Bittorrent protocol stream over websocket about webtorrent-hybrid

[binux]

I'm not suggesting a websocket proxy, it's still true bittorrent protocol, just over websocket not tcp or RTCPeerConnection. bittorrent-hybrid or any other clients that implemented bittorrent protocol over websocket can connect to it and working as true P2P.

I have already implemented the WebSocketPeer stuff, but soon noticed I cannot announce the address. I planning announce peer id like ws://ip:port/ but find a lot of hard coded peer type detection. As a lot of hack is needed through multiple modules, I opened this issue.

Anyway, it is true that BT over websocket only work between bittorrent-hybrid peers and browser peers, if there is a reliable webrtc implementation, it is not needed. Maybe will come back some month later.

Thank you for your work again 👍

[feross]

Hi @binux, thanks for opening such a thoughtful issue.

I think this is out-of-scope for WebTorrent, unfortunately. I'm hoping that we'll soon have a reliable webrtc implementation on the server-side (this one looks promising) so we won't need hacks like using a websocket proxy server.

A solution using a websocket proxy server isn't true P2P, since you're running a server that sits between the browsers and the normal bittorrent peers. It's a temporary hack at best, and that's why I don't think it makes sense to put in the effort to support it. You're free to fork the code and implement it for your own uses though :)

Cheers!

[feross]

Thanks for explaining. You're right - you could use WebSockets as a new transport type. Let's see how WebRTC support in node.js develops in the coming months and come back to this issue :)