CODEWITHSUNDEEP
webrtcsctp
Conrad
Conrad

Reputation: 96

How long is the heartbeat interval of SCTP in WebRTC?

WebRTC DataChannels use SCTP. Looking at the graph of bits received from chrome://webrtc-internals, there is a regular sending of a small amount of data. Is this the SCTP heartbeat?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1536

Answers (3)

Paul Gregoire
Paul Gregoire

Reputation: 9793

ICE's STUN/TURN binding request / response messages are not in any way related to SCTP heartbeat messaging. It is my understanding that the chrome internals does not register / display the heartbeat send or receive counts. I also realize this is a 10 year old question.

Upvotes: 1

Afaque H
Afaque H

Reputation: 161

I am just elaborating Sam's answer.

WebRTC DataChannel uses Stream Control Transport Protocol (SCTP) for sending and receiving arbitrary data. Since, WebRTC requires that all WebRTC traffic be encrypted, DTLS is used. However, most routers and NAT devices don't handle this protocol well. Hence, SCTP is tunneled over DTLS and UDP. Now, even when two peers are exchanging arbitrary data, it is happening over UDP. Hence, I too believe that it is not a SCTP heartbeat.

As you might know, RTCPeerConnection uses ICE for resolving connectivity issues between peers. ICE uses STUN keep-alives to check the connectivity status between the peers. Currently, I believe chrome sends out STUN Binding Request every 450 ms to perform connectivity checks, but there is an ongoing discussion on extending that time interval.

Upvotes: 1

Sam Dutton
Sam Dutton

Reputation: 15279

From what I understand, this is the ICE heartbeat.

Upvotes: 1

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