Web Assembly Issue: n0-computer/iroh#2799

Iroh Blog Post: https://www.iroh.computer/blog/iroh-and-the-web

Dumb pipe

This is an example to use iroh-net to create a dumb pipe to connect two machines with a QUIC connection.

Iroh-net will take case of hole punching and NAT traversal whenever possible, and fall back to a relay if hole punching does not succeed.

It is also useful as a standalone tool for quick copy jobs.

This is inspired by the unix tool netcat. While netcat works with IP addresses, dumbpipe works with 256 bit node ids and therefore is somewhat location transparent. In addition, connections are encrypted using TLS.

Installation

For Development/Testing

Clone the repository and use cargo run:

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/dumbpipe.git
cd dumbpipe
cargo build

For development testing, replace all dumbpipe commands with cargo run --. For example:

cargo run -- listen

For Production Use

cargo install dumbpipe

Examples

Use dumbpipe to stream video using ffmpeg / ffplay:

This example demonstrates how to create a video stream between two machines using ffmpeg and dumbpipe. The stream uses standard input/output for data transfer.

Sender side (Machine A)

On Mac OS (Development):

# Using cargo run for development
ffmpeg -f avfoundation -r 30 -i "0" -pix_fmt yuv420p -f mpegts - | cargo run -- listen

On Mac OS (Production):

# Using installed dumbpipe
ffmpeg -f avfoundation -r 30 -i "0" -pix_fmt yuv420p -f mpegts - | dumbpipe listen

On Linux:

# Using cargo run for development
ffmpeg -f v4l2 -i /dev/video0 -r 30 -preset ultrafast -vcodec libx264 -tune zerolatency -f mpegts - | cargo run -- listen

# Using installed dumbpipe
ffmpeg -f v4l2 -i /dev/video0 -r 30 -preset ultrafast -vcodec libx264 -tune zerolatency -f mpegts - | dumbpipe listen

The command will output a ticket (a long string) that you'll need for the receiver side.

Receiver side (Machine B)

Development:

cargo run -- connect <TICKET> | ffplay -f mpegts -fflags nobuffer -framedrop -

Production:

dumbpipe connect <TICKET> | ffplay -f mpegts -fflags nobuffer -framedrop -

Replace <TICKET> with the ticket string from the sender side.

Notes:

• Adjust the ffmpeg options based on your local platform and video capture devices
• The ticket is a unique identifier for the connection and must be copied from sender to receiver
• For Mac, "0" in -i "0" refers to the default video device

Forward development web server

This example shows how to share a local development web server with someone outside your network.

Step 1: Start your web server

npm run dev
>    - Local:        http://localhost:3000

Step 2: Start dumbpipe listener (Machine A)

Development:

cargo run -- listen-tcp --host localhost:3000

Production:

dumbpipe listen-tcp --host localhost:3000

This will output a ticket string.

Step 3: Connect from remote machine (Machine B)

Development:

cargo run -- connect-tcp --addr 0.0.0.0:3001 <TICKET>

Production:

dumbpipe connect-tcp --addr 0.0.0.0:3001 <TICKET>

Replace <TICKET> with the ticket from Step 2.

Step 4: Access the website

On Machine B, you can now access the website at http://localhost:3001

Advanced features

Custom ALPNs

Dumbpipe supports custom ALPN strings for expert users who need to interact with existing iroh-net services.

Example using iroh-bytes protocol:

Development:

echo request1.bin | cargo run -- connect <TICKET> --custom-alpn utf8:/iroh-bytes/2 > response1.bin

Production:

echo request1.bin | dumbpipe connect <TICKET> --custom-alpn utf8:/iroh-bytes/2 > response1.bin

If request1.bin contains a valid request for the /iroh-bytes/2 protocol, response1.bin will contain the response.