gRPC over WebRTC

Just a proof of concept, please be kind.

How to

1. Start all the things

   • Client, create-react-app + grpc-web signaling + webrtc extensions

       cd client
       yarn
       yarn start
     

   • Client v2, same but using Improbable version with client and bidi-streaming

       cd client-improbable
       yarn
       yarn start
     

   • Server, grpc server + grpc-web signaling + pion/webrtc

       cd server
       go run .
     

2. Click on buttons in your browser

3. Profit!

Notes

Regular gRPC client/server are implemented in client/src/echo.tsx and server/echo.go. They should look like business as usual.

To simplify establishing the connection, this uses a simple grpc-web api defined by signaling.proto. It expects to run on localhost so there is no fancy ICE candidate exchange, that would be out of scope.

For the grpc-web client, the magic happens in client/src/grtc/adapter.ts which introduces a WebRtcClientBase to replace GrpcWebClientBase.

For the improbable client, instead of using a new transport which manipulates chunks, client-improbable/src/grpc/client.ts dispatches between the original GrpcClient and WebRtcClient. The other files in client-improbable/src/grpc are just linking to that new client function.

References

• Pion WebRTC, data channels example
• gRPC Web, gateway echo example
• Improbable gRPC Web
• Where it started