WebTorrent in a LAN setting without Internet connection

[Wasser-Eis]

Out of a software developer perspective:

How can I set up a WebTorrent network in a LAN without Internet connection?
It can be taken for granted that all members of the LAN can exchange signaling information.
Preferably the solution does not need a tracking/bootstrap server.

Probably a related question:
How can I connect a peer to a WebTorrent network without the help of a tracking/bootstrap server.
It can be taken for granted that the peer who wants to connect to the WebTorrent network can exchange information with a peer out of the WebTorrent network.

[feross]

Right now there's no way for peers to connect without using a signaling server. Fortunately, you can run one of these easily on your own local network.

The package is called bittorrent-tracker. Just do:

$ bittorrent-tracker --port 8000
HTTP tracker: http://localhost:8000/announce
UDP tracker: udp://localhost:8000
WebSocket tracker: ws://localhost:8000

Ensure that the .torrent files and magnet links you generate include one of these (or all of these) tracker URLs. You can also force WebTorrent to use your local tracker server by including an announce option when you call client.add(). Like this:

client.add(torrentId, { announce: [ 'http://localhost:8000/announce', ... ] }

That should be it. Enjoy.

[Wasser-Eis]

"Right now there's no way for peers to connect without using a signaling server. "
Go, go, go implement it. I would really appreciate this feature.
Would it help if I put a bounty on it? If yes, please open an issue for it.

[rom1504]

have a look at #288 I guess

[Wasser-Eis]

I want to connect peers only by using torrent.addPeer(). The signaling data should be exchanged via QR-Codes. I want to put all peers into one single swarm.
Isn't that independent from the DHT feature?

[rom1504]

Yes, I bet that's already possible. Did you try it ?

[Wasser-Eis]

"Yes, I bet that's already possible."
You are right.

I found the bug.
Now it works. :-)

[feross]

Nice!

[shinp]

Do you have an offline implementation for wss://tracker.webtorrent.io? I am looking to create an 'offline' tracker (similar to that of bittorrent-tracker) that runs on wss:// protocol to support webrtc (related #325)

[feross]

@shinp I don't know what you mean by "offline implementation". The tracker needs to be reachable by the peers. You can, of course, run a tracker that's only accessible on your local network.

Peers can only connect to each other if they can both reach the same tracker.

[shinp]

Sorry, I may have communicated this wrong. I am currently using your bittorrent-tracker implementation for local network peer discovery however browser webtorrent does not connect to webtorrent-hybrid and webtorrent-desktop implementations using a localhost bittorrent-tracker. I am assuming in this case the webtorrent-hybrid and webtorrent-desktop uses standard bittorrent peer connections to communicate rather webrtc.
Sorry, it looks like I did not investigate thorough enough - I'm investigating right now (as there might be a https <-> ws issue on the browser side)

EDIT: So there is nothing wrong with the bittorrent-tracker; I've made it connect to tracker wss://<local_address> and it works fine on the webtorrent-desktop <-> instant.io <-> simple html demo. Unfortunately, I discovered that webtorrent-hybrid does not work well on windows for webrtc given that I'm not using xvfb ~ is there any work around to this or special installation instructions?

[Zibri]

isn't it possible to use DHT in a (big) LAN?