NAT Holepunching Server & Client

🚀 Blast through those pesky NATs and connect players worldwide! 🚀

This project is a powerful tool for indie game developers who want to add seamless online multiplayer functionality to their games.
We're building a robust NAT traversal solution that's easy to integrate and packed with features.

✨ MVP Ready! ✨

The core NAT punching functionality is now implemented and ready for testing! This MVP includes:

✅ Working Features:

• Client registration and discovery
• NAT punching between peers
• Connection establishment and verification
• Error handling and logging
• Keep-alive mechanism
• Lobby system for game matching
• Automatic peer connection when joining lobbies
• Test scripts for validation

🧪 Ready to Test:

• Run ./test_mvp.sh for basic NAT punching
• Run ./test_lobby.sh for lobby system testing

💪 What We Offer

• Centralized Server: Handles all the complexities of NAT traversal for you, so you can focus on building awesome gameplay.
• Debug Client: A handy tool to test connections and see the magic in action.
• Protobuf Definitions: Clean and efficient communication between server and clients.

🔮 Future Goals

We have big plans for this project! Here's a sneak peek at what we're cooking up:

• Lobby Management: Create and manage lobbies with ease, allowing players to connect and play together seamlessly.
• Advanced NAT Traversal: Support for STUN, TURN, and ICE to ensure smooth connections in even the most challenging network environments.
• Multi-Language Support: Integrate with clients written in various programming languages.
• Robust Connection Management: Features like connection persistence, quality-of-service management, and load balancing for a top-notch multiplayer experience.
• Ironclad Security: Encryption and authentication to keep your players' data safe.

📂 Project Structure

• Server (/cmd/server): The heart of the operation, managing client connections and orchestrating NAT punchthrough.
• Client (/cmd/client): A basic client for testing and demonstration.
• Protobuf Definitions (/proto): The language of communication between server and clients.

🔨 Building

It's super easy to get started! Just run make in the root directory to build the server and client binaries.

🚀 Usage

Fire up the server:

./bin/server -p <port>

(Replace <port> with your desired port number.)

Launch the client:

./bin/client -a <server_address> -p <port>

(Replace <server_address> with the server's IP address and <port> with the server's port number.)

Client Commands

The client supports the following commands:

• list: Lists all clients registered with the server.
• connect <index>: Connects to a client by its index from the list command.
• ping <index>: Pings a client by its index to verify a direct connection.
• lobbies: Lists all available lobbies.
• create <name> <max_players>: Creates a new lobby.
• join <index>: Joins a lobby by its index from the lobbies command.
• help: Displays a list of available commands.
• exit: Exits the client.

Testing

The test_mvp.sh and test_lobby.sh scripts can be used to test the NAT punching and lobby functionality.

Once connected, you can use the ping command to verify that a direct peer-to-peer connection has been established.

Example:

1. Run ./test_mvp.sh to start the server and two clients.
2. In one client, type list to see the other client's index.
3. Type connect <index> to initiate the NAT punch-through.
4. Type ping <index> to send a direct ping to the other client.

A successful ping will be logged in both clients, confirming a direct connection.

🙌 Join the Community

We'd love to hear from you! Contribute to the project, report issues, or share your ideas. Let's build amazing multiplayer games together! 🧑‍🤝‍🧑