Chat Service

Simple multi-client chat server

Implementation of a tcp chat server and client. There are separate server and client .go files and in turn binaries. This package uses the go standard library net package to create a tcp listener for the server which accepts tcp dialing from clients.

There are some issues with the windows binaries. I suspect it's due to either the bufio buffer size, line terminators, or control characters in the string format for clients. The binaries will execute, but the messages received/printed by the clients will be malformed.

Getting Started

For creating and running the chat server & chat client binaries, see here. For running the chat server and chat client(s) see here.

Basic Usage

Per the instructions below, build and start a chat server.

Per the instructions below, build and start any number of clients. When a client is started you will be asked to give a username which you must provide to continue with the application. At current the program is blocked and only able to add one user at a time. After setting the username(s) for you client(s) you can send meessages to the server and other clients by typing in the terminal and indicating a message to be sent with a return character (enter/return).

Prerequisites

go 1.12+ downloaded & installed download go

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Installing & Running

Note that port 23 is the default port for the server. If the machine running the server has port 23 occupied, it will fail to start.

Creating the Binaries

To create the binaries run the following commands from the project root which will create a chat_server and chat_client in the root directory of your project.

# For Unix Systems
~/chat_service/> go build -o chat_server server/server.go && go build -o chat_client client/client.go
# For Windows System
~/chat_service/> go build -o chat_server.exe server/server.go && go build -o chat_client.exe client/client.go

Running the Server & Client Binaries

Summary

Build the server and client binaries. Run the server binary and then any number of client binaries.

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From the project root, assure that the built binaries have executable permissions, in unix based systems:

# validate they have execution permiss
~/chat_service/> ls -l chat_server chat_client
# If they do not, give them execution permission
~/chat_service/> chmod +x chat_server chat_client

To start the server, within the project root, execute the server binary:

# Unix
~/chat_service/> ./chat_server
# Windows
~/chat_service/> ./chat_server.exe

To start a client, within the project root, execute the client binary:

# Unix
~/chat_service/> ./chat_client
# Windows
~/chat_service/> ./chat_client.exe

Developing

Running the Server and Clients

In a terminal within the root directory run a server:

~/chat_service/> go run server/server.go

In n+ terminals within the root directory, run n+ times:

~/chat_service/> go run client/client.go

Built With

• Go

Contributing

Please use the standard gitflow process, be sensical and kind in any commenting.

Authors

• Hamp Goodwin- GitHub