The purpose of the server is to provide full WebRTC capabilities as simply as possible.
The server supports full DTLS and we’ve experienced no issues with it.
But that’s just for signalling and turn, right? Or do you plan to implement all webrtc protocols required for a webrtc client/server?
It’s just for TURN. The server is STUN / TURN only, but will have RTP / RTCP and various audio / video decoding / encoding capabilities.
We find signalling tends to be a very personal matter. We have our own signalling services, but more people roll their own than opt for something pre-existing. Since signalling is typically just WebSockets, it’s not something that needs to be explained overly much.
Hello, sorry for bouncing this old topic.
I would like to build a simple web page where two users could see and talk to each other through WebRTC. I’m a bit confused by what I read so far and I cannot figure out what I need.
I believe that if the web server (the app serving the web page where the WebRTC javascript) is on a public domain (say mydomain.com), I just need a public STUN server (say turn.mydomain.com) right ?
I was looking to MongooseICE (I like ESL products) but they say that their application is not enough to have video chat, because of signaling. But If I understood correctly this page the javascript on it describes how to do signaling with phoenix channels. The code is old, I did not have time to make it work yet. But that would be enought ?
Or do I need TURN, janus-gateway, SNAP-thing, DTLS-stuff … ? (I try to read as much as I can but it feels like if someday you discovered that “HTTP” thing and suddenly you stumble upon Javascript, CSS, TLS, FTP, browsers, servers and al.)
Hi @lud,
You need a TURN server (like https://xirsys.github.io/xturn) and a socket (signalling) server. Both apps could be completely unrelated. For instance, you could use PubNub for signalling. It is needed only to get the session running. After that, the TURN server takes over. TURN is only needed for about 20% of connections, with the rest being peer-to-peer.
Incidentally, my company Xirsys provides both geolocated TURN servers and signalling. The TURN server listed above is an Elixir TURN server that I wrote and will be discussing at CommCon next week.
Regards,
Jahred
Hey, Thanks !
So TURN is needed for 20% of the connections, because people can be behind a VPN or a NAT, that is the reason if I got things well.
But a TURN server relays the data (in my case the Audio/Video streams) so I must be a good machine, whereas a STUN server and the Phoenix app will run on a cheap server, right ?
My knowledge level on all of this is like ZERO. I do this to learn new stuff (bored with CRUD apps), so I would like to implement a simple scenario. Do you have examples or docs to work with Xturn from JS ?
So, a TURN server is also a STUN server. TURN extends the STUN specification by adding throughput capabilities. Any TURN server will also perform STUN bindings (but not the reverse).
TURN is used for situations where one peer can’t see the other clearly. All peers will be behind a NAT (the router that sits between your machine and the public internet) and some will be behind several NATs. Some NATs are more complicated than others, which is why TURN is required. Some NATs are too complicated even for TURN, but those are rare.
The TURN server should ideally sit on a sufficient machine. I ran that XTurn server (written in Elixir) on a cheap $5 VM and got better, faster throughput than Google’s own TURN servers. However, that was a handful of connections. If you plan on supporting thousands of simultaneous TURN connections, you’ll want a nice big VM with a chunky bandwidth.
For demos, I would strongly urge you to take a look at Muaz Khan’s experiments, here. There are loads available and they’re all bare-bones, so it’s a good resource to learn from.
Regards,
Jahred
Unfortunately this website seems to be down. I’ll watch if it comes back.
cheap $5 VM … However, that was a handful of connections. If you plan on supporting thousands of simultaneous TURN connections, you’ll want a nice big VM with a chunky bandwidth.
Not at all.
To me this is a toy project. It could become a production app, but only for 60 people with maximum maybe 3 concurrent video-calls 
(we will help therapists to help those people with some problems and most of them are not tech-savvy so we want all in the same website).
So I guess any machine would work then. I’ll start to experiment with Xturn.
Thank you !
(Edit: The website was not down and accessible through a VPN, but not directly with my ISP 
)
Thanks !