ad1616 / chat

Chat service for communication using the TCP/IP and UDP protocols

Chat

The goal of this project is to develop a chat service for communication using the TCP/IP and UDP protocols.

One version allows only one client that communicates with another client hosting the server. The other version allows for multiple clients to connect to a non-client server.

The TCP/IP protocol is used for messaging between the client and server. The UDP protocol is used for device discovery, allowing a server to communicate its IP and port to a client without a previously established connection.

Installation

git clone https://github.com/AD1616/chat.git

cd chat

pip install -r requirements.txt

One Client

Start Server

python server.py

Start GUI Client

python gui_client.py

Multiple Clients

Start Server

python multi_server.py

Start GUI Client

python gui_multi_client.py

chat's Issues

Setup a basic chat

• Learn python sockets
• Create server
• Create client

1 hour

Create a GUI for the client

• Learn how to use TKinter
• Implement threading
• Better user flow

Completed prototype, 6 hours

Encryption stuff

Create a GUI for server

• Use Tkinter mirroring the client GUI design

Chat room

• Nicknames for each user
• Use threading on client and server side
• broadcast messages to all clients
• Change formatting to add chat room name
• modifications for encryption

4 hours

Discovering devices

Be able to discover devices on the network.

This solves the issue of having to physically tell a person on the network to chat.

Version 1:

• Find IPs on the network
• Attempt to connect to known ports on a chosen IP
• If it fails, ask for custom port after

Version 2:

• Use UDP protocol to set up a port on which to broadcast messages
• Broadcast IP and port on server, and then have client listen on a set port
• Connect using broadcasted information
• Check if it actually works across computers (tested locally across two terminals)
• Change it so it can handle multiple active servers

4 hours

Find IP

• Need a way to automatically get the non loopback IP

1 hour, solved using netifaces package.

Automatically find open port on router + computer

• Find open port on router by grep netstat -a
• Check if that port is open on personal computer
• If so, bind this to server and let client know to use this port
• Validate the port isn't in a forbidden list we maintain (try to make it less malicious)

Completed, 3 hours. Utilized subprocess package to do this.

Script to safely kill a process

• Identify the process currently running on the port and display it
• Ask user if they want to kill that process
• Safely kill it

1 hour. Implemented in server.py using subprocess.

rpi setup