What is the best way for a client app to find a server on a local network in C#?

Question

The client connects to the server using GenuineChannels (we are considering switching to DotNetRemoting). What I mean by find is obtain the IP and port number of a server to connect to.

It seems like a brute-force approach would be try every IP on the network try the active ports (not even sure if that's possible) but there must be a better way.

Answer 1

Have the server listen for broadcast on a specific port on the network (must use UDP), When client starts have it broadcast some "ping" request on that port. when the server sees a "ping" it send back a message with the TCP address and port required for the client to connect to it.

Answer 2

Consider broadcasting a specific UDP packet. When the server or servers see the broadcasted UDP packet they send a reply. The client can collect the replies from all the servers and start connecting to them or based on an election algorithm.

See example for client (untested code):

---

using System.Net;
using System.Net.Sockets;

[STAThread]
static void Main(string[] args)
{
    Socket socket = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork,
    SocketType.Dgram, ProtocolType.Udp);
    socket.Bind(new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Any, 8002));
    socket.Connect(new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Broadcast, 8001));
    socket.Send(System.Text.ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes("hello"));

    int availableBytes = socket.Available;
    if (availableBytes > 0)
    {
        byte[] buffer = new byte[availableBytes];
        socket.Receive(buffer, 0, availableBytes, SocketFlags.None);
        // buffer has the information on how to connect to the server
    }
}

Answer 3

I'd say the best way is to use Bonjour/Zeroconf/mDNS for C#; a lot of thought went into making it play nice with the network; IE it pings less frequently over time if possible, etc. There's Mono.Zeroconf, and I read there's an older .NET project in the Apple SDK but I haven't found it.

So the easiest would be to install Bonjour for Windows, then get the Windows Binaries for Mono.Zeroconf try the example MZClient.exe drop the Mono.Zeroconf.dll and/or Mono.Zeroconf.Providers.Bonjour.dll into your project references and go.

Something like this:

var service = new Mono.Zeroconf.RegisterService {
                Name = "Use Me for Stuff",
                RegType = "_daap._tcp",
                ReplyDomain = "local.",
                Port = 0024200,
                TxtRecord = new Mono.Zeroconf.TxtRecord {
                            {"I have no idea what's going on", "true"}}
              };
service.Register();

var browser = new Mono.Zeroconf.ServiceBrowser();
browser.ServiceAdded +=
    delegate(object o, Mono.Zeroconf.ServiceBrowseEventArgs args) {
        Console.WriteLine("Found Service: {0}", args.Service.Name);
        args.Service.Resolved +=
            delegate(object o, Mono.Zeroconf.ServiceBrowseEventArgs args) {
                var s = args.Service;
                Console.WriteLine(
                    "Resolved Service: {0} - {1}:{2} ({3} TXT record entries)",
                    s.FullName, s.HostEntry.AddressList[0], s.Port, s.TxtRecord.Count);
          };
        args.Service.Resolve();
    };
browser.Browse("_daap._tcp", "local");