Terminal-based P2P VoIP communication

Todo list

• Get a microphone input stream
• Get a custom version of the speaker module which allows specifiying the output device. (See here)
• Get a speaker output stream
• Pipe a microphone input stream the the speaker output
  • On Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
  • On Raspbian stretch
  • On Fedora 26
• Pipe a microphone input stream over the network into another node process and pipe it from there to a speaker
• The above + the other way around (send+receive audio on both nodes at the same time)
• Allow connecter to reconnect to listener, after connector disconnected or crashed.
• Allow connecter to reconnect to listener, after listener disconnected or crashed. (Untested)
• Test it on Linux
• Test it on Mac OS X (can't; don't own a device)
• Test it on Windows

On Linux it should work fine. At least for me it does.

Description

tvoip is a simple terminal-based P2P VoIP application. Unlike Skype or similar applications:

• tvoip is completely open source
• does not require a server, an account or even the Internet in general
• does not come with a GUI
• and is completely controlled through your terminal/console

Usage

  Usage: node index.js [options]


  Options:

    -V, --version                   output the version number
    -c, --connect <host:port>       Connect to a host, (Supports IP:port and hostname:port.)
    -l, --listen <port>             Automatically accept connections on this port.
    -i, --input [device-name]       Input device, (Leave empty to use the default recording device.)
    -o, --output [device-name]      Output device, (Leave empty to use the default playback device.)
    -a, --mic-channels <count>      Number of channels 1=mono; 2=stereo (Leave empty to use 1.)
    -b, --speaker-channels <count>  Number of channels 1=mono; 2=stereo (Leave empty to use 2.)
    -d, --debug <bool>              true to enable debug, false to disable debug. (Leave empty to not use debug.)
    -g, --log <file>                Log to file
    -h, --help                      output usage information

  Examples:

    node index.js --listen 3333 --input hw:0,0 --output hw:1,1
    node index.js --connect 192.168.1.101:3333 --input hw:0,0 --output hw:1,1
    

(The format for the input/output device comes from ALSA. Please refer to arecord and aplay and this stackoverflow question.)

Installation

Dependencies (for the audio backend)

If you are on Linux:

You will need ALSA.

• Debian, Ubuntu, Raspbian etc.: The packages are usually called libasound2-dev, alsa-base and alsa-utils on debian-like systems (sudo apt-get install libasound2-dev alsa-base alsa-utils).
• Fedora and possibly other rpm based distros: You find them as alsa-lib-devel alsa-utils and alsa-lib (sudo dnf install alsa-lib-devel alsa-utils alsa-lib)
• Other Please use your favourite search engine to find out and report back if you got it to work. :)

If you are on Mac OS X:

You will need SoX. Please go here: SoX

If you are on Windows:

You will need SoX. Please go here: SoX

General dependencies

• First you need to install a recent version of NodeJS.
• Secondly you need git. You can get it here
• Finally you need node-gyp (installation differs for Linux, OS X and Win). Follow these steps.

Actual installation of tvoip

• From your terminal/command line:
  • Clone this repository recursively: git clone --recursive https://github.com/T-vK/tvoip.git
  • Enter the project's directory: cd tvoip
  • Install and compile the dependencies: npm i

Questions, Feature requests, Pull Requests, Problems?

Please open an issue right here on Github.