You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments View context
4 points

But why do you need a server for such a program? Can’t it be P2P or with the server stuff running on the client machine?

permalink
report
parent
reply
10 points

The server is used for hole punching, to open up a P2P connection thorugh NATs and Firewalls. If it doesn’t work the server also relays the traffic between the clients.

Getting an end to end connection through todays internet is unfortunately not easy for an average user.

permalink
report
parent
reply
6 points
*

Theoretically, without the server, every time you want to connect to a peer you would have to figure out what’s their public IP address is, which can change. The server acts as a middleman between the peers so you dont have to do this manually, all peers only need to know the server’s IP address to connect to each other. The server is really only used for this initial linking up of peers, afterwards the connection is P2P (if possible, they fall back to a relay server if P2P fails).

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

It’d be great if they implemented the same identity encryption/obfuscation that Signal uses but for the IPs.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Linux

!linux@lemmy.ml

Create post

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word “Linux” in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

  • Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
  • No misinformation
  • No NSFW content
  • No hate speech, bigotry, etc

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

Community stats

  • 7.7K

    Monthly active users

  • 6.5K

    Posts

  • 179K

    Comments