (err) { console.log(err) })
// uses the same API as the `wrtc` package
var pc = new wrtc.RTCPeerConnection(config)
// compatible with `simple-peer`
var peer = new SimplePeer({
initiator: true,
wrtc: wrtc
})
// listen for errors
wrtc.on('error', function (err, source) {
console.error(err)
})
```
### Methods
#### `var wrtc = require('electron-webrtc')([opts])`
Calling the function exported by this module will create a new hidden Electron process. It is recommended to only create one, since Electron uses a lot of resources.
An optional `opts` object may contain specific options (including headless mode). See [`electron-eval`](https://github.com/mappum/electron-eval#var-daemon--electronevalopts)
The object returned by this function has the same API as the [`node-webrtc`](https://github.com/js-platform/node-webrtc) package.
Any errors that occur when communicating with the Electron daemon will be emitted by the `wrtc` object (`wrtc.on('error', ...)`).
#### `wrtc.close()`
Closes the Electron process and releases its resources. You may not need to do this since the Electron process will close automatically after the Node process terminates.
### Properties
#### `wrtc.electronDaemon`
A handle to the [`electron-eval`](https://github.com/mappum/electron-eval) daemon that this module uses to talk to the Electron process.
### Events
#### - `error`
Emitted by `RTCPeerConnection` or `RTCDataChannel` when `daemon.eval()` evaluates code that throws an internal error.
### Running on a headless server
Chromium normally won't run on a headless server since it expects a screen that it can render to. So to work around this, we can use `Xvfb`, a utility that creates a framebuffer that Chromium can use as a virtual screen.
First, install `Xvfb`:
```sh
apt-get install xvfb # Ubuntu/Debian
yum install xorg-x11-server-Xvfb # CentOS
```
Create the `HEADLESS` env variable:
```sh
export HEADLESS=true
```
Or if you want to do it programmatically, initialize a new instance and pass in `headless` as a key as demonstrated:
```js
var wrtc = require('electron-webrtc')({ headless: true })
```
Now you may run your WebRTC code with `electron-webrtc` :)
## Related Modules
- [`node-webrtc`](https://github.com/js-platform/node-webrtc)
- [`node-rtc-peer-connection`](https://github.com/nickdesaulniers/node-rtc-peer-connection)
- [`electron-eval`](https://github.com/mappum/electron-eval)