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https://github.com/timboudreau/scamper-chat

An IRC-like chat client and server using SCTP, based on Scamper+Netty
https://github.com/timboudreau/scamper-chat

async chat java netty sctp

Last synced: 8 months ago
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An IRC-like chat client and server using SCTP, based on Scamper+Netty

Awesome Lists containing this project

README 

          
Scamper Chat

============



This is an IRC-like chat application consisting of a server, a command-line

client and some libraries for shared code.  It uses SCTP rather than TCP

in its wire protocol, and the 

[scamper](https://github.com/timboudreau/scamper) library that makes it easy

to write protocols using SCTP.



Features

--------



 * Multiple chat rooms, IRC-style, with similar commands

 * Ansi-colored shell client

 * End-to-end Blowfish encryption on password-protected rooms - meaning that the

server cannot decrypt the chat messages (the server does store a SHA-512 hash

of the password to reject access, but has no way to decrypt messages).



This project serves as a demo of how to write servers with Scamper, in addition

to being usable in its own right.



Requirements

------------



 * Java 8

 * [Cryptography Extensions for Java 8](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jce8-download-2133166.html) 

if you  (sorry!) want to use password-protected rooms

 * *Linux Users* need [lksctp-tools](http://lksctp.sourceforge.net/) - if you see an error about loading native libraries, you don't have it



If either of the latter are missing, the client will let you know.



Configuration

-------------



The client by default attempts to connect to a public server that is up for the

time being (no promises), so it can be run with no arguments:



`java -jar scamper-chat-client.jar`



To connect to a different server, pass `--port` and `--host`

on the command-line, e.g.



`java -jar scamper-chat-client.jar --port 8007 --host foo.bar.com`



The server can be configured similarly using command-line options



Subprojects

-----------



 * **Scamper Hub** - the server - build and run with `java -jar`

 * **Scamper Chat CLI** - command-line ansi-colored chat client featuring IRC-like commands (`/join`, `/who`, `/rooms`, etc.) - also build and run with `java -jar`



The rest are supporting projects for those:



 * **Scamper Chat Common** - POJO data types used in the wire protocol, and base

classes for clients

 * **Scamper Chat Message Types** - Defines the Scamper [MessageType](http://timboudreau.com/builds/job/scamper/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/scamper/target/apidocs/com/mastfrog/scamper/MessageType.html)s that

are used by client and server to choose handlers for particular kinds of messages

 * **Scamper Chat Client Base** - Base classes that provide a simple interface for

writing scamper-chat clients



Downloads And Builds

-----------------------



Building is as simple as cloning this repository and running `mvn install` (Maven 3.2.x or later and JDK 8 recommended).



 * The continuous build is [here](http://timboudreau.com/builds/job/scamper-chat/)

 * [Server JAR download](http://timboudreau.com/builds/job/scamper-chat/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/scamper-hub/target/scamper-hub-server.jar)

 * [Client JAR download](http://timboudreau.com/builds/job/scamper-chat/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/scamper-chat-cli/target/scamper-chat-client.jar)

 * Javadoc:

   * [Chat Client Base Javadoc](http://timboudreau.com/builds/job/scamper-chat/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/scamper-chat-client-base/target/apidocs/index.html)

   * [Scamper-Chat Common Javadoc](http://timboudreau.com/builds/job/scamper-chat/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/scamper-chat-common/target/apidocs/index.html)

   * [Scamper-Chat MessageTypes Javadoc](http://timboudreau.com/builds/job/scamper-chat/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/scamper-chat-messagetypes/target/apidocs/index.html)



Wire Format

-----------



The wire-format is BSON with gzip compression for larger messages; encryption

is applied to message bodies by the client and decrypted by receiving clients.



To-Do

-----



Plenty of things could be done with this:



 * Get the server working with multiple-associations (SCTP allows a connection to be to multiple redundant machines)

 * Do something more like [bitchx](http://www.bitchx.com/) for the command-line client - this is complicated by the lack of a reliable way to get terminal dimensions in Java, though [jline](http://jline.sourceforge.net/) looks like it could help

   * This could be done by assuming a fixed console size, it just wouldn't be pretty

 * Implement additional IRC-like commands (it would pay to split this stuff out into command-objects in the CLI)

 * Swap out the JCE Blowfish with BCrypt or some JCE-independent implementation of Twofish to be done with needing the Java crypto extensions - math is not a munition, and the fact that this doesn't come built into Java is a ridiculous artifact of the 90s

 * Adapter Netty's SSL engine to server/client communication

   * Use certs to validate that you're really talking to the server you think you are