ProtobufOverUdp

A small .NET helper library that makes it easy to send and receive Protocol Buffers messages over UDP.

It wraps UdpClient and Google.Protobuf behind a simple API, so you can focus on your message contracts instead of byte arrays, ports and parsing.

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📦 Installation

Common package includes UdpService which is necessary to Send protobuf messages over UDP.
NuGet link: ProtobufOverUdp.Common

dotnet add package ProtobufOverUdp.Common

Listener package includes UdpListener and interface IUdpMessageHandler which is necessary to Receive protobuf messages over UDP and handle them properly.
NuGet link: ProtobufOverUdp.Listener

dotnet add package ProtobufOverUdp.Listener

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🔧 Usage

📤 Send protobuf over UDP

To send protobuf messages over UDP, download ProtobufOverUdp.Common NuGet package, then add necessary services in your Program.cs

builder.Services.AddUdpService(builder.Configuration);

Now, you can inject IUdpService and send protobuf messages via UDP this way:

await udpService.SendMessageAsync(message, request.IpAddress, request.Port);

If you have the same target IP address and port everywhere, you can specify them this way:

builder.Services.AddUdpService(builder.Configuration, opt =>
{
    opt.DestinationIpAddress = "127.0.0.1";
    opt.DestinationPort = 5123;
});

Now, you can simply use the method this way:

await udpService.SendMessageAsync(message);

📥 Receive protobuf over UDP

To receive protobuf messages over UDP, download ProtobufOverUdp.Listener NuGet package, then add necessary services in your Program.cs

builder.Services.AddUdpService(context.Configuration);
builder.Services.AddUdpListener();

Now, for each protobuf type you should have its own UdpMessageHandler. Implement them in a similar way (Notification here is your message):

public sealed class NotificationUdpMessageHandler(ILogger<StatusUdpMessageHandler> logger) : IUdpMessageHandler<Notification>
{
    public Task HandleAsync(Notification message, CancellationToken token)
    {
        if (logger.IsEnabled(LogLevel.Information))
        {
            logger.LogInformation("Received notification {Id} {Text}; Current Time: {CurrentTime}.", message.Id,
                message.Text, DateTimeOffset.UtcNow);
        }
        
        return Task.CompletedTask;
    }
}

Finally, register them in DI:

builder.Services.AddUdpMessageHandler<Notification, NotificationUdpMessageHandler>();

Now, your application will listen to coming UDP messages and handle them properly.

▶️ Demo

There are ListenerDemo and PublisherDemo projects. You can run them to see how this application works.

dotnet run --project .\src\ListenerDemo\ListenerDemo.csproj --launch-profile "ListenerDemo"

dotnet run --project .\src\PublisherDemo\PublisherDemo.csproj --launch-profile "http"

Now, you can use Postman collection (download it from PostmanCollections folder or from this link)