Run peerjs client in a node.js application?

[josdejong]

Would it possible run a peer.js client in a node.js application instead of the browser?

I'm creating a peer-to-peer network consisting of (programmatic) peers living both in browsers and in node.js applications. They have to send data to each other, no video/audio. WebRTC would be a great solution to resolve the routing and communication between the peers without the need for a centralistic client/server structure. But WebRTC seems to be supported only in the browser.

See also this question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18872712/node-js-webrtc-client

[josdejong]

I found an initiative by @helloIAmPau to create a node.js implementation of WebRTC: https://github.com/helloIAmPau/node-rtc/. Maybe it is possible to bundle forces?

[ericz]

Hey Jos,

I'll keep an eye on it. When there is a reliable webrtc node client it
should be trivial to port peerjs over.

On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 6:46 AM, Jos de Jong notifications@github.comwrote:

I found an initiative by @helloIAmPau https://github.com/helloIAmPau to
create a node.js implementation of WebRTC:
https://github.com/helloIAmPau/node-rtc/. Maybe it is possible to bundle
forces?

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510-691-3951
http://ericzhang.com

[Raynos]

See https://github.com/modeswitch/node-webrtc aswell. I think node-rtc is being replaced by it.

[josdejong]

Thanks Eric, that would be great.

This would also enable a node.js application working as an MCU to control video/audio streams for a group of peers (conference call), in a star architecture as explained by Justin Uberti on the last Google I/O on WebRTC (from 23:19). Node.js is good at dealing with streams so that could be a great fit.

[josdejong]

@ericz what is the reason to close this issue? Support for node.js would be really awesome and powerful.

[ericz]

Hey josdejong,

I closed it because there's no action item but I'll reopen it so we can keep tabs on the feature :)

[josdejong]

ok thanks. Feel free to adjust the title to something like "node.js support" and give the issue a proper label...

[RobertLowe]

👍 This would be a pretty helpful feature.

[maxleiko]

👍 Upvoting for this too.

[mustafaakin]

👍 much needed

[piyushranjan]

+1

[piyushranjan]

I managed to mock some objects and get peerjs running on node.js

window={};
window.BlobBuilder = require("BlobBuilder");
location={};
location.protocol="http";

BinaryPack = require("binary-pack");
XMLHttpRequest = require("xmlhttprequest").XMLHttpRequest;

var wrtc = require("wrtc");
RTCPeerConnection = wrtc.RTCPeerConnection;
RTCSessionDescription = wrtc.RTCSessionDescription;
RTCIceCandidate = wrtc.RTCIceCandidate;

WebSocket = require('ws');
var peerClient =require("./peer.js");

I managed to get peerjs setting up connections and server get connections. However, when I try to send data I get follow error

[Error: Connection is not open. You should listen for the open event before sending messages.]

Here is the complete gist

https://gist.github.com/piyushranjan/1204bc579b7c1f5a3e84

And these npm packages must be installed

npm install BlobBuilder
npm install binary-pack
npm install ws
npm install xmlhttprequest
npm install wrtc

[michelle]

Ah, this is really awesome! Will take a look :).

Michelle

On Tue, May 6, 2014 at 7:37 AM, Piyush Ranjan notifications@github.comwrote:

I managed to mock some objects and get peerjs running on node.js

window={};
window.BlobBuilder = require("BlobBuilder");
location={};
location.protocol="http";

BinaryPack = require("binary-pack");
XMLHttpRequest = require("xmlhttprequest").XMLHttpRequest;

var wrtc = require("wrtc");
RTCPeerConnection = wrtc.RTCPeerConnection;
RTCSessionDescription = wrtc.RTCSessionDescription;
RTCIceCandidate = wrtc.RTCIceCandidate;

WebSocket = require('ws');
var peerClient =require("./peer.js");

I managed to get peerjs setting up connections and server get connections.
However, when I try to send data I get follow error

[Error: Connection is not open. You should listen for the open event
before sending messages.]

Here is the complete gist

https://gist.github.com/piyushranjan/1204bc579b7c1f5a3e84

And these npm packages must be installed

npm install BlobBuilder
npm install binary-pack
npm install ws
npm install xmlhttprequest
npm install wrtc

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[josdejong]

@michelle any luck with this already? I tried, and opening a connection seems to work but sent messages are never received.

[espoal]

👍 for this feature

[dmonad]

👍 for this feature

[maritz]

👍

[laike9m]

👍👍👍

[AChusuei]

I was wondering what the status of this was? It would be awesome if this was supported?

[Lixissimus]

There is a node module for peerjs, but I think it doesn't work yet. When I require it, I get window is not defined, which is a fair objection.
https://www.npmjs.org/package/peerjs#readme

So I am curious: is there something going on? Would be so awesome to have it! ;)

[michelle]

This node module is for the browser code :).

Michelle

On Thu, Oct 23, 2014 at 11:37 AM, Lixissimus notifications@github.com
wrote:

There is a node module for peerjs, but I think it doesn't work yet. When I
require it, I get window is not defined, which is a fair objection.
https://www.npmjs.org/package/peerjs#readme

So I am curious: is there something going on? Would be so awesome to have
it! ;)

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#103 (comment).

[Lixissimus]

So what is it supposed to do?

[AChusuei]

I don't know if I am just confused about node, but seems strange to have an npm module for peerjs, if the peerjs module itself can only be used from the browser?

[michelle]

Sorry, this was before we began publishing the library on bower.

Michelle

On Thu, Oct 23, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Alan Chusuei notifications@github.com
wrote:

I don't know if I am just confused about node, but seems strange to have
an npm module for peerjs, if the peerjs module itself can only be used from
the browser?

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#103 (comment).

[josdejong]

@AChusuei I don't see any problem in having browser specific libraries in npm, or isomorphic libraries. For my full stack JS web applications I like to have to deal with npm only, rather than having to fetch half of the Iibraries from npm and the other half from bower.

@michelle I really hope peerjs will get support for a node.js client!!

[AChusuei]

@josdejong, I guess you could do it that way. I am still new to the node world, open to doing things differently!

[bfishman]

Is this what you're looking for? https://github.com/socketio/socket.io-p2p

from the readme:

"This module provides an easy and reliable way to setup a WebRTC connection between peers and communicate using events (the socket.io-protocol).

Socket.IO is used to transport signalling data and as a fallback for clients where WebRTC PeerConnection is not supported."

[neopostmodern]

As far as I am concerned, it doesn't work on Node. That's why I ran into this thread.

[bfishman]

Hmm. Could you be more specific? I'm using it right now, using a node server to connect peers which then establish webRTC connections to each other and/or the node server's machine.

[neopostmodern]

using a node server to connect peers which then establish webRTC connections to each other

So, you're not running it as a client. You're running it on a server that connects other clients (which you don't mention to be node apps - if they are, I'd be interested how you set them up).
This thread is about using peerjs (or potentially anything else) as a peer (client) in a node application.

[maritz]

webRTC connections to each other and/or the node server's machine

The second part of that seems like exactly what is being discussing here. Can anyone else confirm this?

[FeepingCreature]

No, the issue is using NodeJS as a WebRTC client. Ie. connect from a NodeJS instance that is not necessarily the server.

[bfishman]

Oh, apologies. SimplePeer will do that. But it requires the server platform to have certain webrtc capabilities installed. The 'wrtc' module provides this on most machines. Notably not on a raspberry pi right now, in case that matters to you (it does to me!)

snippet from their readme.md:

in node

To use this library in node, pass in opts.wrtc as a parameter:

var SimplePeer = require('simple-peer')
var wrtc = require('wrtc')

var peer1 = new SimplePeer({ initiator: true, wrtc: wrtc })
var peer2 = new SimplePeer({ wrtc: wrtc })

[marcb1]

+1 this would be a nice feature

[bfishman]

Check out electron-webrtc, or webrtc-native. I use electron-webrtc for my node.js instance to connect with browsers (using the datachannel specifically)

[jeryfast]

Overview
Hi, I see this is old, but you or anyone might need this. I am working on my thesis and I have made some steps forward. I have tried many things and simplepeer has no signalling implemented. Sending messages over datachannel (nodejs peerjs webrtc) - over network on Raspberry Pi 2 (ARM, Raspbian Jessie, but should work everywhere) using deployed signalling server (peerserver) is now working. The other client is a firefox browser in windows enviroment. I wouldn`t have made it without your discussion here, so I am giving back to the community.

Key things about what (not) to do:
-dont use selenium, its not fast enough, at least for my application
-xvfb didnt work out for me, well it did
-you must not require peerjs module
-on Raspberry at least - use electron-webrtc, as wrtc isn`t available for arm anyway
-dont use serialization

Having to do everything by yourself is hard, so here is the code:
window = global
window.BlobBuilder = require("BlobBuilder")
location = {protocol: 'http'}

BinaryPack = require("binary-pack")
XMLHttpRequest = require("xmlhttprequest").XMLHttpRequest;
var wrtc = require('electron-webrtc')()
//var Peer = require('peerjs')

RTCPeerConnection = wrtc.RTCPeerConnection;
RTCSessionDescription = wrtc.RTCSessionDescription;
RTCIceCandidate = wrtc.RTCIceCandidate;

WebSocket = require('ws')
require('/home/pi/node_modules/peerjs/lib/exports.js');

var peer = new Peer(
...
})

var conn=peer.connect('id')
conn.serialization='none'
conn.send('hello from nodejs!')

That`s it, regards, JP

[nuno-nlfsoftware]

Hi @jeryfast , thanks for your solutions, I was looking for something like that 👍

I test it on a mac (not on the raspberry yet) and was getting the error "Failed to set the 'binary Type' property on 'RTCDataChannel': Blob support not implemented yet"

After some search, found that on file utils, on path node_modules/peerjs/lib around line 116:

try {
        dc.binaryType = 'blob';
        binaryBlob = true;
      } catch (e) {
      }

that is causing the error and the app to crash.

If the code is commented the app works and it behaves as a browser client, just beautiful. But is a dirty hack, so I was looking a way to "configure" or do something that don't be change code from the lib, but until now I don't found any.

The challenge resides in when that piece of code is executed, that is on the module Load process, when the require of the exports is done:

require('./node_modules/peerjs/lib/exports.js');

Any one has and ideia or suggestion on how to correct this?

Regards

[jeryfast]

Nice, if you use 'none' serialization, it works also, without changing anythings in a library. Regards

[nuno-nlfsoftware]

Hi again @jeryfast it works on the Raspberry as you said. The issue on my last post is related with to OS X.

Well the thing is great work 👍

No lets start the fun 💃

[crosofg]

Hello
I am getting this error.

  global.postMessage(messageName, '*');
             ^

TypeError: global.postMessage is not a function
    at Object.setZeroTimeoutPostMessage [as setZeroTimeout] (

[ethan2-0]

@crosogf, that error looks to me like a symptom of a larger problem. It appears that the only place postMessage is used is in error-handling code. My guess would be that it has something to do with binary blob support detection in lib/util.js (the code @nuno-nlfsoftware says to comment out). I noticed that there are two places that code is present, in dist/peer.js or dist/peer.min.js, and in lib/util.js. For me, only modifications to the latter were effectual (due to @jeryfast's hack of requiring lib/exports.js).

[web-mech]

I'm just gonna leave this here https://www.npmjs.com/package/peerjs-nodejs

[web-mech]

Also, the connection serialization doesn't have to be set to none. You can use any other option besides binary, you just need to set it since binary is the default. I set it to json which works just fine.

[afrokick]

I'm just gonna leave this here https://www.npmjs.com/package/peerjs-nodejs

Thanks, I think it should be a part of PeerJS.

[vegalou]

here is my code after test jeryfast & peerjs-nodejs

const peerJs = require('peerjs-nodejs');
const peer = peerJs("myPeerId", {
host: '192.168.137.231',
port: 9000,
pingInterval: 5000,
path: '/myapp',
debug: 3, 
iceTransportPolicy: 'relay',
config: {
'iceServers': [
	{ urls: "stun:stun.l.google.com:19302" },
	{
		urls: "turn:34.192.149.24:5678?transport=udp",
		username: "USER", credential: "PASS"
	}
]
}
});

let conn = peer.connect('myPeerJS', {
	reliable: true
});


setTimeout(()=>{
 // NOT JSON
 // conn.serialization='none';
 // conn.send('hello from nodejs!');  

 // JSON WAY
 conn.serialization = 'json';
 conn.send({ value: 'hello from nodejs!' });

}, 3000);

setTimeout(()=>{
  conn.close();
  console.log("CONN CLOSE");
  process.exit();
}, 10000);

[ghost]

Hello, I'm getting this error, as soon as I create a Peer instance (using peerjs-nodejs) on the NodeJS server. I'm not even creating a connection to a remote Peer at the moment. Does somebody has solved it?

server.js

const Peer = require('peerjs-nodejs')

...

this.peer = Peer('webRTC-webinar-plugin', {
      host: '/',
      path: 'peer-js',
      port: (useHTTPS) ? 8443 : 8080,
      secure: (useHTTPS) ? true : false
})

/Users/federico/Documents/webRTC-webinar-plugin/node_modules/peerjs-nodejs/node_modules/peerjs/lib/util.js:234

      global.postMessage(messageName, '*');
             ^
TypeError: global.postMessage is not a function
    at Object.setZeroTimeoutPostMessage [as setZeroTimeout] (/Users/federico/Documents/webRTC-webinar-plugin/node_modules/peerjs-nodejs/node_modules/peerjs/lib/util.js:234:14)
    at Peer.disconnect (/Users/federico/Documents/webRTC-webinar-plugin/node_modules/peerjs-nodejs/node_modules/peerjs/lib/peer.js:420:8)
    at Socket.<anonymous> (/Users/federico/Documents/webRTC-webinar-plugin/node_modules/peerjs-nodejs/node_modules/peerjs/lib/peer.js:120:12)
    at Socket.emit (/Users/federico/Documents/webRTC-webinar-plugin/node_modules/peerjs-nodejs/node_modules/eventemitter3/index.js:71:35)
    at exports.XMLHttpRequest._http.onerror (/Users/federico/Documents/webRTC-webinar-plugin/node_modules/peerjs-nodejs/node_modules/peerjs/lib/socket.js:91:12)
    at exports.XMLHttpRequest.dispatchEvent (/Users/federico/Documents/webRTC-webinar-plugin/node_modules/xmlhttprequest/lib/XMLHttpRequest.js:591:25)
    at exports.XMLHttpRequest.handleError (/Users/federico/Documents/webRTC-webinar-plugin/node_modules/xmlhttprequest/lib/XMLHttpRequest.js:533:10)
    at ClientRequest.errorHandler (/Users/federico/Documents/webRTC-webinar-plugin/node_modules/xmlhttprequest/lib/XMLHttpRequest.js:459:14)
    at ClientRequest.emit (events.js:310:20)
    at Socket.socketErrorListener (_http_client.js:426:9)

Can somebody help? Thanks.

[aamin3189]

Same issue here, not sure if the package is managed

[jsProj]

https://www.npmjs.com/package/peerjs-on-node

[stefanpl]

Came here looking for what the title says – a solution to run peerjs on nodejs.

Both linked packages (peerjs-on-node and peerjs-nodejs) seem to be completely abandoned and unused.

There have been quite a few people inquiring about this feature – what have all of you ended up doing/using?

@ericz you said that it should be "trivial to port peerjs over" as soon as there's a reliable webrtc client. Do you:

• think one of the available options is "reliable"?
• still think it would be trivial to port it?

Not sure if it's worth mentioning, but geckos.io provides a webrtc abstraction for node and browser, using node-datachannel.

Really happy about any feedback here 🙏

[jonasgloning]

Hey @stefanpl,

you could try the beta release. It supports PeerJS on the server using wrtc. Documentation is sparse, have a look at the PR and the diff.

Unfortunately, wrtc seems to have stalled a bit---there haven’t been any commits since June last year, and I had some trouble both at buildtime and at runtime with more recent node versions. So thanks for the pointer to node-datachannel, that might be a good replacement.

Just out of curiosity, what are you planning to do with PeerJS on the server?

[stefanpl]

Thanks for the quick reply @jonasgloning 🎉

Glad to see node support on the roadmap (well, even in the beta) for v2.

I'm currently checking options for implementing a realtime multiplayer game. I might very well start the prototype without an authorative server, but this will definitely be needed at some point. Well, if I get that far … 😬

[MarkusPint]

Seems like calling a peer from a Node-based client using peerjs@beta is possible, but once the remote peer answers the "stream" event never gets fired on the Node side.

Is actually sending/receiving mediastreams supported in NodeJS?