CODEWITHSUNDEEP
swiftmacossockets
Superian007
Superian007

Reputation: 395

How to find IP addresses of devices on local network which are running an instance of my app in Swift?

I'm working on a simple Swift app where one user can find other machines on a local network which are running an instance of my app and then send data to that machine using TCP sockets.

My question is how to find IP addresses of devices on same network which are running an instance of my app (cross-platform)?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 611

Answers (1)

u354356007
u354356007

Reputation: 3215

Apart of Mac-related stuff and high-level solutions (I believe keywords "network service discovery" will bring you to them), there are a couple of things that will work for a local network:

I Have a server that clients should report to. Some short hello-like UDP message and a timeout mechanism will be sufficient to keep a list of available clients in the network.

II Use IP or UDP multicast groups to notify others that a client has just connected to the network. Send a message to a multicast group and listen to this group to build a list of clients.

However, broadcasts and multicasts won't be transmitted through a router. So if your network is large enough only neighbouring clients will hear your notification. In order to overcome it,

III DHCP servers can be configured to provide custom data to clients via unassigned DHCP options. Large networks have usually such server. You probably can use it to send out a list of clients, but I'm not sure about this.

Upvotes: 0

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